CHAPTER XII.
Almost in Lindsay’s words, Cuthbert told to the old man the story of the Allenders. He listened without making any remark, but evidently, as Cuthbert saw, with great attention.
“John Allenders—yes, that was the name,” he said, when his visitor had concluded. “And Violet and Rose—it looks like—very like, as if these bairns were the folk you seek. I pray heaven they may; no for the siller,” continued the old man, turning back on his way to the pin where hung his low broad-brimmed hat: “no alone or even specially for the siller; but for other matters, Mr. Charteris—other things of more concern to Martha and me, and the rest of them, too, poor things, than silver and gold; though no doubt an honourable maintenance, no to say a grand independence like that, is to be thankfully received for itself, if we would not sin our mercies—and now, sir, I am ready.”
Charteris followed without any question.
The old man turned first to the garden door, and looked out. His young guests had slackened a little in their industry; one of them sat solemnly in the arm-chair, reading with great emphasis from the book he had left. Another had thrown down her work to arrange in elaborate braids a favourite companion’s hair; and two or three other groups, with their heads close together, were discussing “the gentleman;” and what could possibly be his errand with Maister Meur. “Bairns,” said the old man, looking out smilingly. With a sudden start the girls resumed their work, the occupant of the arm-chair threw down the book in great haste, and fled to her own seat.
“The book will do ye no harm; ye may read it out loud, one at a time,” said the gracious patron of the young embroiderers; “but see that you do not forget what work must be done, or make me forsworn of my word, when I promised to see ye keep from idleness. Mind! or we will cast out the morn.”
Saying which, the old man turned to the street door, directing his little Jessie as he passed the kitchen, to have tea prepared with some ornamental additions to its ordinary bread and butter, which he specified in a whisper, exactly at six o’clock.
“And I have a spare room that you are most kindly welcome to, if ye can put up with my small accommodations, Mr. Charteris,” said the master of the little house, as they passed into the street; “but I see you are for asking where we are to go. There is one person in the town that may very likely help us, I think. She was aunt to my sister-in-law, that’s now departed, and knew all about the Allenders. She is an old woman. I would not say, but she has the better of me by twenty years; but she’s sharper at worldly business yet, than many folk in their prime. She has some bits of property and money saved that will come to the bairns no doubt some time, but the now she holds a firm grip, and is jealous of respect on the head of it. I will take it kind if ye will just grant her the bit little ceremony that has grown a necessity to her, Mr. Charteris. She is an aged woman, and it does not set youth ill to honour even the whims of gray hairs.”
“I shall be very careful,” said Cuthbert with a smile, for he did not think it needful to add that he was a very unlikely person to show any want of courtesy to the aged or the weak.
They walked through the town somewhat slowly, for the old man paused now and then to point out with genuine pride and affection the notable things they passed. The polemic Brigs, the Wallace tower. His mild gray eye kindled as he reminded his visitor that this was doubly classic ground—the land of Wallace, and of Burns—of the old traditional hero whose mighty form looms over his country still, and of the unhappy poet whom the poor of Scotland cherish in their hearts.
Alexander Muir was one of those whose end of life seems almost as pure as its beginning. A spirit so blameless and placid, that we might almost think it had only been sent here, because it is a greater joy to be a man, and know by certain experiment the wonderful mystery of redemption, than to be satisfied with such knowledge as the sinless in heaven can gain. It is happy for us, amid the dark records of common lives, that here and there God permits us one such man, born to be purer than his fellows; so much lower than the angels that the taint of native sin has come with him into the world—so much higher than they, that the mantle of the Lord has fallen upon him, and that he stands accepted in a holiness achieved by the Master and King of all. Lichened over with the moss of age, in quiet places here and there five gracious souls of this happy class, and Alexander Muir was one.
But very human was the pure unworldly spirit, deeply learned in the antiquities of the country, with which his very life seemed woven. Happily proud of all its fame and all its great men, and interested even in its prejudices, there could have been found nowhere a guide more pleasant. Cuthbert and he insensibly began to use the language of intimates—to feel themselves old friends; and when the children in the streets came forward to pull the old man’s skirts, and solicit his notice, the young one, impatient at first of the delay, became soon so much interested in the universal acquaintanceship of his cheerful companion, as to linger well pleased where he chose to linger. Almost every one who met them had a recognition respectful and kindly for uncle Sandy. His passage through the street was a progress.
