A RAY OF LIGHT.
Sunday was a dreary day. It rained again, and the fog was so thick that
it seemed dim twilight all day long in Gladys's new home. Her uncle did
not go out at all, but dozed in the chimney-corner between the intervals
of preparing the meagre meals. On Sunday Abel Graham attended to his own
housekeeping, and took care to keep a shilling off Mrs. Macintyre's
pittance for the same. Gladys, though unaccustomed to perform household
duties except of the slightest kind, was glad to occupy herself with
them to make the time pass. The old man from his corner watched with
much approval the slender figure moving actively about the kitchen, the
busy hands making order out of chaos, and adding the grace of her sweet
young presence to that dreary place. On the morrow, he told himself, he
should dismiss the expensive Mrs. Macintyre. Yes, he had made a good
investment, and then the girl would always be there, a living creature,
to whom he might talk when so disposed.
'It isn't at all a bad sort of place, my dear,' he said quite
cheerfully. 'At the back, in the yard, there's a tree and a strip of
grass. In spring, if you like, you might put in a pennyworth of seeds,
and have a flower.'
This was a tremendous concession. Gladys felt grateful for the kindly
thought which prompted it.
'One tree, growing all by itself. Poor thing, how lonely it must be!'
The old man looked at her curiously.
'That's an odd way to look at it. Who ever heard of a tree being lonely?
You have a great many queer fancies, but they won't flourish here.
Glasgow is given up to business; it has no time for foolish fancies.'
Gladys gravely nodded.
'Papa told me so. Is it very far to Ayrshire, Uncle Abel?'
The old man gave a quick start.
'To Ayrshire! What makes you ask the question? What has put such a thing
into your head?'
'Papa spoke of it so often, of that beautiful village where you and he
were born. He was so sorry I could not pronounce it right, Mauchline.'
As that sweet voice, with its pretty English accent, uttered the
familiar name, again a strange thrill visited the old man's withered
heart.
'No, you don't say it right. But I wonder that he spoke of it so much;
we were poor enough there, herd boys in the fields. We couldn't well
have a humbler origin, eh?'
'But it was a beautiful life--papa said so--among the fields and trees,
listening to the birds--the same songs Burns used to hear. I seem to
know every step of the way, all the fields in Mossgiel, and every tree
in the woods of Ballochmyle. Just before he died, he tried to sing,--oh,
it was so painful to hear his dear, trembling voice,--and it was "The
Bonnie Lass o' Ballochmyle." If it is not very far, will you take me
one day, when you have time, Uncle Abel, to see Mauchline and Mossgiel
and Ballochmyle?'
She looked at him fearlessly as she made her request, and her courage
pleased him.
'We'll see. Perhaps at the Fair, when fares are cheap. But it will only
be to please you; I never want to see the place again.'
'Oh, is not that very strange, Uncle Abel, that papa and you should
think of it so differently? He loved it all so much, and he always said,
when we were rich, we should come, he and I together, to Scotland.'
'He was glad enough to turn his back on it, anyhow. If he had stayed in
Glasgow, and attended to business, he might have been a rich man,' said
he incautiously.
'_You_ are not rich, though you have done so,' said Gladys quickly,
looking at him with her young, fearless eyes. 'I think papa was better
off than you, because he could always be in the country, and not here.'
The undisguised contempt on the girl's face as she took in her
surroundings rather nettled the old man, and he gave her a snappish
answer, then picked himself up, and went off to his warehouse.
Next day Gladys had to rise quite early--before six--and with her own
hands light the fire, under the old man's superintendence, thus
receiving her first lesson in the economy of firelighting. She was very
patient, and learned her lesson very well. While she was brushing in the
hearth she heard another foot on the passage, and was further astonished
by the tones of a woman's voice giving utterance to surprise.
'Mercy on us! wha's he gotten noo?'
The words, uttered in the broadest Scotch, and further graced by the
unlovely Glasgow accent, fell on the girl's ears like the sound of a
foreign tongue. She paused, broom in hand, and looked in rather a
bewildered manner at the short stout figure standing in the doorway,
with bare red arms akimbo, and the broadest grin on her coarse but not
unkindly face.
'I beg your pardon, what is it?' Gladys asked kindly, and the surprise
deepened on the Scotchwoman's face.
'Ye'll be his niece, mebbe--his brither's lass, are ye, eh? And hae ye
come to bide? If ye hiv, Almichty help ye!'
Gladys shook her head, not understanding yet a single word. At this
awkward juncture the old man came hurrying along the passage, and Mrs.
Macintyre turned to him with a little curtsey.
'I'm speakin' to the young leddy, but she seemin'ly doesna understand. I
see my work's dune; mebbe I'm no' to come back?'
'No; my niece can do the little that is necessary, so you needn't come
back, Mrs. Macintyre, and I'm much obliged to you,' said the old man,
who was polite always, in every circumstance, out of policy.
'Ye're awn me wan an' nine, fork it oot,' she answered brusquely, and
held out her brawny hand, into which Abel Graham reluctantly, as usual,
put the desired coins.
'Yer brither's dochter, genty born?' said Mrs. Macintyre, with a jerk of
her thumb. 'Gie her her meat; mind, a young wame's aye toom. Puir thing,
puir thing!'
Abel Graham hastened her out, but she only remained in the street until
she saw his visage at one of the upper windows, then she darted back to
the kitchen, and laid hold of the astonished Gladys by the shoulder.
'If ye ever want a bite--an' as sure as daith ye will often--come ye to
me, my lamb, the second pend i' the Wynd, third close, an' twa stairs
up, an' never heed him, auld skin o' a meeser that he is!'
She went as quickly as she came, leaving Gladys dimly conscious of her
meaning, but feeling intuitively that the words were kindly and even
tenderly spoken, so they were not forgotten.
