Penny Plain.

by Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas).

CHAPTER I

"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 Ma.s.s 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 b.u.t.tered 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 compet.i.tion, 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 appet.i.te, 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 peac.o.c.ks. With one arm he clutched the cat and a.s.sured 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 unembarra.s.sed 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 amus.e.m.e.nt, 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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 n.o.ble."

"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 d.i.c.k 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.