Penny Plain Part 8

"How odd!" said Jean. She was trying to remember if she had said anything unbecoming of one relative to another. "Oh, here's Jock and Mhor," as two figures ran past the windows; "you must stay and have tea with us, Mr. Reid."

"But I ought to be getting back to the hotel. I had no intention of inflicting myself on you in this way." He rose to his feet and looked about for his hat. "The fact is--I must tell you--I am----"

The door burst open and Mhor appeared. He had forgotten to remove his cap, or wipe his muddy boots, so eager was he to tell his news.

"Jean," he shouted, oblivious in his excitement of the presence of a stranger--"Jean, there are six red puddock-stools at the bottom of the garden--bright red puddock-stools." He noticed Mr. Reid and, going up to him and looking earnestly into his face, he repeated, "Six!"

"Indeed," said Peter Reid.

He had no acquaintance with boys, and felt extremely ill at ease, but Mhor, after studying him for a minute, was seized with a violent fancy for this new friend.

"You're going to stay to tea, aren't you? Would you mind coming with me just now to look at the puddock-stools? It might be too dark after tea.

Here is your hat."

"But I'm not staying to tea," cried the unhappy owner of The Rigs. Why, he asked himself had he not told them at once that he was their landlord? A connection! Fool that he was! He would say it now--"I only came--"

"It was very nice of you to come," said Jean soothingly. "But, Mhor, don't worry Mr. Reid. Everybody hasn't your pa.s.sion for puddock-stools."

"But you would like to see them," Mhor a.s.sured him. "I'm going to fill a bowl with chucky-stones and moss and stick the puddock-stools among them and make a fairy garden for Jean. And if I can find any more I'll make one for the Honourable; she is very kind about giving me chocolates."

They were out of doors by this time, and Mhor was pointing out the glories of the garden.

"You see, we have a burn in our garden with a little bridge over it; almost no one else has a burn and a bridge of their very own. There are minnows in it and all sorts of things--water-beetles, you know. _And here are my puddock-stools._"

When Mr. Reid came back from the garden Mhor had firm hold of his hand and was telling him a long story about a "mavis-bird" that the cat had caught and eaten.

"Tea's ready," he said, as they entered the room; "you can't go away now, Mr. Reid. See these cookies? I went for them myself to Davidson the baker's, and they were so hot and new-baked that the bag burst and they all fell out on the road."

"_Mhor_! You horrid little boy."

"They're none the worse, Jean. I dusted them all with me useful little hanky, and the road wasn't so very dirty."

"All the same," said Jean, "I think we'll leave the cookies to you and Jock. The other things are baked at home, Mr. Reid, and are quite safe.

Mhor, tell Jock tea's in, and wash your hands."

So Peter Reid found himself, like Balaam, remaining to bless. After all, why should he turn these people out of their home? A few years (with care) was all the length of days promised to him, and it mattered little where he spent them. Indeed, so little profitable did leisure seem to him that he cared little when the end came. Mhor and his delight over a burn of his own, and a garden that grew red puddock-stools, had made up his mind for him. He would never be the angel with the flaming sword who turned Mhor out of paradise. He had not known that a boy could be such a pleasant person. He had avoided children as he had avoided women, and now he found himself seated, the centre of interest, at a family tea-table, with Jean, anxiously making tea to his liking, while Mhor (with a well-soaped, shining face, but a high-water mark of dirt where the sponge had not reached) sat close beside him, and Jock, the big schoolboy, shyly handed him scones: and Peter walked among the feet of the company, waiting for what he could get.

Peter Reid quite shone through the meal. He remembered episodes of his boyhood, forgotten for forty years, and told them to Jock and Mhor, who listened with most gratifying interest. He questioned Jock about Priorsford Grammar School, and recalled stories of the masters who had taught there in his day.

Jean told him about David going to Oxford, and about Great-aunt Alison who had "come out at the Disruption"--about her father's life in India, and about her mother, and he became every minute more human and interested. He even made one or two small jokes which were received with great applause by Jock and Mhor, who were grateful to anyone who tried, however feebly, to be funny. They would have said with Touchstone, "It is meat and drink to me to see a clown."

Jean watched with delight her rather difficult guest blossom into affability. "You are looking better already," she told him. "If you stayed here for a week and rested and Mrs. M'Cosh cooked you light, nourishing food and Mhor didn't make too much noise, I'm sure you would feel quite well again. And it does seem such a pity to pay hotel bills when we want you here."

