Harry Muir

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

“I’ve a great mind to practice out here, Harry,” said Gilbert Allenders; “lots of scarlet-fever, and measles, and hooping-cough, to start a man. And I want to be decent and respectable, and get out of temptation. If you were in an interesting position, like me, I’d get you a couple of rooms at Allender Mains, and invite you to dinner every day, till you were set up. Interesting children of Maidlin, you don’t know how much you want a doctor!”

“And would you actually come out here in winter, Gilbert?” said Harry. “You don’t know how dull it is sometimes.”

Harry drew his hat over his eyes, and returned very gruffly the passing salutation of Geordie Paxton. It was now a week since he had visited his fields, and that was more than time to make Harry sick—as he said—of the whole concern.

“The duties of my profession, Sir,” said Gilbert, solemnly: “a medical man is always a martyr to the public and his duty—always. By the way, Harry, what would you say to take a run up to town for a week or two, just before settling down? I think it would do me good.”

And Mr. Gilbert laid his hand on his heart, and sighed, as if he were the most interesting invalid in the world.

“To town? Do you mean to Stirling? I am there often enough already,” said Harry.

“Stirling!” Mr. Gilbert put up his hand to arrange the great woollen cravat he wore and laughed hoarsely. “You don’t fancy I call that little hole of a place, town! How innocent you are, after all!”

“Am I?” Harry felt himself grow very angry, and kicking away a stone which happened to lie beside his foot, sent it spinning through a group of Maidlin boys, dispersing themselves and their “bools” in all directions. If it had only broken Gilbert Allenders’ shins instead, it would have pleased Harry better; but even this was a satisfaction.

“Very well aimed,” said Gilbert, approvingly. “What I mean is, London-town—there is but one ‘town’ in the world. Come up with me, Harry, and I’ll help you to enjoy yourself. Come.”

“Help me to enjoy myself, will you?” said Harry, scornfully. Harry was more impatient of his companion to-day, than he had been for a long time.

“Come, come, we’re old companions now,” said Gilbert; “and I know you wouldn’t dislike going to London: a man of your years and station, who has never been in London, is something quite unparallelled! The country should subscribe for a glass-case, and show you in it as a real old country-gentleman, who has never been in town all his life, and never means to go!”

“There is such a thing as going too far,” said Harry, haughtily.

“Who was it said that, the first night I saw you—” said the malicious Gilbert; “don’t you remember? But I wont aggravate you, Harry; and you needn’t look as if you could eat me. Come, will you go?”

“I don’t care for seeing London. What is it to me?” said Harry, with dignity: “just half-a-dozen big towns compounded into one! What should send everybody to London? At the same time, perhaps I may go: it’s just as well going there, as staying at home here, doing nothing. And there is really nothing to be done on the land just now, in such a frost.”

“You have been quite a hero, Harry!” said Gilbert; “few men, I can tell you, could have done what you have done. You ought to give yourself a little rest. Such a thing as this, now,” said Gilbert, pointing to a line of carts slowly proceeding, with much ringing of horses’ hoofs and carters’ clogs, along the frosty, whitened road, “just to stand and let those odorous carts pass by might upset a man of your organization: yet you’ve been among them constantly for some two months, now. I envy you your force of resolution, Harry.”

Poor Harry! this piece of flattery mollified his irritated temper more easily than anything else could have done. Half conscious that he had already abandoned this last and most costly toy of his, it salved his conscience to have his perseverance wondered at. He put his arm in Gilbert’s, with sudden friendliness.

“I think I shall go, after all,” he said. “Armstrong can manage everything well enough. He has been accustomed to this sort of thing all his life; and, to tell the truth, it requires that, I am afraid, to make a farmer—that is to say, your thorough enthusiastic farmer. But now that January is over, I think a few weeks’ change would quite set me up again: besides, spring always reconciles one to the country. So I fancy we may settle upon going, Gilbert. When shall you be ready?”

