CHAPTER IV.
A pair of friends—though I was young
And Matthew seventy-three.
WORDSWORTH.
“Eh, wee Hairy!” cried Miss Aggie Rodger, “your faither’s a muckle man noo; do you ken that, my pet? and you’ll ride in a coach, and get a grand powney o’ your ain, and eat grossets and pu’ flowers a’ the simmer through; do you hear that, my wee boy? But ye’ll have to gang away, Hairy, and what’ll we a’ do wanting ye?”
“It’s me that’s to get the pony,” said Violet. “I’m to ride into Stirling to the school every day, and I want Martha to buy a pillion for Katie Calder, and then, Miss Aggie, I can sit before, and Katie behind, like the lady in Lochinvar; but it’s me that’s to get the pony.”
“Preserve me, what a grand lady!” said Miss Aggie, throwing up little Harry in her arms; “but the wee boy’s the heir for a’ that—are ye no, Hairy?”
“But I want to ken how we’re to get to Stirling,” said Violet. “I ken about the Castle and the Ladies’ Rock, and all the places where the Douglas played, and where Lufra chased the deer, and King James coming down the High Street, too; but Mr. John, will you tell me how we’re to get to Stirling?”
“I never was there myself, Lettie,” said the idle man; “but there’s a map of Scotland in that auld book—see, down yonder in the corner, behind ‘Hervey’s Meditations’—that’s it—and we’ll look and see.”
The book was a dingy and tattered one, and beside it lay a very old copy of Young’s “Night Thoughts,” which Violet brought with her in her hand.
“See now, this is the road,” said the poor, good-natured Johnnie, with whom Lettie was an especial favourite, as he spread out the worn map on his knee, and taking a pin from the lappel of his coat, traced with it the route. “But your brother, you know, Lettie, went to Edinburgh first, and then sailed up here—and this is Stirling.”
“Eh, how the water runs out and in!” exclaimed Violet; “and we have a boat all to ourselves. Mr. John, will you tell me what this book is—is it good for reading?” and Violet contemplated, with a slightly puzzled expression, the dense pages of blank verse in which there appeared no story to catch her eye, or interest.
“Very good for reading,” answered the oracular Mr. John; “but now, Lettie, put the books back, and run down to Mrs. McGarvie’s like a good girl, and bring me a new pipe—run, Lettie!”
There was a strange alliance between the child and the man. Lettie, not always very tolerant of messages, put down the books without a murmur, and obeyed.
It was now May, and the day was hot and slumbrous. Miss Jeanie Rodger was at the warehouse, carrying back the work; Miss Aggie making boisterous fun with little Harry at the window; while proud, pensive, faded Miss Rodger sat very unpresentable in another room, repairing worn finery, which never could have been suitable for her, and was suitable for no one now.
The mother, worn out by two or three successive encounters with tax-gatherers, whose visits she bitterly resented at all times, and among whom she classed the collectors of those innocent water and gas accounts, which lay upon the “bunker” in the kitchen, was sleeping away her wrath and fatigue; everything was still in the house, except the crowing of little Harry. And little Harry’s mother and aunts were making a new frock for him in the parlour—a work which, for very joy, made slow progress: they had so many other things to think and talk about.
Looking into this pleasant work-room to see that all was right, before she obeyed the command of Mr. John, Violet went bounding down the stair, and out into the street.
Mrs. McGarvie’s Tiger sat painfully on the very narrow step of the door, where he could be shaded from the sun; sat very upright and prim, poor fellow, compelled by this circumscribed space. Mrs. McGarvie’s pretty Helen, with her beautiful hair and her bare feet, on short time at the mill, lovingly clipped with Maggie McGillivray across the way, but was very languid under the full sunshine, and grew quite ashamed of herself as she watched with awe and admiration the vigorous shears of her companion; while Mrs. McGarvie in the easy dishabille of a loose short gown, shook her clenched hand at her daughter from the threshold, and called her an idle cuttie at the top of her voice.
It was a drowsy day, and some one looking very brown and dusty, came toiling down the sunny, unshaded road,
“Eh, it’s Harry!” cried Violet Muir—and affectionately grasping the pipe in one hand, she ran up the road to secure Harry with the other.
“Who’s to smoke the pipe? Lettie, you must go no more messages like this, for you’re a young lady now,” said Harry, drawing himself up. “Is it for that idle fellow, John Rodger? What a shame, Lettie!”
“He’s my friend; I like him best,” said Violet, decidedly.
“He’s a mean fellow!” said Harry. “See that you don’t go anywhere for him again!”
For Harry had just now been a little irritated. Some one had met him, who did not know his new dignity, and who in the old days had been the superior of Mr. Buchanan’s clerk; but having extinguished his wrath by this condemnation of poor John Rodger, and highly amused to notice the violent flush of anger which rose upon the little defiant face of Lettie, Harry entered the house in great spirits.
