Albeit I neither lend nor borrow;
Yet, to supply the ripe wants of a friend,
I’ll break a custom.
MERCHANT OF VENICE.
“ANOTHER day--I must give another day,” said Cuthbert as he hesitated
between the Edinburgh and the Glasgow coach. “Nobody but I can do this
business, and the business must be done, let my own do what it will--so
now for Glasgow and my uncle.”
And Cuthbert climbed to the top of the coach, and discovered that
the winds between Stirling and Glasgow are very keen in November. He
buttoned his coat tightly, and drew his plaid around him, with care and
repeated exertions; but neither coat nor plaid, nor both together, made
such an excellent defence against cold, as the glow at his heart.
The office of the Messrs. Buchanan is unchanged. It is true, one
clerk has gone to Australia, and another to the West Indies--that
one is in business for himself, and two are dead; but still Mr.
Gilchrist’s massive silver snuff-box glitters upon his desk, and still
he contemplates its long inscription, and taps it lovingly, as he takes
another pinch. Again, there is one clerk in the office who is a wit,
and sings a good song, and is “led away,” and still Dick and Alick, and
John Buchanan, are cool and business-like in the counting-house, and
enjoy themselves boisterously out of it; though there are rumours that
Dick is to be married, and “settle down.”
The young Buchanans stare at Cuthbert’s mourning--the crape on his hat,
and his grave face--and wonder what far-away cousin must be dead, whom
they have never heard of, and feel an involuntary guiltiness when they
look upon their own coloured dress. Very far off and very poor must
this cousin have been; they are all immediately prepared to defend
themselves and to exclaim that they got no intimation.
“What is this for, Cuthbert?” said Mr. Buchanan hastily, pointing to
the hat in Cuthbert’s hand.
“Do you remember Harry Muir, uncle?” said Cuthbert. “Poor Harry! those
bits of crape are all that remain to him, of this world’s friendship,
and honour.”
Mr. Buchanan started, and was greatly shocked. “Poor fellow! I thought
he was prospering now, and doing well--poor fellow! poor fellow! When
did it happen, Cuthbert?”
“I heard the other day he had turned out very wild,” said Alick
Buchanan.
“He always was; there was no making anything of him in the office,”
added Dick hastily.
Poor Harry! his old tempter and opponent felt a little twinge when he
saw Cuthbert’s mourning, and remembered him, without any particular
satisfaction, of his own “joke,” as he called it, about his cousin and
his sister Clemie.
“Poor Harry! some of the best men in the county followed him to his
grave,” said Cuthbert, who understood very well the material he had
to work upon, “and a universal regret went with him. Uncle, I have a
little business to talk over with you, if you will permit me. Are you
at leisure now?”
“What’s going to happen, Cuthbert?” said Mr. Buchanan, smiling: “a
bride coming home, eh? and what will your mother say to that? But
come along, I’ll go down with you--you shall have the benefit of my
experience.”
Mr. Buchanan’s plain unpretending one-horse carriage waited for him in
the street below. The young men, very independent and uncontrolled,
came home in such manner as pleased them; but Cuthbert had to wait
till the streets, shining with lights, and loud with many voices, had
faded into darkness behind them, and they were steadily proceeding over
a quiet country road, before he could bring his business before his
attentive uncle.
“I have very lately returned from the funeral of Harry Muir,” said
Cuthbert, whose face had been gradually becoming grave, and who had
begun to grow anxiously impatient of their lighter conversation; “and
just now, uncle, I come direct from his house, where his sister has
been consulting me about her future arrangements. One cannot but be
interested in this family--they clung to him with such devotion; and
all they care for now, seems to be to maintain his good name, and clear
his son’s inheritance. Poor Harry! few men are loved so, uncle.”
“He was a very unsteady lad, Cuthbert,” said the merchant, shaking his
head.
“It might be so,” said Cuthbert. “I do not dispute that; but now he
is dead; and I have set my heart on having help to Martha--I mean to
his elder sister, who has charge of everything. She needs immediate
assistance, uncle. I state my business, you see, very briefly; and now
refuse if you will. I am not to be discouraged by any number of Nays.”
“Assistance!” exclaimed Mr. Buchanan hastily, fumbling in his
breast-pocket for his purse, “do you mean to say they’re so far reduced
as that? No, no--no refusal, Cuthbert; I don’t often shut my heart when
there is real charity in the case.”
“I know you don’t, uncle, and this would be a great charity,” said
Cuthbert quick, feeling his face flush in the darkness; “but no
alms--no alms. I will tell you the true state of the case now. The
estate has had very little cultivation, and produces very indifferent
crops. Poor Harry during the last year had begun to improve it, and
expended a great deal of money on the land; but now he is dead, and
the money spent, and a heavy debt upon the estate. They could pay the
interest off their income, but could not touch the principal. Now, what
are they to do, uncle?”
“Why, Cuthbert, a man of your sense! only one thing is possible--of
course, sell the land.”
“But Martha will never sell the land. Martha will labour at it with
her own hands before she alienates the child’s inheritance,” said
Cuthbert, getting excited. “I want money for her to carry on the works
with; and this money she will have, one way or another, I know. My
own scheme, uncle,” added Cuthbert, with a short laugh, under which
a great deal of anxiety was hidden, “is that you should give her a
thousand pounds, and charge no interest for a year or two, till she
gets everything in progress. I think this is the best possible solution
of the problem, kindly and Christian-like--”
While Cuthbert spoke, Mr. Buchanan employed himself deliberately in
buttoning his coat over the comfortable breast pocket, where his purse
trembled with a presentiment.