“In a day—any time,” said Mr. Gilbert, shaking the thin, powdery snow from the hedge, by a blow of his cane. “I haven’t three ladies to look after me, as you have: the girls have their own affairs to mind, and so has the mamma. I get my wardrobe to superintend myself—different from you, Harry.”

And not quite sure whether to be pleased, and accept this as a token of his superior importance, or to resent it as a check upon his manliness and independence, Harry began immediately to discuss the projected journey—how they should go, and when; and it was soon decided, very much more to Gilbert’s satisfaction, than to the good pleasure of Agnes and Martha, at home.

For Agnes found out many little objections, and urged them with some pique and displeasure. Agnes thought she herself, his wife, would have been a much more suitable companion for Harry than Gilbert Allenders; and she should have greatly liked to go to London, even at risk of leaving the baby. Martha said nothing: her hope was gliding out of her hands again, defying all her eager attempts to hold it; and steady darkness—darkness as of the Egyptian night, tangible and positive, was settling down upon Martha’s heart.

“So you have had our Edinburgh friend here again, Miss Rose?” said Mr. Gilbert. “I suppose he will condescend to be civil to you. What is the man, Harry? Nothing but a Scotch W. S., I suppose?”

“He is an advocate, and a gentleman,” said Rose, under her breath; and when she had said this, she turned to the window, fearful of disclosing the vivid blush which covered her whole face.

“When I called on him with Harry in July—I would not say, in presence of ladies, what my impulse was,” said Gilbert, lifting his large bony hand, and displaying his ringed finger in relief against the black brushwood about his chin. “He looked at me with a malice which disgusted me. I suppose he thought I was in his way,” added Mr. Gilbert, complacently, bestowing upon Rose, who had just turned her head, roused and defiant, a most emphatic look of admiration.

And Harry laughed: Rose turned her eyes to him slowly, and felt her heart burn—that Harry should think so meanly of her as to fancy Gilbert Allenders could stand in Cuthbert’s way!

“But when Mr. Charteris looks at you, Rosie,” whispered Violet, “his lip aye moves, and the lid comes over his eye. Last time, he looked as if he could greet: what was that for, Rose?”

But Rose made no reply.

There were, as Gilbert prophesied, great preparations in Allenders for Harry’s departure, and various purchases made, that Harry’s appearance away from home might be worthy the station which his little wife thought so exalted. None of them were quite prepared for the total insignificance which always falls upon a solitary visitor to London; and when Gilbert, putting up his own little carpet-bag, took occasion to remark, sneeringly, upon the great, new, shining portmanteau which Harry carried, neither himself nor Agnes, who had come to Stirling to see him away, were angry. They said “Poor Gilbert!” in a sympathetic look, and compassionated him, who had neither rank to maintain, nor a little wife to help him to maintain it; and when Agnes, as she went away, casting wistful looks behind her at Harry, caught a glimpse of Gilbert’s great, sallow, unwholesome face, surmounted by its little travelling-cap, and encircled by its coarse, wiry hair, she could almost have been bold enough to turn back, and follow Harry. She contrasted them in her mind a hundred times, during her melancholy drive home, and had many a dreary thought about temptation, and evil company, and Harry “led away.”

Poor Harry! he was always “led away;” for not one of his anxious watchers, could prevail with herself to speak of his errors in harder words than these.

As Agnes returned home, she called at Blaelodge to take up the children; for their holidays were over, and they had returned to school; and a little cluster of other children, also returning from school, hung on behind the carriage, and kept up a little quick tramp of feet behind, tempting John now and then to wave his whip good-humouredly over their heads, and warn them that he would “come down the next time.” But John, who came from Maidlin Cross himself, never came down; and Violet and Katie, peering out of the window on either side, nodded to the heads of their respective factions, and whispered to each other, who was at school, and who was “gathering stanes,” as they passed, band after band—some with books and slates, some girded with their great work-aprons, returning from the field.

