"'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