These cottages were far more ancient than the houses of the town,
were covered with green thatch, were buried in ivy, and would
soon be radiant with roses and honeysuckles. They were gathered
irregularly about a gate of curious old ironwork, opening on the
churchyard, but more like an entrance to the grounds behind the
church, for it told of ancient state, bearing on each of its pillars
a great stone heron with a fish in its beak.
This was the quarter whence had come the noises of children, but
they had now ceased, or rather sunk into a gentle murmur, which
oozed, like the sound of bees from a straw covered beehive, out
of a cottage rather larger than the rest, which stood close by the
churchyard gate. It was the parish school, and these cottages were
all that remained of the old town of Portlossie, which had at one
time stretched in a long irregular street almost to the shore.
The town cross yet stood, but away solitary on a green hill that
overlooked the sands.
During the summer the long walk from the new town to the school
and to the church was anything but a hardship: in winter it was
otherwise, for then there were days in which few would venture the
single mile that separated them.
The door of the school, bisected longitudinally, had one of its
halves open, and by it outflowed the gentle hum of the honeybees
of learning. Malcolm walked in, and had the whole of the busy scene
at once before him. The place was like a barn, open from wall to
wall, and from floor to rafters and thatch, browned with the peat
smoke of vanished winters.
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