“For the sweet Spring that bringeth joy to all,
Frets the pale sufferer bound to painful couch,
Or chamber dim and still.”
THE following evening was signalised in the quiet house of Mr.
Buchanan, by such a discussion as never before startled its respectable
echoes. Cuthbert Charteris, lawless as Ishmael, lifted his hand against
every man, and refused to confess himself worsted, though George
Buchanan and Sons, as a firm, and as individuals, not to speak of Adam
Smith, and the law of supply and demand, were set in battle array
against him.
The subject of controversy was one which would have made the blood
boil with indignation and wrath in the veins of Harry Muir, being
nothing less, indeed, for a starting-point, than his salary, which the
advocate, looking on the matter in a theoretical point of view, and not
admitting into his consideration the “everybody-else” whose practice
had so large a share in forming the opinions of his cousins, condemned
very strongly and clearly, to the great wrath of Richard and Alick, and
the half-convinced irritation of their father, as quite an unfair and
inadequate remuneration for the full time and labours of an--at least
partially--educated man. Cuthbert had not at all a commercial mind, and
the natural right and justice continually overshadowed with him the
laws of supply and demand. It was impossible to persuade him, that any
law required of him a systematic wrong, nor that a man’s own personal
conscience had nothing to do with his position as an employer of other
men. Cuthbert would not be convinced--neither would Dick and Alick--and
Mr. Buchanan himself, head of the firm and the house, took up his
candle abruptly and went off, in some excitement, to his own apartment,
there to sleep upon sundry propositions which had entered, like arrows,
sharp and irritating, into a mind which would hear reason, whether its
possessor chose or no.
Cuthbert remained some weeks in Glasgow--he had little practice to
neglect at home, and the western magnates made much of him, greatly
esteeming in their hearts the metropolitan “rank” so very different
from their own, which they affected to despise;--and the intercourse
which he had with the Muirs, already bore a character of friendliness
and confidence, such as not unusually elevates an acquaintance formed
at some family crisis, into a warm and lasting friendship. But
Charteris at length was going home, and, not without many jibes from
his young cousins, about the strange attraction which drew him so often
to visit the invalid, he set out from the office for the last time to
see Harry Muir.
Very different is the look which this bustling street bears in its
every-day occupation from the Sabbath quietness which hushes all its
voices. Great carts are constantly passing with ostentatious din and
clamour, as if proud of their load--light unburdened ones, flying up
and down, with the driver perched on his little movable seat, and the
end of the whip floating like a streamer over his horse’s head--while
now and then wearied travelling people come slowly down, carrying box
and carpet bag, fresh from the tedious journeys of the canal. Violet
Muir stands at the door of the little room wherein Mrs. McGarvie
lives, and eats, and sells butter, brose-meal, and “speldrens,”
lovingly conversing with Tiger, Mrs. McGarvie’s great ferocious,
sinister-looking dog. He is by no means prepossessing, this friend of
Violet’s, and has a wiry yellow coat, and a head largely developed
in the animal parts, and small in the intellectual, with a fiery red
truculent eye;--yet, nevertheless, he is Violet’s friend, and the
little girl like the fairy Titania, has beauty enough in her own eyes
and heart to glorify her friend withal--so Tiger is sufficiently
adorned.
Shaking hands kindly in passing, and patting the little shy head which
drooped under his eye, Cuthbert went up stairs through the always open
door to the now familiar parlour. Harry was rapidly recovering; he had
been removed from his room for the first time to-day, and now lay on
the sofa, while his little wife gaily danced about the crowing baby
before him. They made a pretty group, as Agnes leaned over the great
arm chair, and little Harry put forth his dimpled hand to stroke his
father’s cheek, but there was a little peevishness and impatience in
the face which the rosy child’s fingers passed over so lightly. The
invalid was slightly querulous this morning.
“Just the time of all the year that I enjoy most,” said Harry, “and to
be shut up here now! It tries a man’s patience--open the window, Rose.”
