"Will Peter have a diamond collar now?" Mhor asked.
"Awful effect of sudden riches," said Pamela.
"Bear up, Jean—I've no doubt you'll be able to get rid of your money. Just think of all the people you will be able to help. You needn't spend it on yourself you know."
"No, but suppose it's the ruin of the boys! I've often heard of sudden fortunes making people go all wrong."
"Now, Jean, does Jock look as if anything so small as a fortune could put him wrong? And David—by the way, where is David?"
"Out," said Jock, "getting something at the stationer's. Let me tell him when he comes in."
"Then I'll tell Mrs. M'Cosh," cried Mhor, and, followed by Peter, he rushed from the room.
The colour was beginning to come back to Jean's face, and the stunned look to go out of her eyes.
"Why in the world has he left it to me?" she asked Pamela.
"You see the lawyer suggests coming to see you. He will explain it all. It's a wonderful stroke of luck, Jean. No wonder you can't take it in."
"I feel like the little old woman in the nursery-rhyme who said, 'This is none of I.' I'm bound to wake up and find I've dreamt it…. Oh, Mrs. M'Cosh!"
"It's the wee laddie Scott to say his mother canna come and wash the morn's mornin'; she's no weel. It's juist as weel, seein' the biler's gone wrang. I suppose I'd better gie the laddie a piece?"
"Yes, and a penny." Then Jean remembered her new possessions. "No, give him this, please, Mrs. M'Cosh."
Mrs. M'Cosh received the coin and gasped. "Hauf a croon!" she said.
"Silver," said Pamela, "is to be no more accounted of than it was in the days of Solomon!"
"D'ye ken whit ye'll dae?" demanded Mrs. M'Cosh. "Ye'll get the laddie taen up by the pollis. Gie him thruppence—it's mair wise-like."
"Oh, very well," said Jean, thwarted at the very beginning of her efforts in philanthropy. "I'll go and see his mother to-morrow and find out what she needs. Have you heard the news, Mrs. M'Cosh?"
Mrs. M'Cosh came farther into the room and folded her hands on her snow-white apron.
"Weel, Mhor came in and tell't me some kinna story aboot a lot o' money, but I thocht he was juist bletherin'. Is't a fac'?"
"It would seem to be. The lawyer in London writes that Mr. Peter Reid—d'you perhaps remember an old man who came here to tea one day in October?—he came from London and lived at the Temperance—has left me all his fortune, which is a large one. I can't think why…. And I thought he was so poor, I wanted to have him here to stay, to save him paying hotel bills. Poor man, he must have been very friendless when he left his money to a stranger."
"It's a queer turn up onyway. I juist hope it's a' richt. But I would see it afore ye spend it. I wis readin' a bit in the papers the ither day aboot a wumman who got word o' a fortune sent her, and went and got a' sorts o' braw claes and things ower the heid o't, and here it wis a' a begunk. And a freend o' mine hed a husband oot aboot Canada somewhere, and she got word o' his death, and she claimed the insurance, and got verra braw blacks, and here wha should turn up but his lordship, as leevin' as you or me! Eh, puir thing, she wis awfu' annoyed…. You be carefu', Miss Jean, and see the colour o' yer money afore ye begin giein' awa' hauf-croons instead o' pennies."
CHAPTER XIX
"O, I wad like to ken—to the beggar-wife says I—
Why chops are guid to brander and nane sae guid to fry,
An' siller, that's sae braw to get, is brawer still to gie.
—It's gey an' easy spierin', says the beggar-wife to me."
R.L.S.
It is always easier for poor human nature to weep with those who weep than to rejoice with those who rejoice. Into our congratulations to our more fortunate neighbour we often manage to squeeze something of the "hateful rind of resentment," forgetting that the cup of life is none too sweet for any of us, and needs nothing of our bitterness added.
Jean had not an enemy in the world, almost everyone wished her well, but in very few cases was there any marked enthusiasm about her inheritance. "Ridiculous," was the most frequent comment: or "Fancy that little thing!" It seemed absurd that such an unimportant person should have had such a large thing happen to her.
Pamela was frankly disgusted with the turn things had taken. She had intended giving Jean such a good time; she had meant to dress her and amuse her and settle her in life. Peter Reid had destroyed all her plans, and Jean would never now be dependent on her for the pleasures of life.
She wrote to her brother:
"Jean seems to be one of the people that all sorts of odd things happen to, and now fortune has played one of her impish tricks and Jean has become a very considerable heiress. And I was there, oddly enough, when the god in the car alighted, so to speak, at The Rigs.
"One afternoon, just after I came to Priorsford, I went in after tea and found the Jardines entertaining a shabby-looking elderly man. They were all so very nice to him that I thought he must be some old family friend, but it turned out that none of them had seen him before that afternoon. He had asked to look over the house, and told Jean that he had lived in it as a boy, and Jean, remarking his rather shabby clothes and frail appearance, jumped to the conclusion that he had failed in life and—you know Jean—was at once full of tenderness and compassion. At his request she sang to him a song he had heard his mother sing, and finished by presenting him with the song-book containing it—a somewhat rare collection which she valued.
"This shabby old man, it seems, was one Peter Reid, a wealthy London business man, and owner of The Rigs, born and bred in Priorsford, who had just heard from his doctor that he had not long to live, and had come back to his childhood's home meaning to die there. He had no relations and few friends, and had made up his mind to leave his money to the first person who did anything for him without thought of payment. (He seems to have been a hard, suspicious type of man who had not attracted kindness.) So Fate guided his steps to Jean, and this is the result. Yes, rather far-fetched, I agree, but Fate is often like a novelette.
"Mr. Peter Reid had meant to ask the Jardines to leave The Rigs and let him settle there, but—there must have been a soft part somewhere in the hard little man—he hadn't the heart to do it when he found how attached they were to the place.
"I was at The Rigs when the lawyer's letter came. Jean as an heiress is very funny and, at the same time, horribly touching. At first she could think of nothing but that the lonely old man she had tried to be kind to was dead, and wept bitterly. Then as she began to realise the fact of the money she was aghast, suffocated with the thought of her own wealth. She told us piteously that it wouldn't change her at all. I think the poor child already felt the golden barrier that wealth builds round its owners. I don't think Mr. Peter Reid was kind, though perhaps he meant to be. Jean is such a conscientious, anxious pilgrim at any time, and I'm afraid the wealth will hang round her neck like the Ancient Mariner's albatross.
" … I have been wondering, Biddy, how this will affect your chances. I know you felt as I did how nice it would be to give Jean all the things that she has never had and which money can buy. I admit I am horribly disappointed about it, but I'm not at all sure that this odd trick of fortune's won't help you. Her attitude was that marriage with you was unthinkable; you had so much and she had so little. Well, this evens things up. Don't come. Don't write. Leave her alone to try her wings. She will want to try all sorts of schemes for helping people, and I'm afraid the poor child will get many bad falls. So long as she remains in Priorsford with