"The actors are at hand,
And by their show
You shall know all that you are like to know."
_Midsummer Night's Dream_.
It was tea-time in Priorsford: four-thirty by the clock on a chill
October afternoon.
The hills circling the little town were shrouded with mist. The wide
bridge that spanned the Tweed and divided the town proper--the Highgate,
the Nethergate, the Eastgate--from the residential part was almost
deserted. On the left bank of the river, Peel Tower loomed ghostly in
the gathering dusk. Round its grey walls still stood woods of larch and
fir, and in front the links of Tweed moved through pleasant green
pastures. But where once ladies on palfreys hung with bells hunted with
their cavaliers there now stood the neat little dwellings of prosperous,
decent folk; and where the good King James wrote his rhymes, and
listened to the singing of Mass from the Virgin's Chapel, the Parish
Kirk reared a sternly Presbyterian steeple. No need any longer for Peel
to light the beacon telling of the coming of our troublesome English
neighbours. Telegraph wires now carried the matter, and a large bus met
them at the trains and conveyed them to that flamboyant pile in red
stone, with its glorious views, its medicinal baths, and its
band-enlivened meals, known as Priorsford Hydropathic.
As I have said, it was tea-time in Priorsford.
The schools had _skailed_, and the children, finding in the weather
little encouragement to linger, had gone to their homes. In the little
houses down by the riverside brown teapots stood on the hobs, and
rosy-faced women cut bread and buttered scones, and slapped their
children with a fine impartiality; while in the big houses on the Hill,
servants, walking delicately, laid out tempting tea-tables, and the
solacing smell of hot toast filled the air.
Most of the smaller houses in Priorsford were very much of one pattern
and all fairly recently built, but there was one old house, an odd
little rough stone cottage, standing at the end of a row of villas, its
back turned to its parvenu neighbours, its eyes lifted to the hills. A
flagged path led up to the front door through a herbaceous border, which
now only held a few chrysanthemums and Michaelmas daisies (Perdita would
have scorned them as flowers for the old age), but in spring and in
summer blazed in a sweet disorder of old-fashioned blossoms.
This little house was called The Rigs.
It was a queer little house, and a queer little family lived in it.
Jardine was their name, and they sat together in their living-room on
this October evening. Generally they all talked at once and the loudest
voice prevailed, but to-night there was not so much competition, and
Jean frequently found herself holding the floor alone.
David, busy packing books into a wooden box, was the reason for the
comparative quiet. He was nineteen, and in the morning he was going to
Oxford to begin his first term there. He had so long looked forward to
it that he felt dazed by the nearness of his goal. He was a good-looking
boy, with honest eyes and a firm mouth.
His only sister, Jean, four years older than himself, left the table and
sat on the edge of the box watching him. She did not offer to help, for
she knew that every man knows best how to pack his own books, but she
hummed a gay tune to prove to herself how happy was the occasion, and
once she patted David's grey tweed shoulder as he leant over her.
Perhaps she felt that he needed encouragement this last night at home.
Jock, the other brother, a schoolboy of fourteen, with a rough head and
a voice over which he had no control, was still at the tea-table. He was
rather ashamed of his appetite, but ate doggedly. "It's not that I'm
hungry just now," he would say, "but I so soon get hungry."
At the far end of the room, in a deep window, a small boy, with a dog
and a cat, was playing at being on a raft. The boy's name was Gervase
Taunton, but he was known to a large circle of acquaintances as "the
Mhor," which, as Jean would have explained to you, is Gaelic for "the
great one." Thus had greatness been thrust upon him. He was seven, and
he had lived at The Rigs since he was two. He was a handsome child with
an almost uncanny charm of manner, and a gift of make-believe that made
his days one long excitement.
He now stood like some "grave Tyrian trader" on the table turned upside
down that was his raft, as serious and intent as if it had been the navy
of Tarshish bringing Solomon gold and silver, ivory and apes and
peacocks. With one arm he clutched the cat and assured that unwilling
voyager, "You're on the dangerous sea, me old puss. You don't want to be
drowned, do you?" The cat struggled and scratched. "Then go--to your
doom!"