“Rose got cold last night, when you had the window open,” said Agnes
with humility, “and the baby is not well--it may hurt yourself too,
Harry.”
“Nonsense. Rose can sit somewhere else. Open the window.”
“Surely, if you wish it, Harry,” said Rose promptly.
The day was bright, but cold, and the wind blew in, with a sudden gust,
through the opened window, tossing poor Rose’s hair about her face, and
shaking her with a momentary shiver, but saying nothing, she withdrew
quietly to a corner and resumed her work. Rose had never ventured all
her life to dispute any one of Harry’s caprices.
“One likes to have a glance at the world again,” said Harry, raising
himself on his pillows. “Yonder comes the postman, Agnes--see, he
is holding up a letter--run, and get it, Rose; and yonder is Rab
McGarvie, carrying a peck of brose-meal to somebody, and little Maggie
McGillivray clipping at the door. It is pleasant to see them all, and
this wind, how fresh and wholesome it is. Lift the window a little
more, Martha--just for a moment.”
“It is very cold, Harry,” pleaded the little wife.
“Nonsense,” repeated Harry, “don’t you think it is quite warm for the
season, Mr. Charteris. Martha!”
Martha rose with sudden impatience, threw down her work, and rapidly
closed the window. She did not speak, but Cuthbert saw a strange
combination of the strongly-marked lines on her forehead, and a close
compression of her lips, which did not look very peaceable. The act
itself was not very peaceable certainly, but there was a suppressed
passion in her look and manner, which had a singular effect upon the
stranger.
Harry Muir said nothing, but he threw himself back upon the pillow,
sullen and offended. There was a scared timid expression on the face of
the young wife, and little Violet glided up behind Martha, and laid her
hand upon her sister’s shoulder in childish deprecation.
Just then Rose entered with the letter. “It is from Ayr, from my
uncle,” she said. “Shall I open it, Harry?”
“As you please,” said Harry, sulkily.
She cast a hurried glance round the room, pausing for a moment with a
searching, inquisitive, painful look, as her eye fell on Martha. Then
she came to her brother’s side, and laid her hand softly with a half
caress upon his arm.
“Shall I read what my uncle says, Harry, for everybody’s benefit? Uncle
Sandy always writes to the whole of us, you know.”
There was no answer. Cuthbert took up his hat, and rose with
embarrassment. The scene was becoming painful.
“You are not going away, Mr. Charteris,” said Agnes, anxiously; “pray
don’t go away so soon, when this is your last visit too; and I am
sure Harry has never had an opportunity before to thank you for your
kindness, nor indeed any of us, except Martha. Martha had to make all
our thanks.”
“Did you, Martha?” asked Rose.
Cuthbert turned away his head. He did not wish them to think that he
saw through those little palpable affectionate artifices of theirs to
heal the new-made breach.
“Martha!” repeated Rose, under her breath.
And Cuthbert looked stealthily at this passionate face. The rigid lines
were relaxing slowly; the muscles of the mouth moving and trembling;
fierce and strong anger melting into inexpressible tenderness and
sorrow. Vain anger, bootless yearnings, which might spend their
strength for ages, like the great sea upon the sand, and never change
its form.
“Mr. Charteris, I fear, got but few thanks from me,” said Martha,
slowly; “but Mr. Charteris has seen us since, and knows that to do
kindness to Harry is to have the greatest gratitude we can feel.”
There was another pause, and the stranger could easily perceive that,
facile as Harry was elsewhere, he liked to reign at home, and did not
very readily forgive any resistance to his will. He had, indeed, been
very querulous and unreasonable this morning, and this was only the
climax of a series of petty selfishnesses which had exhausted Martha’s
powers of long-suffering.
“Shall we see you soon in Glasgow again,” asked Harry, at length,
turning once more to Cuthbert.
“In a few weeks, perhaps; I may have some business,” said Cuthbert,
with embarrassment. “You will be strong again then, I hope. My uncle
commissions me to say that you must take full time to recover, and not
hurry to the office too soon.”