“But we are putting off our time,” said uncle Sandy at last. “This way, Mr. Charteris.”
They were then in the outskirts of the town; before a two story house, of smaller proportions than his own, the old man at last concluded his walk. The door stood open, and the sanded passage leading to a flight of stone stairs, floury and white with “camstane,” proclaimed the house to have more occupants than one. A door opening into this passage gave them a glimpse of a family apartment, where the mother stood at an ample tub washing, while children of all sizes overflowed the limits of the moderately clean kitchen. This woman, Mr. Muir addressed kindly, inquiring after her exuberant family first, and then for Miss Jean.
“Ou ay, there’s naething ails her,” was the answer, given not without some seeming ill-humour. “I was paying her the rent yestreen. She’s glegger about siller now, than ever I was a’ my days; and as for gieing a bawbee to a wean, or an hour’s mercy to a puir body, ye micht as weel move the heart o’ a whinstane; no that we’re needing ony o’ her charity. I have a guid man to work for me, that has been even on seven year wi’ ae maister, and there’s no mony could say that; but it’s awfu’ to see an auld body wi’ such a grip o’ the world.”
Leaving Miss Jean’s tenant, operating with angry energy upon the garments in her hands, they proceeded up the camstaned stair to the door of Miss Jean’s own habitation. A very small girl, dressed in a remote and far-away fashion, with a thick cap covering her short-cut hair, admitted them, recognising the old man with a smile of evident pleasure, and looking with a little alarm at his companion.
“You will tell Miss Jean it’s me, Katie, and a stranger gentleman I’ve brought to see her,” said uncle Sandy; “and when is she to let you home to see your mother?”
“Whisht,” said the little girl in a whisper; “she’ll hear. She’ll no let me at a’. Oh, if you would speak to her, uncle!”
“So I will, Katie, my woman,” said the old man kindly, patting the head of the little drudge as she showed them into a front room; “and mind you and be a good bairn in the mean time, and dinna be ill to her, even if she is ill to you: and now you must tell Miss Jean.”
The child fingered a moment. “If ye please, uncle—maybe she’ll no let me speak to you after—is Lettie ever coming back again?”
“Maybe, my dear; there’s no saying,” said uncle Sandy. “I will try if she can come to see you, or maybe I will take you to see her; but, Katie, my woman, you must tell Miss Jean.”
The little girl went away with a lighter step. “She is a faraway cousin,” said the old man, “a fatherless bairn, poor thing, needing whiles to eat bitter bread; if our bairns come to their kingdom they must take Katie Calder. I think the blood is warmer on our side of the house; any way none of them will grudge the bit lassie her upbringing.”
Miss Jean Calder’s best room was furnished with a set of old lugubrious mahogany chairs, and a solemn four-posted bedstead, with terrible curtains of heavy dark moreen. Neither the bed nor the room were ever used, the other apartment serving all purposes of kitchen, parlour, and sleeping-room to its aged mistress and her little handmaiden. They could hear sounds of some little commotion in it, as they sat down to wait. Miss Jean had preparations to make before she could receive visitors.
At last, having completed these, she entered the room. She was a tall and very meagre old woman, with very false black hair smoothed over the ashy wrinkled brow of extreme age, and a dirty cap of white net, hastily substituted for the flannel one in which she had been sitting by the fireside in the other room; an old, dingy, much-worn shawl and a rustling black silk apron covered the short-comings of her dress; but underneath the puckers of her eye-lids, keen, sharp, frosty eyes of blue looked out with undiminished vision; and, but for the pinched and grasping expression which seemed to have settled down upon them, there would have been intelligence still in the withered features, which once, too, had had their share of beauty. Some one says prettily that Nature, in learning to make the lily, turned out the convolvulus. One may trace something like this in the character of a family as it descends from one generation to another, as if, the idea of a peculiar creation once taken up, experiments were made upon the race, and gradations of the mind to be produced, were thrown, first into one position and then another, until the climax was put upon them all by the one commanding spirit in which the design was perfected. It is not uncommon. Miss Jean Calder was a lesser and narrower example of the mind of Martha Muir; eager in her young days to raise herself above her comrades, she had repelled with disdain the neighbours’ sons, who admired her; while yet she resented bitterly the neglect with which her honest wooers avenged themselves afterwards for her disdain. Then the selfish, fiery, proud woman began with firm industry to make a permanent provision for herself; and from that early period until about two years before this time, she had toiled early and late, like the poorest of labouring men. All that might have been generous and lofty—if there ever was such admixture in the ambition and pride of her youth—had evaporated long ago; a tyrant of unbending will in her small dominion—a hard, grasping, pitiless creditor to the miserable tenants who happened to be in her power—an unhappy spirit, clinging to the saddest dross of worldliness, she had become.