From the open doors at Maidlin Cross, the pleasant firelight shines out upon the road, reddening its sprinkled snow; and figures stand in the doorways, dark against the cheery light within; and voices ring, clear and sharp, through the air. The carriage, now deserted by its band of attendants, begins to grow rather dreary as it advances into the darkness, and Agnes does not speak, and Katie and Violet cannot see each other’s faces; but they are quite cheered and revived, so long as they can hear the far-off sound of those voices at Maidlin Cross.

And by the fireside Martha and Rose sit very silently. A faint sound comes from the river, and the wind whistles shrill among the leafless trees; but except these, and now and then an occasional noise from the kitchen, where Dragon has been summoned in to sit with Mysie and her companion, that there may be “a man in the house,” there is perfect stillness within and without. They are both working—you would think they never do anything but work—and both are absorbed and lost in their own thoughts. When at rare intervals they speak, it is to wonder how far Harry will be by this time, and what he will see in London, and when he will return; but they do not say to each other that they tremble for Harry, nor tell what distinct remembrances arise before them both, of the sad scenes of the past; yet now and then a sudden start, and quick look round this cheerful room, discover to you that they have forgotten where they are for the moment, and that the dim walls of Mrs. Rodger’s parlour, the proper background of many a recalled grief, are more clearly present before them, than this brighter and more prosperous place.

Yet they are cheered, in spite of themselves, when Agnes and her little companions come in, dazzled, out of the darkness; and Lettie volunteers a confession of some fear as they came along that dark road, close to the Lady’s Well. Silence is not congenial to Agnes, and the baby cries loudly in the nursery; and little Harry, very sleepy, rouses himself up to devour cakes, and swallow as much tea as is permitted. So the night passes away; but a hundred times they fancy they hear Harry’s summons at the outer-door; and almost believe, with a thrill between hope and fear, that he has come home.

The days pass, and grow into weeks, and still they sit all the long evening through, and again and again fancy they hear the sound of his return, and hold their breath in eager listening. A few letters, containing long lists of things he has seen, come to them tardily; but they never think of Harry, in his extreme occupation, carrying these letters about with him for a day or two, before he recollects to send them away. The farm-manager comes now and then, anxious to see Allenders; for now the frost has broken up, and a genial dry season has succeeded it, and the cautious Armstrong is slow to do anything without his employer’s approval. Some fertile, well-cultivated land, for a lease of which Harry was bargaining with Sir John Dunlop’s factor, as a profitable addition to his own farm, has been secured by another applicant during Harry’s absence; and the mason who contracted for Harry’s new byres and stables, after a long delay by the frost, now refuses to go on, till he has received one of the payments to which he is entitled. But no answer comes to the letters in which these matters are spoken of—his short notes only speak of sights and constant occupation, and he never says when he is to return.

The cold, mild, early February comes in quietly; and the nightly rains patter upon the trees, and swell the burn to hoarseness, and plash in the swollen river. In the morning, when the feeble sunshine falls dimly upon the lawn, and its flower borders, Violet and Katie rejoice over, here and there, a golden or purple crocus, and eagerly point out the buds swelling on the trees; but at night it is always rain, striking on the bare branches, and filling the whole air with a sound of mysterious footsteps passing to and fro around the lonely house. And within the house they all grow very still—they all listen for Harry’s step, for Harry’s call; and their hearts tremble, and their frames shiver, as every night they think he will return.

But February is nearly past, and a March gale, impatient of the slow progress of the year, has sprung up among the hills before his time, and rends the clouds over Demeyet, tossing them scornfully to the east and to the west, when at last they hear Harry come home. And he does not come unexpectedly; but has written before, stating day and hour, which he religiously keeps. His dress is worn, and out of order; his shining new portmanteau frayed and dim, some articles of its contents lost, and almost all injured; but he says nothing of excuse or apology for his long delay, and is fretted and irritated only when he hears of its results, liberally blaming everybody concerned. However, by and bye, everything goes on again—goes on after a fashion, languidly, and without success; for Harry no longer cares about his fields.