"Don't remember just what I did say. Nothing to do you no harm, anyway. I might have said you were never an easy chap to get on with. I might have said that, or I mightn't. Think I did. Don't remember."
The eyes of the two men met for a moment, Anderson's bright and fixed. He divined perfectly what had been said to the Englishman, Lady Merton's friend and travelling companion. A father overborne by misfortunes and poverty, disowned by a prosperous and Pharisaical son--admitting a few peccadilloes, such as most men forgive, in order to weigh them against virtues, such as all men hate. Old age and infirmity on the one hand; mean hardness and cruelty on the other. Was Elizabeth already contemplating the picture?
And yet--No! unless perhaps under the shelter of darkness, it could never have been possible for this figure before him to play the part of innocent misfortune, at all events. Could debauch, could ruin of body and soul be put more plainly? Could they express themselves more clearly than through this face and form?
A shudder ran through Anderson, a cry against fate, a sick wondering as to his own past responsibility, a horror of the future. Then his will strengthened, and he set himself quietly to see what could be done.
"We can't talk here," he said to his father. "Come back into the house. There are some rooms vacant. I'll take them for you."
McEwen rose with difficulty, groaning as he put his right foot to the ground. Anderson then perceived that the right foot and ankle were wrapped round with a bloodstained rag, and was told that the night before their owner had stumbled over a jug in Mrs. Ginnell's kitchen, breaking the jug and inflicting some deep cuts on his own foot and ankle. McEwen, indeed, could only limp along, with mingled curses and lamentations, supported by Anderson. In the excitement of his son's appearance he had forgotten his injury. The pain and annoyance of it returned upon him now with added sharpness, and Anderson realised that here was yet another complication as they moved across the yard.
A few words to the astonished Mrs. Ginnell sufficed to secure all her vacant rooms, four in number. Anderson put his father in one on the ground floor, then shut the door on him and went back to the woman of the house. She stood looking at him, flushed, in a bewildered silence. But she and her husband owed various kindnesses to Anderson, and he quickly made up his mind.
In a very few words he quietly told her the real facts, confiding them both to her self-interest and her humanity. McEwen was to be her only lodger till the next step could be determined. She was to wait on him, to keep drink from him, to get him clothes. Her husband was to go out with him, if he should insist on going out; but Anderson thought his injury would keep him quiet for a day or two. Meanwhile, no babbling to anybody. And, of course, generous payment for all that was asked of them.
But Mrs. Ginnell understood that she was being appealed to not only commercially, but as a woman with a heart in her body and a good share of Irish wit. That moved and secured her. She threw herself nobly into the business. Anderson might command her as he pleased, and she answered for her man. Renewed groans from the room next door disturbed them. Mrs. Ginnell went in to answer them, and came out demanding a doctor. The patient was in much pain, the wounds looked bad, and she suspected fever.
"Yo can't especk places to heal with such as him," she said, grimly.