“Ach! it’s richt enough, I daursay; but there’s a lot o’ nonsense aboot it. Ye get awfu’ cauld feet standin’ in the close. And it’s aye in yer mind. I went to Leezie’s close-mooth the ither nicht to whistle on her, and did I no’ forget, and cry oot ‘Coal!’ thinkin’ I was on business.”
And thus it was that Jinnet’s tea-party came about. The tender pair of pigeons were the guests of honour, and Jinnet’s niece, and Macrae the night policeman, were likewise invited. Macrae was there because Jinnet thought her niece at thirty-five was old enough to marry. Jinnet did not know that he had drunk milk in Leezie’s dairy before Duffy had gone there, and he himself had come quite unsuspicious of whom he should meet. In all innocence Jinnet had brought together the elements of tragedy.
There was something cold in the atmosphere of the party. Erchie noticed it. “Ye wad think it was a Quaker’s meetin’,” he said to himself as all his wife’s efforts to encourage an airy conversation dismally failed.
“See and mak’ yer tea o’t, Mr Macrae,” she said to the night policeman. “And you, Sarah, I wish ye would tak’ yin o’ thae penny things, and pass the plate to Mr Duffy. Ye’ll excuse there bein’ nae scones, Mr Duffy; there hasna been a nice scone baked in the dairy since Leezie left. There’s wan thing ye’ll can be shair o’ haein’ when ye’re mairret till her, and that’s guid bakin’.”
Macrae snorted.
“What’s the maitter wi’ dough-feet, I wonder?” thought Erchie, as innocent as his wife was of any complication. “That’s the worst o’ askin’ the polis to yer pairties,—they’re no’ cless; and I’m shair, wi’ a’ Jinnet’s contrivance, Sarah wadna be made up wi’ him.”
“A wee tate mair tea, Mr Macrae? Leezie, gie me Mr Macrae’s cup if it’s oot.”
Macrae snorted again. “I’ll not pe puttin’ her to the bother, Mrs MacPherson,” said he.
“Murdo Macrae can pe passin’ his own teacups wisout botherin’ anybody.”
“Dough-feet’s in the dods,” thought Erchie, to whom the whole situation was now, for the first time, revealed like a flash.