CHAPTER XI.
Three thousand ducats for three months, and Antonio bound.
MERCHANT OF VENICE.
“The land is aye guid security,” said Alexander Muir doubtfully to himself, as he slowly brushed his Sabbath-day’s hat, and glanced from the window to where one or two of his younger visitors, carrying their work idly in their hands, strayed with wistful looks past his strawberry beds. “There are hungry e’en among these bairns, and what can we expect, poor things? I must promise them a lawful feast in the afternoon, if they’ll no pick any berries the time I’m away; and then there’s my two hundred pounds if it should come to the worst—but two hundred’s a far way off a thousand; and the house and the garden are worth but little siller, and to sell them would break my heart. Well, I can aye see what Miss Jean says; and if all belonging to ye have done hard things for ye, in their day, Harry, my man, this is no the least.”
“Bairns,” continued the old man from the window, “do ye see yon strawberries yonder among the leaves? I’ll be out an hour—you might have time to make an end of them if ye liked—but I ken there is far mair honour among ye than the like of that. Maggie, my dear, never you mind the rasps—they can stand steady of themsels, and need no prop. Beatie, come away from the strawberries like a good bairn.”
“It’s just a branch that’s lying ower the border—somebody’s sure to tramp on’t,” explained Beatie.
“Never you mind, my woman, so it’s no you that does it,” answered the old man. “Enter not into temptation—turn your backs upon them like good bairns; and if I see there’s good work done when I come back, ye shall have a table spread out, and I’ll tell Mrs. Tamson to send in some cream, and ye shall gather the berries for yoursels.”
One or two smiling faces looked up and nodded thanks, and there was a very general quickening of needles; but Mary Burness who had “cast out” with her “lad” the night before, drooped her head pathetically and sighed. Poor Mary, in her melancholy, had a soul above strawberries!
Having delivered this his last message, and given to Jessie, his little handmaiden, special directions to prepare for this simple entertainment, Alexander Muir took his staff in his hand, and set out solemnly to call upon Miss Jean.
He had left Allenders only the previous day, and had left it in good spirits, giving Harry particular charge about the “schooling” of Violet and Katie, which the old man perceived ran some risk of being neglected, at least by the heads of the house. But Uncle Sandy had great hopes of Harry, and was much interested about the occupation which Harry desired for his leisure. Nevertheless, the old man walked slowly towards the dwelling-place of Jean Calder. He needed to be a brave man who should venture to ask money from her.
“Ou, ay, she’s aye steering,” said, discontentedly, the woman who occupied the lower story of Miss Jean’s house, “weary tak her! I have had nae peace o’ my life since ye took that little brat Katie away. She fees my wee lassie wi’ ten shillings in the year to kindle her fire, and do a’ her needs, and expects me forbye to wash her claes into the bargain, as if I hadna plenty to do wi’ a man, and a muckle laddie, and a’ thae weans! I wadna have let Aggie gang, but just I thought five shillings—though it didna come till the end o’ the half year—couldna weel come amiss where there’s aye sae muckle to do wi’t, and Aggie was just to gang up in the morning. Instead of that it’s Aggie here, Aggie there, the haill day through; and she never as muckle as says, have ye a mouth—except for that drap parritch in the morning, and sour milk.”
“Poor woman! she gets more ill than you,” said the old man, compassionately; “but Aggie has mother and father to look after her, and see she’s no ill used; whereas little Katie had but a widow woman to look to, who couldna have another mouth brought hame to her; and that makes a great difference; so now I’ll go up the stair and see Miss Jean.”
But the old man’s heart almost failed him, as he paused at the half-opened door. He had no opportunity of escape, however, for the sharp, anxious, miser-ear had heard the approaching footstep; and the shrill, quivering voice of Miss Jean Calder demanded impatiently, “Wha’s there?”
“It’s me,” said Alexander Muir, meekly. “If ye’re well enough, and your lane, I’ll come in, Miss Jean.”
“Ay, come in, and gie us the news,” answered Miss Jean, appearing at the kitchen-door in a thick muslin cap, with great flaunting borders, borrowed from Aggie’s indignant mother. The poor lean cheeks looked thinner and more gaunt than usual within the wide full muslin wings which flaunted out from them on either side; and hot as this July day was, Miss Jean had been sitting, with an old faded woollen shawl over her shoulders, close by the fire. “Ye may come in, Sandy, since it’s you, and gie us the news—just inbye here. It’s nae guid standing on ceremony wi’ auld friends like you. Come inbye to the fire, Sandy Muir,” said Miss Jean, graciously.
The old man entered the little kitchen with some trepidation, though he hailed this singular courtesy as a good omen, and was emboldened for his difficult errand.