“Mr. Buchanan is always very kind,” said Agnes.
“Is he?” said Cuthbert, smiling, “scarcely kind enough, I am disposed
to think; but I believe it is not the inclination that is defective
in my uncle. These trammels of ordinary usage--doing as other people
do--have a great effect upon men occupied as he is. He does not take
time to judge for himself, and exercise his own generosity and justice.”
Cuthbert concluded in some haste. Quite consistent as this apology was
with his own previous thoughts, it suddenly occurred to him that it was
quite irrelevant and unnecessary here.
“Mr. Buchanan has done perfect justice to Harry, I fancy,” said Martha
Muir, raising her thin figure from its habitual stoop, and speaking in
a tone of cold _hauteur_, which, like the passion, revealed a new phase
of her character to Cuthbert, who watched her with interest; “and as
for generosity, Mr. Charteris, your uncle seems by no means deficient
where there is any scope for that. I see his name often in the papers.
You judge Mr. Buchanan hardly.”
Cuthbert comprehended, and was silent. Between the rich man’s
indifference and the poor man’s pride it was difficult to steer; and
Richard and Alick Buchanan were not more haughtily offended at the
accusation of treating their clerks unfairly than was Harry Muir’s
sister at the suggestion that his employer’s generosity could reach him.
“This poor leg of mine is nearly a month old now,” said Harry, “and
except some grave visits from Gilchrist, no one has ever taken the
trouble to inquire for me. I suppose your cousins are more pleasantly
occupied.”
“I rather think Dick is afraid,” said Cuthbert.
He was singularly unfortunate in his choice of subjects. A little red
spot began to burn on Harry’s cheek; poor fellow, he wanted to be angry.
“Afraid!”
“I mean, they would rather not encounter the ladies till you are quite
recovered. Persuading you to go with them, you know, burdens their
conscience, because it exposed you to this accident. Not, of course,
that any one was to blame,” said Cuthbert, hurriedly, and with some
confusion.
“Their conscience is over scrupulous,” said Harry, looking round him
with a smile of defiance. “I went with them for my own pleasure; so far
as there is any blame it is entirely mine.”
Poor Harry!--weak and yielding as the willow in the wind, there was no
blame to which he was so nervously susceptible as this--no accusation
which he denied and defied with so much anger.
Cuthbert turned again to the window. Just before him, in a half-built
street, which struck off at right angles from the road to Port Dundas,
Maggie McGillivray sat in the cold sunshine on the step of her mother’s
door, “clipping,”[1] with a web of tamboured muslin on her knee and
scissors in her hand. Maggie, as Violet Muir could have testified,
was only sixteen, though her “clipping” had helped the family income
for several years, and her own money had purchased for her the little
bright red tartan shawl which just covered her stout shoulders, but
left her arms unincumbered and her hands free. On the half-paved road
before her stood a mill-girl, with whom work was “slack,” and who had
spent a full hour this morning elaborating the beautiful plaits and
braids of her crisped hair. This young lady, with much gesture and many
superlatives, was describing to the busy little worker an itinerant
show which had fixed its temporary quarters at Port Dundas, wherein
there was a giant and a dwarf, a beautiful lady who danced, and a boy
who had pink eyes, and which she herself was on the way to see; but
Maggie clipped and shook her head, unfolding the web, to show her
tempter how much had to be done before one o’clock, when she must lay
it by, to take up the pitcher with her father’s broth, and carry to him
his wholesome dinner; and when the idler sauntered on, to seek some
less scrupulous companion, Maggie returned to her labour with such
alacrity, that Cuthbert fancied he could almost hear the sound of the
shears, and the loud clear lilt of the “Learig,” to which they kept
time.
Yet Maggie McGillivray was only a humble little girl, while Harry Muir,
in his way, was an accomplished man. Cuthbert looked back upon the
young man’s fine intelligent face, on which the proud look of defiance
still lingered, with a sigh of pity and regret--not so would _he_ have
overcome the temptation.