Harry Muir

The next morning very early, while Martha Muir, unable to rest, sat at the window, carefully mending the torn coat which was poor Harry’s only one, Cuthbert Charteris set out on the top of the coach for Ayr. What he had seen on the previous night oppressed him heavily, weighing down even the natural exhilaration which the morning sunshine usually brought to a mind void of offence towards men, and walking by faith humbly with God. Continually that scene rose up before him—the hidden tears and trembling of Agnes and Rose—the stern agitation of Martha—the fatuous smile upon poor Harry’s white conscious face. “Poor Harry!” the stranger echoed with emotion, the sad tenderness of this lamentation so familiar to Harry’s nearest friends.

Harry, meanwhile, was peacefully asleep, unconscious of the hopeless musing of his sister, as she sat by the window not long after sunrise, doing this sad piece of work for him, and of the gloom which he cast over the happier mind of his friend; a common case—almost too common to need recording.

It was the afternoon before Charteris left his inn to seek the house of Alexander Muir. In the intermediate time he had been wandering about the town, and hunting through one old churchyard which lay in his way for the graves of the Allenders; but his search was not successful. The afternoon was bright and warm, the month being now far advanced, and he was directed easily to the residence of the old man whom everybody seemed to know. It was in one of the quiet back streets of the town, a narrow-causewayed lane, kept in a kind of constant twilight by the shadows of tall houses. The house he sought was not tall—its low door opened immediately from the rough stones of the street; and on either side was a square window fortified with strong panes of greenish glass, which gave a hue by no means delightful to the little checked-muslin blinds within. The upper story was a separate house, and had an outside stair ascending to it, which stair darkened the lower door, and served as a sort of porch, supported on the further side by a rude pillar of mason-work. Cuthbert thought it a very dim dusky habitation for the gentle uncle of the Muirs.

A little maid-servant, with a striped red and black woollen petticoat and “short gown” of bright printed cotton, opened the door for him. Descending a single step, Cuthbert entered a narrow passage, at the end of which was another open door, with a bright prospect of trees and flowers, and sunshine beyond. The lobby was paved with brick, very red and clean, which the little servant seemed just to have finished scouring; and an open door on one side of it gave him a glimpse of a trim bed-chamber, with flowers on its little dressing-table; on the other side was another door (closed) of another bed-room; and, looking to the garden, the kitchen and the little parlour occupied the further side of the house.

“Will ye just gang in, sir,” said the girl, removing her pail out of Cuthbert’s way; “ye’ll get him in the garden himsel.”

Cuthbert obeyed, and passed by himself to the other door.

A very singular scene awaited him there. The garden was a large one, and formed the greatest possible contrast to the dusky front of the house. Apple trees in full blossom, and a bright congregation of all the flowers of spring, surrounded the more homely produce in which the large enclosure seemed rich. The door was matted round with climbing plants, roses, and honey-suckles, which, in a month or two, would be as bright and fragrant as now they were green; and a splendid pear-tree, flushed with blossom, covered one entire side of the house.

But the animate part of the picture was still more remarkable—scattered through the garden in groups, but principally here near the door where some fine trees sheltered, and the sun shone upon them, were a number of girls, from fourteen to twenty, working the Ayrshire work as it is called—to wit, the fine embroideries on muslin, which the Muirs “opened”—and talking, as girls generally talk, very happily and gaily—with snatches of song, and pleasant laughter. They had all the average good looks, and were dressed becomingly, as girls in their class, who maintain themselves by needlework, generally are. Completely astonished at first, Cuthbert became amused and interested in the scene as he stood a moment unperceived at the door, especially when, through the embowering leaves, he caught a glimpse of the person he had come to see.

He was a little spare man, with hair nearly white, and a hale ruddy cheek. Seated in an arm-chair, in front of his parlour window, with a book in his hand, it was very evident that the good man’s book had very little share of his attention. At present he was telling a story to his audience; and Cuthbert admired the natural eloquence, the simple grace of language, in which he clothed it. His speech was quite Scottish, and even a little provincial, but untainted with the least mixture of vulgarity; and when he had rounded his tale with a quotation from Burns, he opened the book in which he had been keeping his place with his finger, only to close it again immediately, when a new demand was made upon his attention.

