_Reprinted from “The Dunedin Magazine”_ THE REAL MACKAY (_All Rights Reserved_) ONE ACT PLAY BY DONALD A. MACKENZIE _Characters_ WIDOW MACKAY, _tenant of Balree Croft_. MÀIRI[1] MACKAY, _her daughter, a domestic servant_. “SANDY” SPEEDWELL, _artist and poet, of Edinburgh_. MRS SPEEDWELL, _his mother_. SCENE: _The “best room” in a crofter’s cottage in the Scottish Highlands. To the left a small open window, round which honeysuckle clings and blooms, affords a glimpse of a blue loch, softly screened by the drooping branches of a silver birch, and glistening in bright sunshine. Beside the window Màiri Mackay sits knitting a white shawl. A folding table, with the leaves down, occupies the centre of the room and is covered with a Mackay tartan plaid. Upon it stands a dark blue bowl filled with wild roses. Widow Mackay sits to the right, at her spinning wheel, between the table and a wide, open fire-place. Peat smoulders in the grate. To the left of the fire-place is an “easy chair” (a plain arm-chair with a cushion), and to the right a nursing chair with short legs; a stool is tilted in front on a deerskin rug. Against the wall, between the little window and a bedroom door, is a dark mahogany chest of drawers, on which lies a bulky family Bible between two gaudy vases. Three chairs are ranged against the wall to the left, and the floor is covered with flowery waxcloth, brilliantly new. The walls are adorned with framed portraits of John Knox, John Bunyan, William Ewart Gladstone, and a Free Church minister. On the high mantelpiece squat two white porcelain dogs with black noses, and above it is a set of bagpipes. A “wag-at-the-wa” clock ticks leisurely to the right of the fireplace._ TIME: _Early afternoon: a sunny day in late June._ WIDOW (_stops spinning and looks towards her daughter over her glasses_). You’ll be sitting in a draught, Màiri. Shut the window or you will maybe catch a cheel[2]--you that looks so delicate. MÀIRI. Oh! there’s no fear of me, mother. If you won’t be minding, I would rather have the window open. I love to breathe the fresh air from the loch. (_Takes a deep breath._) It’s so refreshing after being in a stuffy city, and the honeysuckle smells so sweet. How quiet it is here; you can listen to the quietness, so to speak.