The kitchen was small, and hot, and stifling, for the July sun, very imperfectly kept out by a torn curtain of checked linen and a broken shutter, accomplished what Miss Jean’s penurious handful of fire scarcely could have done. A small round deal table stood before the fire-place; opposite to it was the door of Miss Jean’s “concealed bed,” which she closed in passing; while between the fire-place and the window a wooden “bunker,” dirty and wounded, filled up all the wall. Miss Jean herself sat by the fireside in a high wooden elbow-chair, furnished with one or two loose thin cushions, which scarcely interposed the least degree of softness between the sharp corners of the chair, and the sharper corners of her poor worn, angular frame. A little black teapot stood by the fire—for thrift Miss Jean never emptied this teapot; it always stood baking there, and always had its scanty spoonful of new tea added to the accumulation of half-boiled leaves, till it would bear no further addition, and compelled a reluctant cleaning out.
But on the top of Miss Jean’s bunker, a strange contrast to the penurious meanness of all her other arrangements, lay a great ham, enveloped in greasy paper, and roasting slowly in an atmosphere to which it was very little accustomed. A certain look of recognition given by Uncle Sandy to this very respectable edible, and an evident importance with which he stood endowed in the eyes of Miss Jean, explained how it came here—a peace-offering from Allenders to the wealthy miser.
“It was weel dune of ye, Sandy, to gar them mind the auld wife—very weel dune; and ane canna say what may come o’t. I’m no meaning in siller,” added Miss Jean, hurriedly. “I wadna encourage a mercenary spirit—ye ken that—but in guid will, Sandy—guid will; and guid will’s a grand thing amang relations; and the ham’s no ill eating. They would get it cheap yonder away noo—far cheaper than the like of you or me?”
“You see,” said Uncle Sandy—with elaborate skill, as he thought, good simple heart, “they would have nane but the very finest, it being for you, Miss Jean, and so I cannot undertake to say it was cheap—when ye get the best of anything, it’s seldom to call cheap.”
“Ye’re a grand man to learn me, Sandy Muir,” said Miss Jean, with a laugh of derision. “Me, that have been a careful woman a’ my days, never gieing a penny mair for onything than what it was worth to me. I’ve heard the like of you, that pretend to be philosophers, arguing against ane, when ane wanted to prig down a thing honestly, that what was asked was naething mair than the thing’s absolute worth. But what have I to do wi’ absolute worth? What is’t worth to me? That’s my wisdom, Sandy Muir; and to hear you, that everybody kens has just had as little discernment as a bairn, and been imposed on by the haill town, telling me what’s cheap and what’s dear! I reckon if Solomon had been here, he would have found out at last the new thing that he took sic bother about, honest man.”
“Weel, Miss Jean, I may have been imposed on—I’ll no say,” said the old man, looking slightly displeased. “Most folk have, one time or another; but you’re no asking what kind of a place they’ve gotten, nor about the bairns themsels.”
“Yell think yoursel up the brae, Sandy,” said Miss Jean, “uncle, nae less, to a laird; but I’m less heeding, I’m thankful, of the vanities of this warld. Is’t a’ guid brown earth the lad’s siller comes from, or is’t siller in the bank, or what is it? But you needna tell me about their grand claes and their braw house, for my mind’s a different kind of mind from that.”
“It’s a’ guid brown earth, as you say, Miss Jean,” said the old man, eagerly seizing this opening to begin his attack; “that is, a’ but some houses; and Harry like a thrifty man, is giving his attention to the land, and says, with good work, it could be made twice as profitable. You will be glad to hear of that, Miss Jean.”
“I would be glad to hear it, if I didna ken that nae profit in this world would ever make yon wasteful callant thrifty,” said the old woman, leaning back in her chair, and pressing the great borders of her cap close to her face with two dingy, shrivelled hands. “Do ye think I dinna ken as weel as you that he’s gaen and gotten a grand house, and deckit out yon bit doll o’ his as fine in ribbons and satins, as if she were a countess? Na, Sandy, I’ll no gie up my discrimination. Harry Muir will come to want yet, or you may ca’ me a lee.”
“No fears of Harry Muir,” said the old man warmly. “I have myself, as I was just telling him, two hundred pounds of my ain, besides the garden and the house, and I’ll come to want mysel’, I am well assured of that, before want touches Harry Muir—but that’s no the question; you see he could double his incoming siller in the year, if he could do justice to this farm; and the auld farmer, a Mr. Hunter, a very decent sponsible man, acknowledged the same thing to me, but said he was too old to learn himsel’.”