“He’s turning steady, that lad,” said Mrs. McGarvie, looking after him with a sigh. “I’m sure it’s a great blessing; and a’ body mends o’ their ill courses but our guid man.”
Harry had come by the coach; the economic tardiness of the canal was not necessary to Harry now; and except that he was sunburnt, and hot, and dusty, the quick inquisitive eye of Rose decided in a moment that there was nothing in his appearance to-day to rouse Martha’s suspicions.
“Don’t let Lettie run about so,” said Harry, when their first greetings were over. “It is great presumption of those Rodgers; don’t let her go errands for them. Lettie is clever, Martha; we must make something of her. And now, when will you all go home?”
“Is that all that remains now, Harry?” exclaimed Agnes, clapping her hands. “May we go at once? Is it so near as that?”
“Well, I don’t think you should,” said Harry. “Let me get all the alterations made, and the place furnished, and then you can come. But Charteris said he was sure you would like better to be there at once, and have a hand in the improvements; so I promised him to give you your choice.”
“Oh, surely! Let us go now,” said Agnes.
“Eh, I would like!” echoed little Violet.
“But I should not like,” said Harry. “I want you to go when the place is complete and worthy of you. If you saw it now, you would think it a dingy, melancholy desert; but just wait for a month or so! There is a good deal of wood to be cut down, and they tell me the estate may be much improved; and to have a thousand pounds to begin with, you know, is great good fortune. There is a new church building close by—I think of giving them a hundred pounds, Martha.”
“A hundred pounds!” exclaimed Agnes and Rose.
The eyes of both were wet. It was so great a gladness to be able to give such a gift, and then to propose it was so good of Harry! They were both overpowered with his liberality.
“A Syrian ready to perish was my father,” said Martha, slowly. “Yes, it is very fit you should bring the handful of first-fruits; but bring it justly, Harry. Spare it. Do not give it to the church and spend it too.”
“Martha is thinking of our old fifteen pounds a quarter,” said Harry, gaily. “Martha forgets that you don’t need to put off an account to pay your seat-rent now, Agnes. Why, only think of a thousand pounds—what a sum it is! It seems to me as if we could never spend it. Look here, Lettie.”
And Harry triumphantly exhibited a hundred-pound note. No one present had ever seen such a one before; and simple Harry, with a touch of most innocent pride, had preferred this one piece of paper to the more useful smaller notes, simply to let them see it, and to dazzle their eyes with a whole hundred pounds of their own.
“Eh, Harry!” exclaimed Violet, with reverential eyes fixed on Harry’s new pocket-book, “is’t a’ there?”
Harry laughed, and closed the book; but they all looked at it a little curiously, and even Agnes felt a momentary doubt as to whether a thousand—ay, or even a hundred—pounds were very safe in Harry’s keeping.
“No, it’s not all here,” answered the heir; “it’s all in the bank but this. Now, Agnes, am I not to have any tea? And we must consult about it all. The improvements will cost some two hundred pounds; then we’ll say a hundred and fifty to furnish the drawing-room—that’s very moderate. Then—there are already some things in the dining-room—say a hundred for that, and another hundred for the rest of the house. How much is that, Lettie?”
Lettie was counting it up on her fingers.
“Eh, Harry, what a heap of siller!”
“Five hundred and fifty; and this,” said Harry, complacently laying his finger on his pocket-book, “six; and a hundred to the kirk, seven hundred and fifty; and say fifty pounds for a good horse and Lettie’s pony, and somewhere near a hundred for a carriage, and then—whew! there’s nothing left. I must begin to calculate again—a thousand pounds—”
“But, Harry, you said it was only nine hundred,” said Rose.
“Well, so it is—it’s all the same. What’s a hundred here or there?” said Harry the Magnificent. “I must just make my calculations over again—that’s all.”
“But can people encumbered as you are afford to keep a carriage on four hundred and fifty pounds a-year?” asked Martha.
“Oh, not in the town, of course; but the country is quite different. Besides, Allenders will improve to any extent; and I suppose I may double my income very soon. Don’t fear, Martha, we’ll be very careful—oh, don’t be afraid.”
And Harry sincerely believing that no one need be afraid, went on in his joyous calculations—beginning always, not a whit discouraged, when he discovered again and again that he was calculating on a greater sum than he possessed; but it soon became very apparent, even with Harry’s sanguine arithmetic, that it was by no means a difficult thing to spend a thousand pounds, and a slight feeling of discontent that it was not another thousand suddenly crossed the minds of all.
“I see,” said Harry, slowly, “it’ll have to be fifty to the church, Martha. Fifty is as much as I can afford. It would not be just, to myself and to you all, to give more.”
Poor Harry! The magnificence of liberality was easier to give up than the other magnificences on which he had set his heart.