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 appetite, 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 peacocks.  With one arm he clutched the cat and assured 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 unembarrassed 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.”