He clasped his hands behind him in a Napoleonic manner and stood
gloomily watching the unembarrassed progress of the cat across the
carpet, while Peter (a fox-terrier, and the wickedest dog in Priorsford)
crushed against his legs to show how faithful he was compared to any
kind of cat.
"Haven't you finished eating yet, Jock?" Jean asked. "Here is Mrs.
M'Cosh for the tea-things."
The only servant The Rigs possessed was a middle-aged woman, the widow
of one Andrew M'Cosh, a Clyde riveter, who had drifted from her native
city of Glasgow to Priorsford. She had a sweet, worn face, and a neat
cap with a black velvet bow in front.
Jock rose from the table reluctantly, and was at once hailed by the Mhor
and invited on to the raft.
Jock hesitated, but he was the soul of good nature. "Well, only for five
minutes, remember. I've a lot of lessons to-night." He sat down on the
upturned table, his legs sprawling on the carpet, and hummed "Tom
Bowling," but the Mhor leaned from his post as steersman and said
gravely, "Don't dangle your legs, Jock; there are sharks in these
waters." So Jock obediently crumpled his legs until his chin rested on
his knees.
Mrs. M'Cosh piled the tea-things on a tray and folded the cloth. "Ay,
Peter," she said, catching sight of that notorious character, "ye look
real good, but I wis hearin' ye were efter the sheep again the day."
Peter turned away his head as if deeply shocked at the accusation, and
Mrs. M'Cosh, with the tea-cloth over her arm, regarded him with an
indulgent smile. She had infinite tolerance for Peter's shortcomings.
"Peter was kinna late last night," she would say, as if referring to an
erring husband, "an' I juist sat up for him." She had also infinite
leisure. It was no use Jean trying to hurry the work forward by offering
to do some task. Mrs. M'Cosh simply stood beside her and conversed until
the job was done. Jean never knew whether to laugh or be cross, but she
generally laughed.
Once when the house had been upset by illness, and trained nurses were
in occupation, Jean had rung the bell repeatedly, and, receiving no
answer, had gone to the kitchen. There she found the Mhor, then a very
small boy, seated on a chair playing a mouth-organ, while Mrs. M'Cosh,
her skirts held coquettishly aloft, danced a few steps to the music.
Jean--being Jean--had withdrawn unnoticed and slipped upstairs to the
sick-room much cheered by the sight of such detachment.
Mrs. M'Cosh had been eight years with the Jardines and was in many ways
such a treasure, and always such an amusement, that they would not have
parted from her for much red gold.
"Bella Bathgate's expectin' her lodger the morn." The tea-tray was ready
to be carried away, but Mrs. M'Cosh lingered.
"Oh, is she?" said Jean. "Who is it that's coming?"
"I canna mind the exact name, but she's ca'ed the Honourable an' she's
bringin' a leddy's maid."
"Gosh, Maggie!" ejaculated Jock.
"I asked you not to say that, Jock," Jean reminded him.
"Ay," Mrs. M'Cosh continued, "Bella Bathgate's kinna pit oot aboot it.
She disna ken how she's to cook for an Honourable--she niver saw yin."
"Have you seen one?" Jock asked.
"No' that I know of, but when I wis pew opener at St. George's I let in
some verra braw folk. One Sunday there wis a lord, no less. A shaughly
wee buddy he wis tae. Ma Andra wud hae been gled to see him sae oorit."
The eyes of the Jardines were turned inquiringly on their handmaid. It
seemed a strange reason for joy on the part of the late Andrew M'Cosh.