“Thank you, Cuthbert,” said the merchant drily, “I have no thousand
pounds to throw away.”
There was a pause; for Cuthbert, though not at all discouraged, needed
to recover himself a little before he resumed the attack.
“The land could be sold to-morrow for ten thousand pounds, or more
than that--I speak hastily,” said Cuthbert. “It is burdened to the
amount of five thousand, but after paying that, there remains abundance
to satisfy your claim, and I can answer for the strictest honour
in your debtor’s dealing. Poor Harry! This Martha--this sister of
his--clings to his every project. You could not see it without being
deeply moved, uncle. She has a strong, ambitious, passionate mind, and
his was a weak and yielding one; yet she clutches at every one of the
rapidly changing projects which he took up and then threw down as toys
of a day, and confers upon them a sort of everlastingness through the
might of will and resolution with which she adopts them. Uncle, you
must help Martha.”
Mr. Buchanan sat by him in silence, and listened, hastily fastening
and unfastening the one particular button which admitted his hand to
his warm breast-pocket, competent and comfortable. The good man was
naturally benevolent to a high degree--a propensity which Cuthbert,
who was his uncle’s favourite and chosen counsellor, encouraged by all
means in his power; but the rules of business was at Mr. Buchanan’s
finger ends, and their restraint came up upon him like a natural
impulse, so that he actually did not know, good simple man, that his
natural will was always towards the charity, and that this restraint
was something artificial which interposed between him and his natural
will.
“Perfectly unbusiness-like, Cuthbert,” said the merchant. “I wonder
greatly why you should speak of such a thing to _me_. A man accustomed
to regular business transactions has no tolerance for such affairs as
this--they are out of his way. Your landed gentry or rich people, who
don’t know anything about where their money comes from, or how it is
made--they are the people to carry such a story to.”
Very true in the abstract, good Mr. Buchanan--nevertheless, your nephew
Cuthbert knows, as well as if you had told him, that your purse begins
to burn your breast-pocket, and leaps and struggles there, desiring to
get the worst over, and be peacefully at rest again. Cuthbert knows it;
and Cuthbert takes advantage of his knowledge.
“Martha is trustee, and has charge of all,” said Cuthbert; “and there
is little Mrs. Allenders herself, and her two babies. Little Harry,
the heir, is a fine, bold, intelligent boy, young as he is, and will
want no care they can give him--that is very sure. Then there are two
other children quite dependant on Martha--her own little sister, and
another, a distant relation, poor and fatherless whom they have kept
with them ever since they went to Allenders. Now there can be no doubt
it would be easier for them to go away to some little, quiet, country
house, and live on what they can earn themselves, and on the residue
of what the land will bring; but Martha would break her heart. It is a
generous devotion, uncle. She proposes to take the management of the
farm herself, and has actually begun to make herself mistress of this
knowledge, so strange for a woman; while the exertions of the others,
and of her own spare hours, are to provide the household expenses, she
calculates. All this is for Harry, and Harry’s heir; and it is no burst
of enthusiasm, but a steady, quiet, undemonstrative determination.
Come, uncle, you will help Martha?”
“Is that the old sister--the passionate one?” asked Mr. Buchanan.
“The passionate one--yes.”
“And there was surely one more that you have not mentioned; by the
bye, Cuthbert,” said Mr. Buchanan, hastily, “the boys used to say you
went there often. There’s nothing between you and any of them, I hope?”
“No, uncle!”--the humility of the answer struck Mr. Buchanan strangely.
He almost thought for a moment that he had the little boy beside him,
who used to spend holiday weeks in Glasgow, when Dick was a baby with
streaming skirts, and “there was no word” of any of the others. It
made the merchant’s heart tender, even when he turned to look upon the
strong man by his side.
But Cuthbert, for his part, thought himself guilty of
disingenuousness, and by and bye, he added, “Don’t let me deceive you,
uncle. When I say no, I don’t mean to imply that there will never be,
nor that even if there never is anything between us, it will be any
fault of mine.”
But Mr. Buchanan only shook his head--how it came about, he could not
tell, but the good man’s eyelids were moistened, and there came back
to him momentary glimpses of many an early scene; he was pleased, too,
however imprudent Cuthbert’s intentions might be, with the confidence
he gave him--for that his nephew was more than his equal, the good
merchant very well knew.
So Mr. Buchanan shook his head, and satisfied his conscience with
the mute protest; “he could not find it in his heart,” as he said to
himself afterwards in self-justification, to condemn his nephew’s true
love.
“But this is not to the purpose,” continued Cuthbert. “A thousand
pounds, uncle, with the estate of Allenders, and myself for your
securities. I am getting on myself--I shall soon have a tolerable
business, I assure you, though this absence may put some of it in
jeopardy. Give me my boon now, and let me hurry back to my office--a
thousand pounds--and of course you will not accept any interest for a
few years.”
Mr. Buchanan sighed. “It is a very unbusiness-like transaction,
Cuthbert,” said the merchant.
“But not the first unbusiness-like transaction you have carried to a
good end,” said Cuthbert, warmly. “Take comfort, uncle; the Christian
charity and the natural love, will hold out longer than business. And
now you have given me your promise, I must say three words to my aunt
and Clemie, and ask you to let Robert drive me back again. I must be
home to-morrow morning at my work.”
And travelling by night, in the disconsolate stage-coach was nothing
like so satisfactory as an express-train--yet Cuthbert went home, very
comfortably; and very comfortably did the slumber of an unencumbered
mind, and a charitable heart, fall over Mr. Buchanan, though still he
shook his head at his own weakness, and was slightly ashamed to make a
memorandum of so unbusiness-like a concern.