“The best compost for the lands
Is the master’s feet and hands,”
he says with a laugh, as he wraps his plaid about him, and sets out in the face of the keenest wind that sweeps out of the highlands; and Agnes, with the new baby on her arm, sits by the fireside with radiant smiles, and Martha looks after him from the window, where now the jasmine clings in long brown fibres to the wall, without a single adorning leaf, and in her heart tries to forget all the dread and all the bitter thoughts which mingled in the summer-time with the sickly odour of those jasmine flowers.
Yet sometimes Harry is abstracted and full of care. They believe that he is thinking then of errors which they believe are now happily past for ever; for no one in the house but Martha, ever remembers, that all these improvements must cost more than Miss Jean’s thousand pounds—and Martha finds all her attempts at inquiry evaded. She never can succeed in learning where Harry gets the means of accomplishing so much, and it is only now and then, when an incautious murmur about interest or legal charges, reaches her, that she has ground for her conjecture that he has borrowed from others besides Miss Jean. But Martha believes with trembling that Harry’s mind is changed—that his purposes are no longer fluctuating and unsteady—that he has reached at last the great strength and motive power of the Christian life; and she can trust all lesser things to the regulation of that which is above all.
And they never say poor Harry—never except when they are commenting with full hearts and eyes upon some new proof of Harry’s kindness—and then it is said in applauding, grateful love, and not in pity. No longer poor Harry—for is he not a great landed proprietor, making such a stir in his district as no Allenders has done before him for a hundred years? and has not Sir John Dunlop invited Allenders of Allenders to dine with him on Christmas-day?
They are very glad it is Christmas-day and not the new year—the Scottish family holy-tide—and Harry comes home greatly elated from Sir John Dunlop’s where they have treated him with the greatest distinction, like a guest of special honour. Lady Dunlop, too, promises to call on Mrs. Allenders, and Agnes blushes deep for pleasure, and is fluttered and excited, and sings to the baby such a song of triumph, that instead of being lulled to sleep as she intends, he opens his blue eyes wide, and seizing on the lace about her pretty neck, tears it with exultation and delight. Happy baby! young enough to do mischief with impunity! Little Harry, now two full years old, who does not at all admire this supplanting baby, and is still sore about his own dethronement, clenches his fist at him in anger and envy, and is the only person in the fireside circle who has sympathy with Agnes’s tribulation about her perished lace.
Next week Cuthbert Charteris is coming for a single day to pay them a visit, for Cuthbert is very busy now, laying the foundation of a great business; and in honour of Cuthbert there is to be a party—the first which they have attempted—when the covers are to be taken off the drawing-room chairs, and Agnes and Rose are to appear in full costume. Youthful and inexperienced as they all are, this is a great event to them, and Agnes innocently reports to Harry various elegancies which she would like to have for her table and her pretty drawing-room, before the notable day; and Harry lays before them a plan of Miss Dunlop’s for a conservatory, which she herself has strongly recommended to him. Harry thinks he will set about it immediately, and it will not cost much, and Agnes and Rose are delighted and cannot sufficiently admire the artistic talent of Miss Dunlop.
But to-morrow Harry has to pay fifty labourers—to-morrow a quarter’s salary falls due to the farm manager—to-morrow he has promised to pay for some fine Ayrshire cows, now luxuriating in the byre at Allender Mains—and to-morrow, alas! there are two separate dividends of interest, which cannot be postponed—Miss Jean’s, and a heavier creditor than Miss Jean.
So Harry retires to his library when they have left him, and chafes himself a little over the trouble of so many complicated concerns, and feels a momentary shiver pass over him, as he wonders how he will do when the great sum he lately lodged in his bank at Stirling shall be exhausted—what then, Harry? with more than three hundred of interest to pay, and only four hundred and fifty pounds? And Harry’s brow contracts for a moment, and a shadow steals over his face; but immediately it brightens. “Why by that time, to be sure, the farm will have doubled its value, and I shall be a rich man,” he repeats half aloud, with a short laugh of satisfaction, and going to his writing-table, he puts down in permanent “black and white,” a list of the pretty things in silver-work and upholstery, which he has promised to order before Agnes’s party, and throwing himself into an easy-chair, reads a novel for an hour with the lightest heart in the world.
While Agnes visits little Harry in his crib to kiss him as he sleeps, and folds the new-come brother into her own bosom, and lies down to her happy rest; and Rose, between sleeping and waking, dreams, with a heart full of sweet anticipations; and Martha in the darkness looks out upon the falling snow, and on the pallid moon lightening Demeyet, and bids the stern voice of her experience be still, and let her hope—Hope! she holds it to her heart with a desperate clutch, as a drowning mother holds her child, and is still, waiting for the will of God.