DAVID PIRNIE LIZZIE, his daughter
JOHN BELL, his son-in-law
ALEXANDER, John's little son
SCENE: JOHN BELL'S _tenement at Butterbiggens. It consists of the
very usual "two rooms, kitchen, and bath," a concealed bed in the
parlor and another in the kitchen enabling him to house his
family--consisting of himself, his wife, his little son, and his
aged father-in-law--therein. The kitchen-and-living-room is a
good-sized square room. The right wall (our right as we look at
it) is occupied by a huge built-in dresser, sink, and coal bunker,
the left wall by a high-manteled, ovened, and boilered fireplace,
the recess on either side of which contains a low painted
cupboard. Over the far cupboard hangs a picture of a ship, but
over the near one is a small square window. The far wall has two
large doors in it, that on the right leading to the lobby, and
that on the left appertaining to the old father-in-law's concealed
bed. The walls are distempered a brickish red. The ceiling once
was white. The floor is covered with bright linoleum and a couple
of rag rugs--one before the fire--a large one--and a smaller one
before the door of the concealed bed._
_A deal table is just to right of centre. A long flexible
gas-bracket depends from the ceiling above it. Another
many-jointed gas-bracket projects from the middle of the high
mantelpiece, its flame turned down towards the stove. There are
wooden chairs at the table, above, below, and to left of it. A
high-backed easy chair is above the fire, a kitchen elbow-chair
below it._
_The kitchen is very tidy. A newspaper newly fallen to the rug
before the fire and another--an evening one--spread flat on the
table are (besides a child's mug and plate, also on the table)
the only things not stowed in their prescribed places. It is
evening--the light beyond the little square window being the gray
dimness of a long Northern twilight which slowly deepens during
the play. When the curtain rises it is still light enough in the
room for a man to read if the print be not too faint and his eyes
be good. The warm light of the fire leaps and flickers through
the gray, showing up with exceptional clearness the deep-lined
face of old DAVID PIRNIE, who is discovered half-risen from his
armchair above the fire, standing on the hearth-rug, his body
bent and his hand on the chair arm. He is a little, feeble old
man with a well-shaped head and weather-beaten face, set off by a
grizzled beard and whiskers, wiry and vigorous, in curious
contrast to the wreath of snowy hair that encircles his head. His
upper lip is shaven. He wears an old suit--the unbuttoned
waistcoat of which shows an old flannel shirt. His slippers are
low at the heel and his socks loose at the ankles._
_The old man's eyes are fixed appealingly on those of his
daughter, who stands in the half-open door, her grasp on the
handle, meeting his look squarely--a straight-browed,
black-haired, determined young woman of six or seven and twenty.
Her husband_, JOHN, _seated at the table in his shirt-sleeves with
his head in his hands, reads hard at the paper and tries to look
unconcerned._