“Eh, Mr. Muir,” said one of the girls, “what for have ye such lots of horse-gowans yonder in the corner?”

“They’re no horse-gowans, Beatie, my woman—they’re camomile,” said the old man.

“And what is’t for? is it for eating?” asked the curious Beatie.

“It’s for making drinks for no weel folk,” volunteered a better-informed companion.

“It’s for selling to John Wilson, the man that has taken up physic at his own hand,” said the chairman of this strange assembly. “They tell me he’s a friend of Dr. Hornbook’s; you’ve all read of Dr. Hornbook in Burns.”

There was a general assent; but some, among whom was the Beatie aforesaid, looked wistful and curious, and had not heard of that eminent personage.

“It’s a profane thing, a profane thing,” said Alexander Muir. “Keep to the Cottar, like good bairns. Ye’ll get no ill out of it. But what ails ye, Beatie, my woman?”

“Eh, sir, it’s a gentleman,” said Beatie, under her breath. Whereupon there ensued a dead silence, and a fit of spasmodic industry came upon the girls, occasionally interrupted by a smothered titter, as one of the more mischievous, who sat with her back to the door, tempted to laughter her companions, whose downcast faces were towards the stranger.

Cuthbert introduced himself in a few words, and was heartily greeted by the old man. “I have an obligation to you, sir, as well as the rest of them, for your care of Harry,” said the uncle; “and ye left them well? They are my family, these bairns, an old solitary man as I am, and their friends are most welcome to me.”

“You seem to have another family round you here,” said Cuthbert, looking with a smile on the demure group before him, some of whom were painfully suppressing the laugh which they could not altogether conceal.

“Neighbours’ bairns,” said Alexander Muir; “bits of innocent things that have not the freedom of a garden like mine at home. There is a kind of natural kin between them and the spring. I like to see them among my flowers, and I think their work gets on all the better, that they are cheery in the doing of it; but to tell you the truth, I cannot see, Mr. Charteris, how our own bairns should think themselves better in Glasgow than with me, now that Harry has gotten a wife.”

“They wish to remain together, I fancy,” said Cuthbert, sadly remembering the bitter tie which kept them beside poor Harry; “but both for health and happiness, Mr. Muir, I should fancy they would be better with you.”

“Say you so?” said the old man, eagerly, “for happiness; aye, say you so?”

Cuthbert hastened to explain away, so far as he could, the painful meaning of his words, leaving it to be inferred that it was only the fresh air and freedom of this pleasant place, of which they stood in need.

“I am going in for a while with this gentleman,” said uncle Sandy, raising his voice as he turned to his little congregation; “but mind there is no need for you turning idle because I am not here to look after you; mind and be eident, as the cotter’s bairns were bidden to be.”

The girls acknowledged the smiling speech addressed to them by great demonstration of industry, and for a few minutes the blue stamped leaves and branches of their muslin grew into white embroidery with wonderful speed. The old man looked round upon them with a smile, as they sat bending down their heads under the glistening sunshine over their pretty work, and then, laying his book on his chair, he led the way into the house.

The parlour was a very small one, considerably less than the best bed-room, which occupied the front of the house, and which, by an occupant of less poetic taste, would have been made the sitting-room. But Alexander Muir did not like the dull prospect of the little back street; he preferred to look out upon the garden in which so much of his time was spent, and the little room was large enough for all his quiet necessities.

His old easy chair had been removed from the fireside corner to the window. It was a latticed window, furnished with a broad shelf extending all the length of its deep recess, which seemed to have been made for plants—but no plants interposed themselves between the sun-shine and the books, which were the best beloved companions of the old, gentle, solitary man. Cuthbert looked at them as they lay in little heaps in the corner of the window. There was no dust about them, but almost as little arrangement. They lay, as their contents lay in the head of their good master, mingled in pleasant friendliness. The Fourfold State and the Crook in the Lot embraced the royal sides of Shakspere, and a much-used copy of Burns lay peacefully beside the Milton, which, to tell truth, opened more easily at Comus or at Il Penseroso than in either Paradise. Besides these there were Cowper and Young, an odd volume of the Spectator, an old time-worn copy of the Pilgrim, with Samuel Rutherford’s Letters, and Fleming, the interpreter of prophecy, and the quaint Willison ballasting some volumes of Scott and Galt. Daily friends and comrades were these, bearing marks of long and frequent use, some of them encased in homely covers of green cloth, which the old man’s own careful hands had endued them with; some half bound, after his fashion, with stripes of uncultivated “calf” defending their backs, and their boards gay with marbled paper. It was pleasant to see them, in their disarrangement, upon the broad ledge of the window, friends too intimate and familiar to be kept on ceremonious terms.