A sad object—but yet standing, to the mind of Martha Muir—if we may venture so to speak of the working of Him who creates all—in the relation of a study to a great painting—a model to a finished statue.
“Good morning to ye, Alexander Muir,” said Miss Jean, “who’s this ye’ve brought in your hand?”
“The gentleman is from Edinburgh, Miss Jean,” said Alexander. “He is a friend of Harry’s, and has been kind to him, as most folk are, indeed, who ken the lad.”
“I tell ye, Sandy, ye have made a fuil of that boy,” said the old woman harshly; “a wasterful spendthrift lad that would throw away every bawbee that he had, and mair, that he hasna; but he needna look to sorn on me if ever he comes to want. I have nae mair than I can do wi’ mysel: and where’s my twenty shillings, guid white monie, that I gied to fit him out?”
“He will pay it back some day, no fear,” said Alexander, “for I hear from this gentleman that Harry is like to prosper, poor man, and no doubt he will mind his friends, Miss Jean. The gentleman has been speaking to me of your guid sister, John Calder’s wife. He thinks he kens some good friends she had. Did you ever hear what part that family came from?”
“Ay, good friends? where are they? what’s like to come o’t?” said Miss Jean, fixing the frosty eyes, whose keen light contrasted so strangely with her ashy wrinkled face, on Cuthbert.
“I cannot tell,” said Cuthbert, warily, “it depends entirely upon what relationship I may discover—but it may be good for those who were kind to the Allenders, Miss Calder, if I find that they were relatives of the family I suppose.”
“Kind to the Allenders? Do you ken, lad, that it was my mother took them in, when their father died, and the poor things hadna a mortal to look after them?—kind to the Allenders, said he?—weel, weel—puir bairns, they’re baith gane.”
Something human crossed the sharp pinched selfish face—even in this degraded spirit, there was a memory of the fragrant far away youth.
“And Mr. Charteris,” said Alexander Muir, “would like to ken where they came from, Miss Jean—it is weel kent how good ye were to the orphans—I am meaning your mother—and no doubt you ken better about them than indifferent folk;—that was the way I troubled you, and brought Mr. Charteris this length.”
“Wha’s Mr. Charteris?”
“It’s the gentleman,” said the old man simply.
“If they left any papers,” interposed Cuthbert, “or books, or any relics indeed from which we might discover their origin—I should feel it a great obligation, Miss Calder, if you would assist me to trace it.”
“Obligation! I have little broo of obligation,” said the old woman with a grating laugh, mingled of harshness and imbecility. “I have seen ower mony folk that I obliged, slip away out of my hand like a knotless thread; but is there anything like to come of it? I dinna ken this stranger lad—I can put trust in you, Alexander Muir—that is in what you say, ye ken.”
“Well, Miss Jean, it depends upon what the gentleman finds out,” said the old man, a little proud of his tactics, and marvelling within himself at his own address, “if he can be satisfied by means of any papers or books or such like—I believe something good may come of it.”
The old woman wavered. “It’s a hantle trouble,” she said, “to put a frail woman like me to, that have but a little monkey of a lassie to help me in the house,—but there is a kist ben yonder in below the bed—and there may be some bits of things in it—I dinna ken—but neither her nor me are fit to pull it out.”
“Can I help?” said Cuthbert, hurriedly.
“Ye’re unco ready wi’ your offer, lad,” said Miss Jean, grimly, “it’s no for love o’ the wark, I judge, wi’ thae bit white lassie’s fingers—look at mine,” and she extended a long shrivelled hand, armed like the claws of a bird, “na, na, I ken naething about you—but if Katie and you can manage it, Sandy Muir—and she’s a fusionless brat, no worth the half of the meat she eats—I’ll be nae hindrance—ye can try.”