“Twa hundred pounds! do you mean to say that you’re twa hundred pounds afore the world, Sandy?” said Miss Jean. “Man, I didna think you had sae muckle in ye!—but take you care, Sandy Muir, my man—take you care of the mammon of unrighteousness—it’s a fickle thing to haud it sicker enough, and no to haud it ower fast.”
And as she spoke, a slight twitch passed over the hard muscles of her face; yet she spoke unconsciously, and had not the remotest idea that she condemned herself.
“And what would be your counsel, Miss Jean?” said Uncle Sandy, not without a little tremor. “It would cost siller at first, you see, to work upon this farm; but no doubt it’s sure to answer, being just like sowing seed, which is lost for a time, but in spring is found again in the green ear and blade. The lad is anxious to be well advised, and no begin without good consideration; so what would you say?”
“I’ll tell ye what I would say, Sandy Muir,” said the miser, spreading back her muslin wings, and leaning forward to him, with them projecting from her face on either side, and her dingy hands supporting her sharp chin; “I would say that a penny saved was as guid as tippence made; and that he should begin now, at the beginning of his time, and lay by and spare, and when he’s an auld man like you, he’ll hae a better fortin than he’ll ever get out of the land. That’s my counsel, and that’s the way I’ve done mysel; and if he makes as gude an end o’ his life as I’ve done o’ mine, I’ll let you ca’ him a thrifty man.”
“We’ll nane of us be here to call him so,” said Uncle Sandy, “we’ll baith be in a place where gathered siller is an unthrifty provision. Whiles I think upon that, Miss Jean.”
“Ou, ay, the like of you are aye thinking upon that,” said the old woman with fiery eyes; “but I tell ye I’m nane so sure of what may come to pass; for I’ve seen mony a hopefuller lad than Harry Muir—mony a ane that thought in their ain mind they would read the name on my grave-head twenty years after it was printed there, and I’ve pitten my fit upon their turf for a’ that. I’m no wishing the lad ill—I’m wishing naebody ill that doesna meddle wi’ me; but I’ve seen as unlikely things—and you’ll see whether I’m no a sooth prophet, Sandy Muir.”
And suddenly withdrawing her hands, and nodding her feeble head in ghastly complacency, the old weird woman leaned back again in her chair.
“God forbid ye should! God forbid it!—and spare, and bless, and multiply the lad, and make him an honour and a strength in the land, long after the moss is on my headstane,” said Alexander Muir, with solemn earnestness. “And God bless the young bairns and the hopeful,” added the old man, eagerly, after a pause, “and deliver them from evil eye that grudges at their pleasaunce, or evil foot of triumph on their innocent graves! And God forgive them that have ill thoughts of the sons of youth that are His heritage—blessings on their bright heads, ane and a’!”
And when he paused, trembling with earnest indignant fervour, the old man’s eye fell upon Miss Jean. She had risen to take down from the high dusty mantel-piece a coarse blue woollen stocking which she had been knitting. Now she resumed her seat, and began with perfect composure to take up some loops which her unsteady fingers had drawn out as she took down the stocking. Either she had not listened to Uncle Sandy’s fervent blessing, or was not disposed to except at it—certainly she settled down in her chair with feeble deliberation, pulling about her thin cushions peevishly, and with no sign or token about her of emotion of any kind. Her very eye had dulled and lost its fire, and you saw only a very old miserable solitary woman, and not an evil spirit incarnate of covetousness and malice, as she had looked a few minutes before.
There was a considerable pause, for the old man did not find it so easy to overcome the tremor of indignation and horror into which her words had thrown him, and he now had almost resolved—but for a lingering unwillingness to disappoint Harry—to say nothing of his special mission. At last the silence was broken by Miss Jean herself.
“Ill times, Sandy Muir, awfu’ ill times; for auld folk, such like as me that have just their pickle siller and naething mair, nae land to bear fruit nor strong arm to work for them, Sandy; the like of such times as thir, are as bad as the dear years.”
Poor, forlorn, worn-out life! unconsciously to herself, the old man’s blessing on the young, whose strength she grudged and envied, had touched a gentle chord in her withered heart. Nothing knew she of what softened her, but for the moment she was softened.
“Are ye getting little interest for your siller, Miss Jean?” said Uncle Sandy, immediately roused.
“Little! ye might say naething ava, and no be far wrang,” answered Miss Jean, briskly. “A puir dirty three pund, or twa pund ten, for a guid hunder. Ye’ll be getting mair for your twa, Sandy Muir, or ye wadna look sae innocent! Where is’t, man? and ye’re an auld sleekit sneckdrawer, after a’, and ken how to tak care o’ yoursel.”