“Take a seat, Mr. Charteris,” said uncle Sandy; “if you had come while Harry was here it might have been pleasanter for you—for Harry, poor man, is a blithe companion; maybe over blithe sometimes for his own well-doing: And you think the bairns would be better with me?”

“Nay,” said Charteris, hastily, “except in so far as this house of yours, Mr. Muir, is certainly a most pleasant contrast to the din and haste of Glasgow, and your nieces, you know, like your young friends yonder, are of kin to spring.”

The old man had seated himself in his easy chair, which Cuthbert would not take. He took off his spectacles to wipe them with his handkerchief, and shook his head. “There is Rose, to be sure, and little Lettie; but my niece, Martha, Mr. Charteris—well, I cannot tell—the spring may come to her yet after the summer has passed. I would not put the bondage of common use about Martha, for the like of me is little able to judge the like of her. It is a hard thing to understand. It might have been a question in the days of the auld philosophy—what for the mind that would have served a conqueror should be put into her—a mind that can ill bow to the present yoke—when there is even too much need of such in high places. It will be clear enough some time—but it has aye been a wonder to me.”

“There may be difficulties in her way to conquer, more hopeless than kingdoms,” said Cuthbert involuntarily.

“Young man, do you ken of any evil tidings,” asked Alexander Muir, with sudden haste and energy.

“Nothing, nothing,” said Cuthbert, annoyed at himself for speaking words from which inferences so painful could be drawn—“You must hear my special mission to Ayr, Mr. Muir. Your niece has told me that the name of her grandmother was Allenders—it is an unusual name—Could you give me any information about the family.”

The old man looked considerably surprised. “They were strangers here,” he said. “I mind of Mrs. Calder, very well, whose daughter Violet married James Muir, my brother. He was ten years younger than me, and so I mind of his good-mother, though she died long ago. They came from London, Mr. Charteris. There was a father and two daughters in the family. I will let you see all that remains of them—their grave.”

“And are there no papers—no way of tracing the family to their origin,” said Cuthbert, with some uneasiness.

“We have never thought it of any importance,” said the old man, smiling, “if it is, we may fall on some means maybe. It sharpens folk’s wits to have something to find out—but what depends on it, Mr. Charteris.”

“I have said nothing of it to our friends in Glasgow—fearing that the name might have misled me,” said Cuthbert, “but there is, I am glad to tell you, an estate depending upon it—not a great one, Mr. Muir—a comfortable small estate producing some four hundred pounds a-year.”

Cuthbert wanted to be rather under than over the mark—four hundred pounds a-year! the sum was princely and magnificent to the astonished old man. He looked at Cuthbert in a mist of bewilderment. He took off his spectacles and wiped their glasses again. He put up his hand to his head, and rubbed his forehead in confused amazement. “Four hundred pounds a-year!”

“So far as I have gone yet, it seems almost certain that your nephew is the heir,” said Cuthbert. “The surname of itself is much, and the Christian names confirm its evidence very strongly. If you think there can be anything done to trace the origin of these Allenders, I should be glad to proceed to it at once.”

The old man had bowed down his head—he was fumbling now with nerveless fingers at his glasses, and suddenly he raised the handkerchief with which he had been wiping them, up to his eyes. Some sounds, Cuthbert heard, like one or two broken irrepressible sobs, “For Harry—for the unstable callant—the Lord’s grace to save him from temptation—that I should live to see this hope!”

The short broken sobs continued for a moment, and then he raised his head. “I see, Sir,” said the old man, with natural dignity, “that to thank you for troubling yourself in this way, with the humble concerns of these orphans, who can render you little in return, would be to hold you in less esteem than is your due. I take your service, as, if I had been as young and well endowed as you, I think I could maybe have rendered it—and now tell me what it is you want to discover—that I may further it, if I can, without delay.”