“He sent me hither, stranger as I am,
To tell this story.”
AS YOU LIKE IT.
“CUTHBERT,” said Richard Buchanan, “do, like a good fellow, go and tell
his wife.”
“Do you not see, man, that a stranger would alarm her more? Why make me
the messenger? You say she knows you, Dick.”
“Ay, she knows him,” said the second brother, “but she does not know
him for any good. You see, Cuthbert, Dick’s always enticing poor Muir
away--as he did to-night--and the wife wouldn’t flatter him if he went
up now.”
“I don’t care a straw for the wife,” said Richard angrily. “It’s yon
grim sister Martha, and that white-faced monkey of a girl. I say,
Cuthbert--you needn’t go in, and they don’t know you--do go before and
tell them he’s coming. I’ll come up with him myself in the noddy--just
to oblige me, Cuthbert, will you go?”
“He lives in Port Dundas-road, it’s not very far. John will show you
where it is,” urged Alick.
Cuthbert consented to go; and the obstreperous John was very much
subdued, and very ready to accompany his cousin to poor Muir’s
house. It was now nearly ten o’clock. The young men were all greatly
concerned, and in an inner room poor Harry was getting his leg
examined, and looking so deadly sick and pale as to alarm both surgeon
and friends. It was his temperament, so finely organized, as to feel
either pain or pleasure far more exquisitely than is the common lot.
“What will you say to them? Man, Cuthbert, are you not feared?” asked
John.
“Why should I be feared? I am very sorry for her, poor woman--but is
she such a fury, this wife?”
“It’s not the wife, it’s his eldest sister. Dick went home with Muir
one night when he was’nt quite able to take care of himself, and I can
tell you Dick was feared.”
“Dick was to blame--I do not feel that I am,” said Charteris; “but why
was he afraid?--did she say so much to him?”
“She did’nt say anything to him; but you know they say she’s awful
passionate, and she’s a great deal older than Harry; and she’s just
been like his mother. They’re always so strict, these old maids--and
Miss Muir’s an old maid.”
“Wait, then, till I see, John,” said Cuthbert; “don’t try to intimidate
me.”
“Yonder’s the house,” said John.
They had just passed a great quarry, across which the dome of some
large building loomed dark against the sky. Then there was a field
raised high above the road, with green grass waving over the copestone
of a high wall, and at the end of the field stood a solitary house.
A house of some pretension, for it boasted its street-door, and was
“self-contained;” and albeit the ground-floor on either side was
occupied by two not very ambitious shops, the upper flat looked
substantial and respectable, although decayed.
They were on the opposite side--the street was very quiet, and their
steps and voices echoed through it, so clearly that the loud John sank
into whispering and felt himself guilty. The light of a very pale moon
was shining into one of the windows. Looking up, Cuthbert saw some one
watching them--eagerly pressing against the dark dull panes; as they
crossed the street, the face suddenly disappeared.
“That’s one of them,” whispered John. “Isn’t it awful that a poor
fellow can’t be out a little late, but these women are watching for him
that way?”
Cuthbert did not answer. He was thinking of “these women,” and of their
watching, rather than of the poor fellow who was the object of it.
They had not time to knock, when the door was opened wide to them, and
a pale girl’s face looked out eagerly. She shrank back at once with a
look of blank disappointment which touched Cuthbert’s heart, “I--I beg
your pardon--I thought it was my brother.”
“Your brother will be here very soon. He has done a very brave thing
to-night, and has had a slight accident in consequence. I beg you will
not be alarmed,” said Cuthbert hastily.
“Oh! come in, sir, come in,” said the young sister. “A very brave
thing.” She repeated it again and again, under her breath.
“There’s the noddy,” whispered John, as he lingered behind. “I’ll wait
and help him in.”
The door admitted into a long paved passage, terminating in a little
damp “green.” John Buchanan remained at the door, while Cuthbert
followed the steps of his eager conductor, through the passage, and up
an “outside stair,” into the house. She seemed very eager, and only
looking round to see that he followed her, ran into a little parlour.
