Up in Ardmuirland | Page 3

should form part of the plan. If the old chapel was as unworthy
of its purpose as Val's descriptions painted it, the dwelling must have
been indeed poverty-stricken. From what I have gleaned from the
natives, both buildings must have surpassed in meanness our wildest
conceptions of them. But more upon that subject later.
Any account of the chapel-house at Ardmuirland would be incomplete
without some reference to a personage who holds an important position
in the household, second only to that of the master of the house. This is
Penelope Spence, known to the world outside as "Mistress Spence,"
and to Val and myself as "Penny." She was our nurse long ago, and is
now the ruler of the domestic affairs of the chapel-house. A little, round,
white-haired, rosy-faced dumpling of a woman is Penny; an
Englishwoman, too, from the Midlands, where the letter H is reserved
by many persons of her social standing for the sake of special emphasis
only. I find by calculation that she first saw the light at least seventy
years ago, but she is reticent upon that subject. All the precise
information I have ever extracted from her on the point is that she is not
so young as she once was--which is self-evident! But young or old, she
is brisk and active, both in mind and body, still. Such a devoted old
soul, too! She would go to the stake cheerfully for either of us, but for
Val she entertains an almost superstitious reverence, which would be

amusing were it not touching. When speaking of him to the natives, she
invariably styles him "the Priest." I imagine she looks for a higher place
above, in recognition of her early services to him.
Penny was already a young married woman when she came into the
service of our family. Her history, as I have learned it from her own
lips, will be worth narrating, if I can find room for it in these pages.
Elsie is Penny's "lady in waiting"; she is too youthful as yet to have
made history. She hails from a neighboring farm, and is a really
satisfactory handmaid--ready, cheerful, and diligent; she entertains a
thoroughly genuine respect for her superior officer, "Mistress Spence,"
in spite of the latter's somewhat severe notions as to the training of
young servants. In appearance Elsie is much like any other Scottish
lassie of her age--not strikingly beautiful, nor yet ugly; just pleasant to
look upon. Her most conspicuous trait is a smile which appears to be
chronic. One cannot help wondering what she looks like on occasions
when a smile is out of place--at her prayers, or at a funeral, for instance.
I am quite prepared to maintain that she does not lose it during sleep;
for though I have noticed it growing deeper and broader when she has
reason to feel more than usual satisfaction (e.g., when Penny
unthinkingly utters a word of praise), it never entirely disappears
during the daytime.
There is another personage who deserves special mention; for not only
is he an important item in our establishment, but a very special crony of
mine. This is Willy Paterson (known locally, by-the-bye, as "the
Priest's Wully"), our gardener, groom, coachman (when required), and
general handy man. Willy is a wiry, wrinkled, white-haired little
man--little now, because stooping a bit under the weight of well-nigh
eighty years--who is greatly respected by his neighbors far and near
because he has "been sooth." For he was long ago in the ranks of the
police of one of our biggest cities, and his former profession, not to
speak of his knowledge of the world gained thereby, entitles him to
esteem. It has raised him to the rank of a species of oracle on any
subject upon which he is pleased to discourse; the result is a not
unpleasing, because altogether unintentional, dogmatism which seasons

Willy's opinions of men and things.
Our garden is the pride of Willy's heart. It begins in front of the house,
where flowers of varied hue succeed one another as season follows
season, and roses--red, white, and yellow--seem almost perennial, since
they bud forth in late May and scarcely disappear till December. But
that is due to our wonderful climate as much as to Willy's attention. As
the garden disappears round the corner of the house, its nature changes;
vegetables in surprising and intricate variety there flourish chiefly. At
the stable-yard it ceases; beyond that a dense pine wood holds its own
to the very top of a hill, which rises above our domain and protects us
from eastern blasts. The wood is not the least of the attractions which
Ardmuirland has for me; beyond the more prosaic quality of its
health-giving power, it possesses, as every bit of forest land does for