"Weel," his widow explained, "ye see, Andra wis a Socialist an' thocht
naething o' lords--naething. I used to show him pictures o' them in the
_Heartsease Library_--fine-lukin' fellays wi' black mustacheys--but he
juist aye said, 'It's easy to draw a pictur', and he wouldna own that
they wis onything but meeserable to look at. An', mind you, he wis
richt. When I saw the lord in St. George's, I said to masel', I says,
'Andra wis richt,' I says." She lifted up the tray and prepared to
depart. "Weel, he'll no' be muckle troubled wi' them whaur he's gone,
puir man. The Bible says, Not many great, not many noble."
"D'you think," said Mhor in a pleasantly interested voice, "that Mr.
M'Cosh is in heaven?" (Mhor never let slip an opportunity for
theological discussions.) "I wouldn't care much to go to heaven myself,
for all my friends are in"--he stopped and cast a cautious glance at
Jean, and, judging by her expression that discretion was the better part
of valour, and in spite of an encouraging twinkle in the eyes of Jock,
finished demurely--"the Other Place."
"Haw, haw," laughed Jock, who was consistently amused by Mhor and his
antics. "I'm sorry for your friends, old chap. Do I know them?"
"Well," said Mhor, "there's Napoleon and Dick Turpin and Graham of
Claverhouse and Prince Charlie and----"
"Mhor--you're talking too much," said David, who was jotting down
figures in a notebook.
"It's to be hoped," said Jean to Mrs. M'Cosh, "that the honourable lady
will suit Bella Bathgate, for Bella, honest woman, won't put herself
about to suit anybody. But she's been a good neighbour to us. I always
feel so safe with her near; she's equal to anything from a burst pipe to
a broken arm.... I do hope that landlord of ours in London will never
take it into his head to come back and live in Priorsford. If we had to
leave The Rigs and Bella Bathgate I simply don't know what we'd do."
"We could easy get a hoose wi' mair conveniences" Mrs. M'Cosh reminded
her. She had laid down the tray again and stood with her hands on her
hips and her head on one side, deeply interested "Thae wee new villas in
the Langhope Road are a fair treat, wi' a pantry aff the dining-room an'
hot and cold everywhere."
"_Villas_," said Jean--"hateful new villas! What are conveniences
compared to old thick walls and queer windows and little funny stairs?
Besides, The Rigs has a soul."
"Oh, mercy!" said Mrs. M'Cosh, picking up the tray and moving at last to
the door, "that's fair heathenish!"
Jean laughed as the door shut on their retainer, and perched herself on
the end of the big old-fashioned sofa drawn up at one side of the fire.
She wore a loose stockinette brown dress and looked rather like a wood
elf of sorts with her golden-brown hair and eyes.
"If I were rich," she said, "I would buy an annuity for Mrs. M'Cosh of
at least £200 a year. When you think that she once had a house and a
husband, and a best room with an overmantel and a Brussels carpet, and
lost them all, and is contented to be a servant to us, with no prospect
of anything for her old age but the workhouse or the charity of
relations, and keeps cheery and never makes a moan and never loses her
interest in things ..."
"But you're _not_ rich," said Jock.
"No," said Jean ruefully. "Isn't it odd that no one ever leaves us a
legacy? But I needn't say that, for it would be much odder if anyone
did. I don't think there is a single human being in the world entitled
to leave us a penny piece. We are destitute of relations.... Oh, well, I
daresay we'll get on without a legacy, but for your comfort I'll read to
you about the sort of house we would have if some kind creature did
leave us one."
She dived for a copy of _Country Life_ that was lying on the sofa, and
turned to the advertisements of houses to let and sell.
"It is good of Mrs. Jowett letting us have this every week. It's a great
support to me. I wonder if anyone ever does buy these houses, or if they
are merely there to tantalize poor folk? Will this do? 'A finely
timbered sporting estate--seventeen bedrooms----'"
"Too small," said Jock from his cramped position on the raft.
"'A beautiful little property----' No. Oh, listen. 'A characteristic
Cotswold Tudor house'--doesn't that sound delicious? 'Mullioned windows.
Fine suite of reception-rooms, ballroom. Lovely garden, with
trout-stream intersecting'--heavenly. 'There are vineries, peach-houses,
greenhouses, and pits'--what do you do with pits?" "Keep bears in them,
of course," said Jock, and added vaguely--"bear baiting, you know."