“Harry is coming. He has been helping somebody, and has hurt himself,
Martha; the gentleman will tell you,” exclaimed poor Harry’s anxious
advocate, placing herself beside the chair where sat a tall faded
woman, sternly composed and quiet.
“Is Harry hurt?” cried another younger and prettier person, who
occupied the seat of honour by the fireside.
“He has done a very brave thing;” Cuthbert heard it whispered
earnestly, into the elder sister’s ear.
He told them the story. The little wife was excited and nervous--she
began to cry. The sister Martha sat firmly in her chair, her stern face
moved and melting. The younger girl stood behind, with her arm round
her sister, and her bright tearful face turned towards Charteris. “Our
Harry--our poor Harry! it was this that kept him, Martha--and he saved
the child.”
“What shall we do? Will he be lame?” sobbed the little wife.
The grave Martha suddenly rose from her chair as the faint sound of
wheels reached them. “He is here. Rose, make the room ready for him,
poor fellow. Do not let him see you crying, Agnes. Come to the door,
and meet him.”
They went away hastily, leaving Charteris still in the room. Rose
vanished by another door into an inner apartment. They were overmuch
excited and anxious to remember the courtesy due to a stranger; and the
stranger, for his part, was too much interested to leave them until he
had seen how the sufferer bore his removal.
“Rose,” said a very small voice, “has Harry come home?--Rose!”
Charteris looked round him a good deal puzzled, for there was no
visible owner of the little voice. There certainly was a cradle in a
corner, but nothing able to speak could inhabit that.
“Rose!”
There was no answer. Then there followed a faint rustling, and then a
third door opened, and a little head in a white nightcap, looked out
with a pair of bewildered dark eyes, and suddenly shrank in again, when
it found the room in possession of a stranger. The stranger smiled
at his own somewhat strange position, and began to move towards the
door--but suddenly the cradle gave sound of life, and a lusty baby
voice began to cry. They were carrying the baby’s father then, into the
house. The good-humoured Cuthbert rocked the cradle.
Poor Harry was still very pale, though the surgeon who accompanied
him was as tender of him as the most delicate nurse, and the strong
young arms of the Buchanans carried the patient like a child. _They_
made their escape immediately, however,--but divided between sympathy
for the family, and a consciousness of his own somewhat ridiculous
position, Cuthbert stood at his post, rocking the refractory cradle.
They all passed into the inner apartment. He was alone again.
It was a very plain parlour, and various articles of feminine work were
scattered about the room; some small garment for the sleeping baby lay
on the ground, where it had fallen from the young mother’s hand; on the
table, where Martha had been sitting, was a piece of fine embroidery,
stretched on two small hoops which fitted closely into each other.
She had been engaged in filling up the buds and blossoms of those
embroidered flowers with a species of fine needlework, peculiar to
Glasgow and its dependent provinces. Another hoop, and another piece of
delicate work, remained where Rose had left it. The sisters of the poor
clerk maintained themselves so.
The baby voice had ceased. Groans of low pain were coming from the
inner room. Cuthbert felt that he did wrong to wait, and turned again
towards the door--but just then Miss Muir entered the parlour.
“The doctor thinks he will do well,” said Martha. “To-night I can
hardly thank you. But he is everything to us all--poor Harry!--and
to-night you will excuse us. We can think of nothing but himself. Come
again, and let us thank you?”
“I will come in the morning,” said Cuthbert, “not to be thanked, but to
hear how he is. Good night.”
She went with him to the door, gravely and calmly: when she had shut
it upon him, she stood still, alone in the dark, to press her hands
against her heart. Again--again!--so long she had hoped that this
facile temper would be steadied, that this poor brilliant wandering
star would be fixed in his proper orbit. So often, so drearily, as her
hopes had sunk into that blank of pain. Poor Harry! it was all they
could say of him. When others praised the gay wit, the happy temper,
the quick intelligence, those to whom he was dearest, could only say,
poor Harry! for the good and pleasant gifts he had, made the bitterness
of their grief only the deeper. Their pride in him aggravated their
shame. Darkest and saddest of all domestic calamities these women,
to whom he was so very dear, could not _trust_ the man in whom all
their hopes and wishes centred. He had not lost their affection--_it_
seemed only the more surely to yearn over and cling to him, for his
faults--but he had lost their confidence.