“I ken ane, Miss Jean, would gie ye five pounds for every hundred, and mony thanks into the bargain,” said the old man, his breath coming short and his face flushing all over with anxious haste; “and a decent lad and landed security. I might have told you sooner, if I had kent; but, you see, I never thought it would answer you.”
“Answer me! I find guid siller answer me better than maist things that folk put their trust in,” said Miss Jean, laying down her stocking, and lifting up the frosty cold blue eyes, which again twinkled and glimmered with eagerness, to the old man’s face. “Ye ken ane; and does he gie you this muckle for your twa hunder pounds?”
“Na, my twa hundred is out of my ain power, in the Ayr bank; besides, its mair siller this lad wants—mine would do him nae service.”
“This lad! wha does the auld tricky body mean?” said Miss Jean, fixing her sharp eyes curiously on Uncle Sandy, “five pounds in the hunder—ye’re meaning he’ll gie me that by the year, and keep a’ my siller where I never can lay hand on’t again, Sandy Muir?”
“At no hand,” said the old man, with dignity, “the best of landed security, and the siller aye at your call, and the interest punctual to a day.”
Miss Jean’s mouth watered and her fingers itched; it was impossible to think of this treasure without yearning to clutch it. “Ane might put by thretty pounds in the year,” she said, musingly. “And how do you ca’ this lad when ye name him, Sandy Muir?”
“I’ve seen his name in the papers,” said the old man, with mingled exultation and anxiety, “and there it stands, ‘Harry Muir Allenders, Esq., of Allenders,’ but at hame here we call him your nephew and mine, Harry Muir.”
Miss Jean uttered a passionate cry, rose from her seat, and flung the stocking with all her feeble might in the face of her visitor. “Eh, Sandy Muir, ye auld, leein, artful, designing villain! was’t no enough that ye came ance already wi’ you lang-tongued writer and reived my house of guid papers that were worth siller, but ye would come again, ye smooth-spoken, white-headed hypocrite, to seize my very substance away from me, and take bread out of a lone woman’s mouth to make a great man of a graceless prodigal. Ye auld sinner! ye hard-hearted theiving spoiler, that I should say so! how dare ye come to break a puir auld woman’s heart, and tantalize the frail life out of me, wi’ your lees and deceits about siller? Oh, Sandy Muir!”
And Miss Jean threw herself down once more in her hard chair, and began to wipe the corners of her eyes; for the disappointment of her ruined expectations was really as hard upon her miserable soul as the failing of fortune or fame is at any time to its eager pursuer, who has just lifted his hand to grasp what Fate remorselessly snatches away.
“Ye’ll come to yoursel, Miss Jean—ye’ll come to yoursel,” said Uncle Sandy quietly, as he laid the stocking on the table.
And after another burst of fierce invective, Miss Jean did come to herself.
“And he had to send you—he couldna get a decent writer to take up such an errand for him! but I’ll see him come to want, as a waster should, and he need ask nae charity from me!”
“Nor never will,” said the much-enduring Uncle Sandy; “and Mr. Macer, whom ye ken weel, Miss Jean, for the first writer in this haill town, is instructed on the subject. Maybe, that may satisfy ye, if ye dinna believe me; but it might be best when he comes to see ye, no to throw your wires at him.”
“Weel, Sandy Muir, ye’re no such an ill body after a’,” said Miss Jean, with a shrill laugh; “and what better did ye deserve, ye auld sinner, after pitting me in such grand hopes? But if there’s land to trust to, past yon prodigal himsel—and I wouldna gie a strae in the fire for his bond—and your ain undertaking, and your twa hundred pounds, Sandy Muir; for ane could aye easy take the law of you, being close at hand, and neighbour like—I’ll no say but I might hearken, if I was secure of my siller.”
And with this gracious deliverance, to himself quite unexpected, Alexander Muir gladly left Miss Jean to order the cream for his strawberries, and to write a note to Harry. The old man drew a long breath, and wiped his brow with the most grateful sense of relief when he once more stood at the door of his own garden, and saw the table spread upon the green, and the expectant girls only waiting the permission of his presence to plunge down among the green, cool strawberry-leaves, and bring forth the fragrant fruit. Good Uncle Sandy looked round upon the young bright heads with a swelling heart, and said “blessings on them” once more. The evil thoughts of Miss Jean’s envious and unlovely age struck the old man as if with a vague presentiment of danger. His heart stretched out strong protecting arms around them. “Yea, children are God’s heritage,” he said to himself in encouragement and hope; and Maggie, and Beenie, and Beatie and Mary, all felt a more delicate tenderness than usual, in the smiles and kind words of their entertainer.