Project Gutenberg's Penny Plain, by Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

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Title: Penny Plain

Author: Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

Release Date: June 28, 2004 [EBook #12768]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PENNY PLAIN

BY

O. DOUGLAS

TO MY BROTHER WALTER

SHOPMAN: "You may have your choice--penny plain or twopence coloured."

SOLEMN SMALL BOY: "Penny plain, please. It's better value for the
money."

CHAPTER I

"The actors are at hand,
And by their show
You shall know all that you are like to know."
_Midsummer Night's Dream_.

It was tea-time in Priorsford: four-thirty by the clock on a chill
October afternoon.

The hills circling the little town were shrouded with mist. The wide
bridge that spanned the Tweed and divided the town proper--the Highgate,
the Nethergate, the Eastgate--from the residential part was almost
deserted. On the left bank of the river, Peel Tower loomed ghostly in
the gathering dusk. Round its grey walls still stood woods of larch and
fir, and in front the links of Tweed moved through pleasant green
pastures. But where once ladies on palfreys hung with bells hunted with
their cavaliers there now stood the neat little dwellings of prosperous,
decent folk; and where the good King James wrote his rhymes, and
listened to the singing of Mass from the Virgin's Chapel, the Parish
Kirk reared a sternly Presbyterian steeple. No need any longer for Peel
to light the beacon telling of the coming of our troublesome English
neighbours. Telegraph wires now carried the matter, and a large bus met
them at the trains and conveyed them to that flamboyant pile in red
stone, with its glorious views, its medicinal baths, and its
band-enlivened meals, known as Priorsford Hydropathic.

As I have said, it was tea-time in Priorsford.

The schools had _skailed_, and the children, finding in the weather
little encouragement to linger, had gone to their homes. In the little
houses down by the riverside brown teapots stood on the hobs, and
rosy-faced women cut bread