They could not believe him: they could not rely upon word or
resolution of his. When Harry was an hour later than his usual time of
home-coming, Martha grew rigid in her chair, her strong heart beating
so loud that almost she could not hear those footsteps in the street
for which she watched with silent eagerness; and the work fell from
the hands of the young wife, and Rose stole away, pale and agitated,
into the inner room, to watch at the window in the darkness; and even
the little sister--the child--was moved with the indefinite dread and
melancholy which is the grief of childhood. There were many grave
people who would have smiled at poor Harry’s sins, and counted them
light and venial, but so did not these.
To lose confidence in those who are most dear to us, to be able no
longer to trust word or vow--it is the climax of womanish misery,--a
calamity terrible to bear!
And Martha Muir, under this discipline, was growing old. Morning after
morning there had been a rebound of eager hope, only to be utterly
cast down when the night fell. She had had something of the mother’s
pride in him--had transferred to Harry the natural ambition, the eager
hopes and wishes, which for herself had all faded with her fading
prime--and now, she who had so strong a will, so resolute a mind, to
see this man with all his gifts, and the free scope he had to exercise
them, sinking, falling, tarnishing with mean sins, the lustre and
glory of his youth. Poor Harry! his stern sad sister said nothing more
of blame--but as she turned again along the damp passage, and up the
stairs, the heart within her sank into the depths. She pressed her
hands upon it. Strange sympathy between the frame and the spirit, which
makes it no image to say that there is a weight upon the heart!
“Martha, has Harry come home,” said the little sister, standing in her
white night-dress at the door of the small bed-closet which opened from
their parlour. The child’s eyes were bright and wide open, as if, in
her compulsory solitude in the closet, she had been steadily fixing
them to keep herself awake. “When I looked out I saw a gentleman. And
where’s Rose and Agnes, Martha. Is Harry no weel?”
“You must go to bed, Violet,” said Martha. “Poor Harry has got a
broken leg. He was in the Trongate to-night with the Buchanans, and
saved a child’s life--but you cannot see him to-night--the doctor is
with him just now, poor fellow; go to bed--you shall see him to-morrow.”
Little Violet began to cry, and the dark bewildered wide open eyes
looked up inquiringly into Martha’s face. Violet knew that Harry did
not need to be in the Trongate with the Buchanans, and that they all
waited for him very long before they would take their humble cup of tea.
“He will not be able to go out for a long time, Violet--and he saved
the bairn’s life,” said Martha, as she put her little sister into the
dark closet bed, which she herself and Rose shared, “and you must not
cry--rather be thankful that the little boy’s mother has not lost him,
Lettie, and ask God to bless poor Harry--poor Harry! do you know you
should always think of him, Violet, when you pray?”
“And so I do, Martha,” said little Violet, looking up through her tears
as she clung to her elder sister, the only mother she had ever known.
“Then you must let me go to him now, poor fellow,” said Martha. “Hush!
he will hear you crying--lie still, Lettie, and fall asleep.”
One of Violet’s tears rested on Martha’s faded cheek--other tears came
as she wiped it away. “Poor bairn--poor bairn,” said the elder sister,
“I might be her mother--and so I am.”
When she entered the sick-room, the surgeon was just preparing to leave
it. He had set the broken bone, and done all that could be done to give
his patient ease. Harry, greatly exhausted, and deadly pale, was lying
quiet, not strong enough to express even his suffering by more than a
faint groan--and his wife and Rose watched anxiously beside him. But
Harry’s mind was very much at ease, and tranquil. His accident covered
triumphantly any error he had committed, and his anxious attendants
were tranquil and satisfied too--for who could think of Harry’s fault
or weakness, when Harry’s generous bravery had brought him so much
pain. They were content to believe--and they did believe, poor eager
loving hearts! that no one else could have been so daring--no one else
had so little thought of personal safety--and were saying, with tears
in their eyes, what a providence it was for the child and its mother,
that “our Harry,” and no other, was there to rescue it.
