ACT TWO — SCENE ONE

(It is dark, at first we barely see the characters on stage. The different sections of chorus here come fast on top of each other, sections actually overlapping — until MAGGIE and SARA speak individually, in character)

A SINGLE VOICE: (tune: traditional)

Up in the morning’s no for me

Up in the morning early

When a’ the hills are covered in snow

Then it is winter fairly… (Last line more spoken than sung)

VOICES: (in a spoken round)

When a’ the hills are covered in snow

Then it is winter fairly…

(As the round finishes, voices still saying ‘Winter… winter… winter…

A burst of noise: a rattle of tin cans, or sticks clattering together, or a stick drumming on tin — or something like. It was Hogmanay, not Hallowe’en, when kids went guising in the Borders)

A CHILD: (calling out in a mock scary way) OOooooh!

A CHILD: (calling out, merry)

We’re only some bits o bairns come oot to play

Get up — and gie’s oor Hogmanay!

(Some laughter, children’s laughter. The rattle/drumming noise. If possible an impression of the laughter fading to distance — as if the children have retreated, and the adults, and adult worries, are coming to the centre of the stage)

VOICES: (singly, in turn)

Cold wind: snow wind

Small thaw: mair snaw

The snow wreaths

The feeding storm

The hungry flood

(SARA’s and MAGGIE’s speeches here more definite, more individual)

SARA: The dread of winter. All summer long, the dread of it. Like a nail in the door that keeps catching your hand. Like a nip in the air in the midst of the harvest.

A VOICE: (whispery, echoey) Cold wind: snow wind.

MAGGIE: (brisk, busy) There’s beasts to be fed, snaw or blaw!

VOICE: Cold. Ice. Iron.

MAGGIE: (with a certain satisfaction) A green yule makes a fat kirkyard!

(As TOTTIE starts speaking, light comes on her. Her voice gets louder. She is brandishing a graip — maybe there are tin cans or something else tied to it that make a noise when she brandishes. She is swathed for winter — as are the rest of the cast here, but not quite so wildly — straw-rope leggings, her arms covered in extra knitted oversleeves; fingerless mits, shawl, and headhankie pulled protectively well around the face. A right tumshie-bogle)

TOTTIE: (voice becomes less childish, harsher, more violent as she recites)

Get up auld wife and shake your feathers

Ye needna think that we’re a’ wheen beggars

We’re only some bits o bairns come oot to play

Get up — and gie’s oor Hogmanay!

(Aggressive now, hitting out maybe — whanging the straw bales/stack/hedgerow with the graip or just beating about with it, or beating the ground)

Hogmanay — Hogmanick

Hang the baker ower the stick

When the stick begins to break

Take another and break his back.

(TOTTIE, LIZA, SARA — and MAGGIE, who talks with them, but has work to do in her own ‘home area’)

SARA: Tottie!

TOTTIE: No!

SARA: We’ll be late for the field, Tottie.

TOTTIE: I want to play.

MAGGIE: Don’t be daft, now.

TOTTIE: (with menace) Not!

MAGGIE: The maister’ll be after you.

TOTTIE: A’ the men are after Tottie!

SARA: Tie up yer claes, we’re going to the field.

TOTTIE: I’m playing!

SARA: We’ve to work, Tottie. No work, no shillings.

MAGGIE: You’re too big to play!

TOTTIE: I’m married now!

MAGGIE: Leave her be. What’s the use when she’s this way?

SARA: If I leave her be she’ll go deaving the men.

TOTTIE: I’m going guising. Going to guise the ploomen in the chamber.

SARA: No, you’re not. You’re not to go there, Tottie. Leave the men alone.

TOTTIE: (violent. She’s still apart from them, by herself)

‘Hogmanay, Hogmanick

Take another and break his back’…

A’body wants Tottie. A’ the men are after Tottie.

(LIZA watching all this, watching SARA and TOTTIE, miserable for herself and them)

MAGGIE: Best leave her for now. Best get moving. You’ll make the steward angry if you’re late — aye, and the maister. No work, no pay.

SARA goes towards the field. TOTTIE sulking.

MAGGIE: (with venum, she’s meaning LIZA) Dirt!… Dirt!

(LIZA, utterly miserable, follows SARA towards the field)