When the water had boiled, the old man came down to supervise the making
of the porridge--a mystery into which Gladys had not been yet initiated.
Three portions were served on plates, a very little tea put in a tiny
brown teapot, and breakfast was ready. Then Abel went into the passage
and shouted to his young assistant to come down.
Gladys was conscious of a strong sense of curiosity as she awaited the
coming of the 'imp,' which was his master's favourite name for him, and
when he entered she felt at first keenly disappointed. He was only a
very ordinary-looking street boy, she thought, rather undersized, but
still too big for his clothes, which were stretched on him tightly, his
short trousers showing the tops of his patched boots, which were several
sizes too large for him, and gave him a very ungraceful appearance. He
had not even a collar, only an old tartan scarf knotted round his neck,
and from the shrunk sleeves of the old jacket his hands, red and bony,
appeared abnormally large. But when she looked at his face, at the eyes
which looked out from the tangle of his hair, she forgot all the rest,
and her heart warmed to him before he had uttered a word.
'This is Walter Hepburn--my niece, Mary Graham; and you may as well be
friendly, because I can't have any quarrelling here,' was the old man's
introduction; then, without a word of thanksgiving, he fell to eating
his porridge, after having carefully divided the sky-blue milk into
three equal portions.
The two young persons gravely nodded to each other, and also began to
eat. Gladys, feeling intuitively that a kindred soul was near her, felt
a wild desire to laugh, her lips even trembled so that she could
scarcely restrain them, and Walter Hepburn answered by a twinkle in his
eye, which was the first bright thing Gladys had seen in Glasgow. But
though she felt kindly towards him, and glad that he was there, she did
not by any means admire him, and she even thought that if she knew him
better she would tell him of his objectionable points. For one thing, he
had no manners; he sat rather far back from the table, and leaned
forward till his head was almost on a level with his plate. Then he made
a loud noise in his eating, which disturbed Gladys very much--certainly
she was too fastidious and delicate in her taste for her present lot in
life. When that strange and silent meal was over, the old man retired to
the warehouse and left the children alone. But that did not disconcert
them, as might have been expected. From the first moment they felt at
home with each other. Walter was the first to speak. He leaned up
against the chimneypiece, and meditatively watched the girl as she began
deftly to clear the table.
'I say, miss,' he said then, 'do you think you'll like to be here?'
The English was pretty tolerable, though the accent was very Scotch.
'No. How could I?' was the frank reply of Gladys. 'But I have nowhere
else, and I should be thankful for it.'
'Um.'
Walter thrust his hands into his diminutive pockets, and eyed her with a
kind of meditative gravity.
'Are you always thankful when you should be?' he inquired.
'I am afraid not,' Gladys answered, with a little shake of her head.
'You live here all the week, don't you, till Saturday night, when you go
home?'
'Yes; and I'm always thankful, if you like, when Monday comes.'
Gladys looked at him in wonder.
'You are glad when Monday comes, to come back here? How strange!--and
the other place is home. Have you a father and mother?'
'Yes, worse luck.'
Again Gladys looked at him, this time with strong disapproval.
'I don't understand you. It is very dreadful, I think, that you should
talk like that.'
'Is it? Perhaps if you were me, and had it to do, you'd understand it. I
wish I was an orphan. When a man's an orphan he may get on, but he never
can if he has relations like mine.'
'Are they--are they wicked?' asked Gladys hesitatingly.
The lad answered by a short, bitter laugh.
'Well, perhaps not exactly. They only drink and quarrel, and drink
again, whenever they have a copper. Saturday and Sunday are their head
days, because Saturday's the pay. But I'm better off than Liz, because
she has to be there always.'
'Is Liz your sister?'
'Yes. She isn't a bad sort, if she had a chance, but she never will have
a chance there; an' perhaps by the time I'm able to take care of her it
will be too late.'
Gladys did not understand him, but forbore to ask any more questions.
She had got something fresh to ponder over, another of the many
mysteries of life.
'I say, he's a queer old buffer, the boss, isn't he?' asked Walter, his
eye twinkling again as he jerked his thumb towards the door. 'They say
he's awful rich, but he's a miserable old wretch. I'd rather be myself
than him any day.'
'I should think so,' answered Gladys, looking into the fine open face of
the lad with a smile, which made him redden a little.
'I say, you might tell me why you think I'm so much better off than him.
I sometimes think myself that I'm the most miserable wretch in the
world.'
'Oh no, you're not; you are quite young, and you are a man--at least,
you will be soon. If I were you I should never think that, nor be afraid
of anything. It isn't very nice to be a girl like me; with you it is so
different.'
'Well, perhaps I ought to be thankful that I'm not a woman. I never
thought of that. Women have the worst of it mostly, now I think of it.
I'm sorry for you.'
'Thank you.'
Gladys looked at him gratefully, and both these young desolate hearts,
awaking to the possibilities and the sorrows of life, felt the chord of
sympathy responding each to the other.
'He gives me five shillings a week here and my meat. They take it all at
home, and I want so awful to go to the night school. Do you know, it
takes me all my time to read words of three or four letters?'
'Oh, how dreadful! I can read; I'll teach you,' she cried at once.
'Perhaps it would do till you can go to school.'
'Could you? Would you?'
The boy's whole face shone, his eyes glowed with the light of awakened
hope. He felt his own power, believed that he could achieve something if
the first great stumbling-block were removed. Something of his gladness
communicated itself to Gladys--showed itself in the heightened, delicate
colour in her cheek, in the lustre of her eyes. So these two desolate
creatures made their first compact, binding about them in the very hour
of their meeting the links of the chain which, in the years to come,
love would make a chain of gold.
[Illustration]