“I am to sit up with him, Martha,” said the little wife.
“But there is the baby, Agnes,” said Rose; “you must let me sit up with
Harry.”
“You must go away, both of you, and sleep,” said Martha. “Hush, speak
low! I cannot trust any of you, bairns--I must watch him myself. No,
little matron, not you. I must take care of my boy myself--my poor
Harry!”
These words so often said--expressing so much love, so much grief--they
were echoed in the hearts of all.
Poor Harry! but his conscience did not smite him to-night: only his
heart melted into tenderness for those who were so very tender of him,
and involuntarily there came into his mind, gentle thoughts of all he
would do for them, when he was well again; for Harry never feared for
himself.
They left his wife with him for a short time, and returned to the
fireside of the little parlour--it was Saturday night, and some of
their delicate work had to be finished, if possible, before the twelve
o’clock bell should begin the Sabbath-day.
They were but lodgers in this house. The mistress of it, a decayed
widow--strong, in her ancient gentility--had three daughters, who
maintained themselves and an idle brother by the same work which
occupied the Muirs. The collars and cuffs and handkerchiefs of richer
women, embroidered by other workers, principally in Ayr and Ayrshire,
were given out at warehouses in Glasgow, to the Muirs and Rodgers, and
multitudes of other such, to be “opened,” as they called it--which
“opening” meant filling up the centre of the embroidered flowers with
delicate open-work in a variety of “stitches” innumerable. Very expert,
and very industrious workers at this, could, in busy times, earn as
much as ten weekly shillings--and thus it was that Martha and Rose Muir
supported themselves and their little sister, and were no burden on the
scanty means of Harry.
“Well, Martha?” said Rose, breathlessly, as the door of the inner room
closed upon the little wife.
Martha could not lift up her eyes to meet her sister’s. “Well, my
dear?”
“I am sure,” said Rose, “I am sure, you are quite satisfied to-night.”
“Surely, surely,” said the less hopeful sister--a sigh bursting, in
spite of her, out of her heavy heart.
“Surely, surely--what do you mean, Martha?” said the dissatisfied Rose.
“Poor Harry! you are surely pleased with him to-night.”
“I said so, Rose,” said Martha. “Poor Harry!”
The younger sister did not speak for a moment--then she put her work
away and covered her face with her hands.
“You will never trust him--you will never trust Harry, Martha!”
Martha sighed. “I will trust God, Rose.”
Rose Muir dried her eyes, and took up her work again--there was nothing
to be said after that.
Martha was rocking the cradle softly with her foot; and Martha,
mother-like, was fain to divert the younger heart, and make it lighter
than her own. “Our poor wee Harry,” she said with a smile. “Did you see
what a strange nurse he had to-night?”
“Was it the gentleman?” said Rose; “did you say anything to him,
Martha--he would think us very ungrateful.”
“I can trust the person who rocks our cradle,” said Martha. “He is
coming back to-morrow to be thanked.”
“On Sabbath-day!”
“It is charity to come to Harry,” said Martha. “Poor Harry, how every
one likes him!”
Their eyes were becoming wet again--it was a relief to hear a quiet
knock at the parlour door.
The visitor was the younger Miss Rodger--a large, soft, clumsy,
good-humoured girl, with a pleasant comely face. She wore a broken-down
faded gown, which had once been very gay, and a little woollen
shawl, put on unevenly, over her plump shoulders, and her hair in its
enclosure of curl-papers for the night; ends of thread were clinging
to the fringes of the shawl, and the young lady was tugging it over
her shoulders, conscious of deficiencies below; but the good-humoured
offer to “take the wean,” or do anything that might be needed, covered
the eccentricities of Miss Aggie’s general house dress and appearance.
The precious child was not entrusted to her, but the hoyden’s visit
enlivened the sisters, and immediately after, they finished their work,
and Martha saw Rose and Agnes prepare for rest, and then took her own
place noiselessly by her brother’s bedside.