"It isn't usual to keep bears," David pointed out.
"No, but if you _had_ them," Jock insisted, "you would want pits to keep
them in."
"Jock," said Jean, "you are like the White Knight when Alice told him it
wasn't likely that there would be any mice on the horse's back. 'Not
very likely, perhaps, but if they _do_ come I don't choose to have them
running all about.' But I agree with the White Knight, it's as well to
be provided for everything, so we'll keep the pits in case of bears."
"They had pits in the Bible," said Mhor dreamily, as he screwed and
unscrewed his steering-wheel, which was also the piano stool, "for
Joseph was put in one."
Jean turned over the leaves of the magazine, studying each pictured
house, gloating over details of beauty and of age, then she pushed it
away with a "Heigh-ho, but I wish we had a Tudor residence."
"I'll buy you one," David promised her, "when I'm Lord Chancellor."
"Thank you, David," said Jean.
By this time the raft had been sunk by a sudden storm, and Jock had
grasped the opportunity to go to his books, while Mhor and Peter had
laid themselves down on the rug before the fire and were rolling on each
other in great content.
Jean and David sat together on the sofa, their arms linked. They had
very little to say, for as the time of departure approaches
conversation dies at the fount.
Jean was trying to think what their mother would have said on this last
evening to her boy who was going out into the world. Never had she felt
so inadequate. Ought she to say things to him? Warn him against lurking
evils? (Jean who knew about as much of evil as a "committed linnet"!)
But David was such a wise boy and so careful. It always pinched Jean's
heart to see him dole out his slender stock of money, for there never
was a Jardine born who did not love to be generous.
She looked at him fondly. "I do hope you won't find it too much of a
pinch, David. The worst of it is, you will be with people who have heaps
of money, and I'm afraid you'll hate to feel shabby."
"It's no crime to be poor," said David stoutly. "I'll manage all right.
Don't you worry. What I hate is thinking you are scrimping to give me
every spare penny--but I'll work my hardest."
"I know you'll do that, but play too--every minute you can spare. I
don't want you to shut yourself up among books. Try and get all the good
of Oxford. Remember, Sonny, this is your youth, and whatever you may get
later you can never get that back." She leaned back and gave a great
sigh. "How I wish I could make this a splendid time for you, but I
can't, my dear, I can't.... Anyway, nobody will have better china. I've
given you six of Aunt Alison's rosy ones; I hope the scout won't break
them. And your tablecloths and sheets and towels are all right, thanks
to our great-aunt's stores.... And you'll write as often as you can and
tell us everything, if you get a nice scout, and all about your rooms,
and if cushions would be any use, and oh, my dear, _eat_ as much as you
can--don't save on food."
"Of course not," said David. "But several nights a week I'll feed in my
own room. You don't need to go to Hall to dinner unless you like."
He got up from the sofa and went and stood before the fire, keeping his
head very much in the air and his hands in his pockets. He was feeling
that home was a singularly warm, kind place, and that the great world
was cold and full of strangers; so he whistled "D'ye ken John Peel?" and
squared his shoulders, and did not in the least deceive his sister Jean.
"Peter, me faithful hound," said the Mhor, hugging the patient dog.
"What would you like to play at?"
Peter looked supremely indifferent.
"Red Indians?"
Peter licked the earnest face so near his own.
The Mhor wiped his face with the back of his hand (his morning's
handkerchief, which he alluded to as "me useful little hanky," being
used for all manner of purposes not intended by the inventor of
handkerchiefs, was quite unpresentable by evening) and said:
"I know. Let's play at 'Suppose.' Jean, let's play at 'Suppose.'"
"Don't worry, darling," said Jean.
The Mhor turned to Jock, who was sitting at a table with his head bent
over a book. "Jock, let's play at 'Suppose.'"
"Shut up," said Jock.
"David." The Mhor turned to his last hope. "_Seeing_ it's your last
night."
