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Updated: June 7, 2025
You will get a bad impression of our habits and we are really quite neat as a rule. Jock, take that rug back to Mrs. M'Cosh and put the sofa right. And, Mhor, do wash your face; you've got it all smeared with black." As Jean spoke she moved about, putting things to rights, lifting cushions, brightening the fire, brushing away fallen cinders. "That's better.
Jean had asked three guests to come to supper three lonely women who otherwise would have spent a solitary evening and Mrs. M'Cosh had asked Bella Bathgate to sup with her and afterwards to witness what she dubbed "a chiraide."
I'm not quite sure myself. I shall have to ask Mr. Macdonald, our minister. He'll know. I'm never quite certain whether the Bible means the tenth to be given in charity, or kept entirely for churches and missions.... And I want to buy some annuities, if you will tell me how to do it. Mrs. M'Cosh, our servant perhaps you noticed her when you came in?
M'Cosh had been eight years with the Jardines and was in many ways such a treasure, and always such an amusement, 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?"
Jock yelled, as he grabbed the burning twigs, but it was "Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay," who really put out the fire by rolling on it wrapped in an eiderdown quilt. "Eh, ye ill callant," said Bella Bathgate. "Ye wee deevil," said Mrs. M'Cosh, "ye micht hev had us a' burned where we sat, and it Christmas too!" "What made you do it, sonny?" Jean asked.
Off came the lid, out came the packing paper on the top, and in Jock and Mhor dived. It was really a wonderful box. In it there was something for everybody, including Mrs. M'Cosh and Peter, but Mhor's was the most striking present. No wonder the box was large. It contained a whole railway a train, lines, signal-boxes, a station, even a tunnel. Mhor was rendered speechless with delight.
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 sang four verses and stopped, in spite of the rapturous applause of a section of the audience. "There's aboot nineteen mair verses," she explained "an' they get kinna worse as they gang on, so I'd better stop," which she did, to Jean's relief, for she saw that her guests were feeling that this was not an entertainment such as the Best People indulged in.
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.
"Jock," said Jean, "is very nearly the nicest thing in the world, and the funniest. This morning Mrs. M'Cosh caught a mouse alive in a trap, and Jock, while dressing, heard her say she would drown it. Down he went, like an avalanche in pyjamas, drove Mrs. M'Cosh into the scullery, and let the mouse away in the garden. He would fight any number of boys of any size for an ill-treated animal.
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