Hotel bills! Peter Reid looked sharply at her. Did she imagine, this girl, that hotel bills were of any moment to him? Then he looked down at his shabby clothes and recalled their conversation and owned that her mistake was not unjustifiable.

But how extraordinary it was! The instinct that makes people wish to stand well with the rich and powerful he could understand and commend, but the instinct that opens wide doors to the shabby and the unsuccessful was not one that he knew anything about: it was certainly not an instinct for this world as he knew it.

Just as they were finishing tea Mrs. M'Cosh ushered in Miss Pamela Reston.

"You did say I might come in when I liked," she said as she greeted Jean. "I've had tea, thank you. Mhor, you haven't been to see me to-day."

"I would have been," Mhor a.s.sured her, "but Jean said I'd better not. Do you invite me to come to-morrow?"

"I do."

"There, Jean," said Mhor. "You can't _un_-vite me after that."

"Indeed she can't," said Pamela. "Jock, this is the book I told you about.... Please, Miss Jean, don't let me disturb you."

"We've finished," said Jean. "May I introduce Mr. Reid?"

Pamela shook hands and at once proceeded to make herself so charming that Peter Reid was galvanised into a spirited conversation. Pamela had brought her embroidery-frame with her, and she sat on the sofa and sorted out silks, and talked and laughed as if she had sat there off and on all her life. To Jean, looking at her, it seemed impossible that two days ago none of them had beheld her. It seemed--absurdly enough--that the room could never have looked quite right when it had not this graceful creature with her soft gowns and her pearls, her embroidery-frame and heaped, bright-hued silks sitting by the fire.

"Miss Jean, won't you sing us a song? I'm convinced that you sing Scots songs quite perfectly."

Jean laughed. "I can sing Scots songs in a way, but I have a voice about as big as a sparrow's. If it would amuse you I'll try."

So Jean sat down to the piano and sang "Proud Maisie," and "Colin's Cattle," and one or two other old songs.

"I wonder," said Peter Reid, "if you know a song my mother used to sing--'Strathairlie'?"

"Indeed I do. It's one I like very much. I have it here in this little book." She struck a few simple chords and began to sing: it was a lilting, haunting tune, and the words were "old and plain."

"O, the lift is high and blue, And the new mune glints through, On the bonnie corn-fields o' Strathairlie; Ma ship's in Largo Bay, And I ken weel the way Up the steep, steep banks o' Strathairlie.

When I sailed ower the sea, A laddie bold and free, The corn sprang green on Strathairlie!

When I come back again, It's an auld man walks his lane Slow and sad ower the fields o' Strathairlie.

O' the shearers that I see No' a body kens me, Though I kent them a' in Strathairlie; An' the fisher-wife I pa.s.s, Can she be the braw la.s.s I kissed at the back o' Strathairlie?

O, the land is fine, fine, I could buy it a' for mine, For ma gowd's as the stooks in Strathairlie; But I fain the lad would be Wha sailed ower the saut sea When the dawn rose grey on Strathairlie."

Jean rose from the piano. Jock had got out his books and had begun his lessons. Mhor and Peter were under the table playing at being cave-men.

Pamela was st.i.tching at her embroidery. Peter Reid sat shading his eyes from the light with his hand.

Jean knelt down on the rug and held out her hands to the blazing fire.

"It must be sad to be old and rich," she said softly, almost as if she were speaking to herself. "It is so very certain that we can carry nothing out of this world.... I read somewhere of a man who, on every birthday, gave away some of his possessions so that at the end he might not be c.u.mbered and weighted with them." She looked up and caught the gaze of Peter Reid fixed on her intently. "It's rather a nice idea, don't you think, to give away all the superfluous money and lands, pictures and jewels, everything we have, and stand stripped, as it were, ready when we get the word to come, to leap into the beyond?"

Pamela spoke first. "There speaks sweet and twenty," she said.

"Yes," said Jean. "I know it's quite easy for me to speak in that lordly way of disposing of possessions, for I haven't got any to dispose of."

"Then," said Pamela, "we are to take it that you are ready to spring across any minute?"

"So far as goods and gear go; but I'm rich in other things. I'm pretty heavily weighted by David, and Jock, and Mhor."

Then Peter Reid spoke, still with his hand over his eyes.

"Once you begin to make money it clings. How can you get rid of it?"