David never could resist the Mhor when he was beseeching.
"Well, only for ten minutes, remember."
Mhor looked fixedly at the clock, measuring with his eye the space of
ten minutes, then nodded, murmuring to himself, "From there to there.
You begin, Jean."
"I can't think of anything," said Jean. Then seeing Mhor's eager face
cloud, she began: "Suppose when David was in the train to-morrow he
heard a scuffling sound under the seat, and he looked and saw a grubby
little boy and a fox-terrier, and he said, 'Come out, Mhor and Peter.'
And suppose they went with him all the way to Oxford, and when they got
to the college they crept upstairs without being seen and the scout was
a kind scout and liked dogs and naughty boys and he gave them a splendid
supper----"
"What did he give them?" Mhor asked.
"Chicken and boiled ham and meringues and sugar biscuits and lemonade"
(mentioning a few of Mhor's favourite articles of food), "and he tucked
them up on the sofa and they slept till morning, and got into the train
and came home, and that's all."
"Me next," said Mhor. "Suppose they didn't come home again. Suppose they
started from Oxford and went all round the world. And I met a
magician--in India that was--and he gave me an elephant with a gold
howdah on its back, and I wasn't frightened for it--such a meek, gentle,
dirty animal--and Peter and me sat on it and it pulled off cocoanuts
with its trunk and handed them back to us, and we lived there always,
and I had a Newfoundland pup and Peter had a golden crown because he was
king of all the dogs, and I never went to bed and nobody ever washed my
ears and we made toffee every day, every single day...." His voice
trailed away into silence as he contemplated this blissful vision, and
Jock, wooed from his Greek verbs by the interest of the game, burst in
with his unmanageable voice:
"Suppose a Russian man-of-war came up Tweed and started shelling
Priorsford, and the parish church was hit and the steeple fell into
Thomson's shop and scattered the haddocks and kippers and things all
over the street, and----"
"Did you pick them up, Jock?" squealed Mhor, who regarded Jock as the
greatest living humorist, and now at the thought of the scattered
kippers wallowed on the floor with laughter.
Jock continued: "And another shell blew the turrety thing off The Towers
and blew Mrs. Duff-Whalley right over the West Law and landed her in
Caddon Burn----"
"Hurray!" yelled Mhor.
Jock was preparing for a further flight of fancy, when Mrs. M'Cosh,
having finished washing the dishes, came in to say that Thomson had
never sent the sausages for Mr. David's breakfast, and she could not
see him depart for England unfortified by sausages and poached eggs.
"I'll just slip down and get them," she announced, being by no means
averse to a stroll along the lighted Highgate. It was certainly neither
Argyle Street nor the Paisley Road, but it bore a far-off resemblance to
those gay places, and for that Mrs. M'Cosh was thankful. There was a
cinema, too, and that was a touch of home. Talking over Priorsford with
Glasgow friends she would say, "It's no' juist whit I wud ca' the deid
country--no juist paraffin-ile and glaury roads, ye ken. We hev gas an'
plain-stanes an' a pictur hoose."
When Mrs. M'Cosh left the room Jock returned to his books, and the Mhor,
his imagination fermenting with the thought of bombs on Priorsford,
retired to the window-seat to think out further damage.
* * * * *
Some hours later, when Jock and Mhor were fast asleep and David, his
packing finished, was preparing to go to bed, Jean slipped into the
room.
She stood looking at the open trunk on the floor, at the shelves from
which the books had been taken, at the empty boot cupboard.
Two large tears rolled over her face, but she managed to say quite
gaily, "December will soon be here."
"In no time at all," said David.
Jean was carrying a little book, which she now laid on the
dressing-table, and, giving it a push in her brother's direction, "It's
a _Daily Light_," she explained.
David did not offer to look at the gift, which was the traditional
Jardine gift to travellers, a custom descending from Great-aunt Alison.
He stood a bit away and said, "All right."
And Jean understood, and said nothing of what was in her heart.