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.