the murmured comments of the spectators had ceased, Mhor, looking extraordinarily Roman, held up his hand as if appealing to a raging mob, and said, "Peace, ho! Let us hear him," whereupon Jock, breathing heavily in his brother's face, proceeded to give Antony's oration over Cǣsar. He did it very well, and the Mhor as the Mob supplied appropriate growls at intervals; indeed, so much did Antony's eloquence inspire Mhor that, when Jock shouted, "Light the pyre!" (a sentence introduced to bring in the charade word), instead of merely pretending with an unlighted taper, Mhor dashed to the fire, lit the taper, and before anyone could stop him thrust it among the dry twigs, which at once began to light and crackle. Immediately all was confusion. "Mhor!" shouted Jean, as she sprang towards the stage. "Gosh, Maggie!" Jock yelled, as he grabbed the burning twigs, but it was "Imperial Cæsar, 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.
"It made it so real," Mhor explained, "and I knew we could always throw them out of the window if they really blazed. What's the use of having a funeral pyre if you don't light it?"
The actors departed to prepare for the next performance Jock coming back to put his head in at the door to ask if they had guessed the first part of the word.
Jean said she thought it must be incendiarism.
"Funeral," said Miss Watson brightly.
"Huch," said Jock; "it's a word of one syllable."
"I think," Jean said as the door shut on Jock—I think I know what the word is—pyre."
"Oh, really," said Miss Watson, "I'm all shaking yet with the fright I got. He's an awful bad wee boy that—sort of regardless. He needs a man to look after him."
"I'll never forget," said Miss Teenie, "once I was staying with a friend of ours, a doctor; his mother and our mother were cousins, you know, and when I looked—I was doing my hair at the time—I found that the curtain had blown across the gas and was blazing. If I had been in our own house I would just have rushed out screaming, but when you're away from home you've more feeling of responsibility and I just stood on a chair and pulled at the curtain till I brought it down and stamped on it. My hands were all scorched, and of course the curtain was beyond hope, but when the doctor saw it, he said, 'Teenie,' he said—his mither and ours were cousins, you know—'you're just a wee marvel.' That was what he said—'a wee marvel.'"
Jean said, "You were brave," and one of the guests said that presence of mind was a wonderful thing, and then the next act was ready.
The word had evidently something to do with eating, for the three actors sat at a Barmecide feast and quaffed wine from empty goblets, and carved imaginary haunches of venison. So far as could be judged from the conversation, which was much obscured by the smothered laughter of the actors, they seemed to belong to Robin Hood's merry men.
The third act took place on board ship—a ship flying the Jolly Roger—and it was obvious to the meanest intelligence that the word was pirate.
"Very good," said Miss Teenie, clapping her hands; "but," addressing the Mhor, "don't you go lighting any more funeral pyres. Boys who do that have to go to jail."
Mhor looked coldly at her, but made no remark, while Jean said hastily:
"You must show everyone your wonderful present, Mhor. I think the hall would be the best place to put it up in."
The second part of the programme was of a varied character. Jean led off with the old carol:
"There comes a ship far sailing then,
St. Michael was the steersman,"
and Mhor followed with a poem, "In Time of Pestilence," which had captivated his strange small boy's soul, and which he had learned for the occasion. Everyone felt it to be singularly inappropriate, and Miss Watson said it gave her quite a turn to hear the relish with which he knolled out:
"Wit with his wantonness
Tasteth death's bitterness:
Hell's executioner
Hath no ears for to hear
What vain art can reply!
I am sick, I must die—
God have mercy on us."
She regarded him with disapproving eyes as a thoroughly uncomfortable character.
One of the guests sang a drawing-room ballad in which the words "dear heart" seemed to occur with astonishing frequency. Then the entertainment took a distinctly lower turn.
David and Jock sang a song composed by themselves and set to a hymn tune, a somewhat ribald production. Mhor then volunteered the information that Mrs. M'Cosh could sing a song. Mrs. M'Cosh said, "Awa wi' ye, laddie," and "Sic havers," but after much urging owned that she knew a song which had been a favourite with her Andra. It was sung to the tune of "When the kye come hame," and was obviously a parody on that lyric, beginning:
"Come a' ye Hieland pollismen
That whustle through the street,
An' A'll tell ye a' aboot a man
That's got triple expansion feet.
He's got braw, braw tartan whuskers
That defy the shears and kaim:
There's an awfu' row in Brigton
When M'Kay comes hame."
It went on to tell how:
"John M'Kay works down in Singers's,
He's a ceevil engineer,
But his wife's no verra ceevil
When she's had some ginger-beer.
When he missed the last Kilbowie train
And had to walk hame lame,
There wis Home Rule wi' the poker
When M'Kay cam hame."
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.
"And now Miss Bathgate will sing," said Mhor.
"I will not sing," said Miss Bathgate. "I've mair pride than make a fool o' mysel' to please folk."
"Oh, come on," Jock begged. "Look at Mrs. M'Cosh!"
Miss Bathgate snorted.
"Ay," said Mrs. M'Cosh, with imperturbable
