RURAL SCENE, CHAPTER HEADER.
Ornamental capital 'T'
he old man passed a quiet night, and was so much better in the morning that he insisted on getting up.
'What kind of a morning is it?' was the first question he put to Gladys when she entered the kitchen soon after six o'clock.
'A lovely morning, uncle, so balmy and soft. You can't think what a difference from yesterday, and there's a bird singing a spring song in my tree.'
Often yet she said such things. The grey monotony of her life had not quite destroyed the poetic vein, nor the love of all things beautiful.
'Warm, is it? Have you been out?'
'Not yet; but I opened my window and put my head out, and the air was quite mild. A spring morning, Uncle Abel, the first we have had this year.'
'Any sun?'
'Not yet, but he will be up by and by. How have you slept?'
'Pretty well. I am better this morning—quite well, in fact, and directly you have the fire on I'll get up.'
'Don't be rash, uncle, I really think you ought to stay in bed to-day.'
'No; I have something to do. How soon can you be ready—finished with your work, I mean? Have you anything you can leave ready for Wat's dinner?'
'Why, Uncle Abel?' asked Gladys, in surprise.
'Because I want you to go somewhere with me.'
'You are not going out of this house one foot to-day,' she answered quickly. 'It would be very dangerous.'
The old man smiled, slightly amused, but not displeased, by the decision with which she spoke. 'We'll see, if it keeps fine, and the sun comes out. I'm going to-day, whatever the consequences, and you with me. It's been put off too long.'
Gladys asked no more questions, but made haste to build up the fire and get him a cup of tea before he rose.
'Put on your warm clothes, and make ready for a journey in the train, Gladys,' he said after breakfast.
She looked at him doubtfully, almost wondering if his mind did not wander a little.
'Uncle Abel, what are you thinking of? You never go journeys in trains. It will not be safe for you to go to-day, with such a cold,' she exclaimed.
'I am going, my dear, as I said, and so are you, whatever the consequences, so get ready as fast as you like, so that we may have the best of the day.'
'Is it a far journey?'
'You'll see when you get there,' he replied rather shortly; and Gladys, still wondering much, made haste with her work, and began to dress for this unexpected outing. But she felt uneasy, and, stealing a moment, ran up to Walter, who was busy in the warehouse, and revelling in the unaccustomed luxury of a blazing fire.
'How nice it is, and what a difference a fire can make, to be sure,' she said quickly. 'I say, Walter,such a thing! Uncle Abel is going a journey,—a railway journey, actually,—and I am going with him. Has he said anything to you? Have you any idea what it means?'
'Not I. He's a queer old chap. Not off his head, I hope?'
'Oh no, and he says he is quite well. I don't know what to think. Perhaps I shall understand it when I come back. You will find your dinner in the oven, Walter; and be sure to keep up a good fire all day down-stairs, in case uncle should come back very cold and tired. I am afraid he will, but it is no use saying anything.'
Walter leaned his elbows on the soap-boxes, and looked into the girl's face with a curious soberness.
'Something's going to happen, I feel it—something I don't like. I'm oppressed with an awful queer feeling. I hope they're not worse than usual at home.'
'Oh no, you are letting your imagination run away with you,' she said brightly. 'I hope you will have such a busy day you won't have time to think of such things;' and, bidding him good-morning, she ran down again to her uncle.
Then, for the first time since that memorable and dreary journey from the fen country, these two, the old man and the maiden, went forth together. Both thought of that journey, though it was not spoken of. She could not fail to see that there was a certain excitement in the old man; it betrayed itself in his restless movements and in the gleam of his piercing eye. Gladys no longer feared the glance of his eye nor the sound of his voice. A quiet confidence had established itself between them, and she really loved him. It was impossible for her to dwell beside ahuman being, not absolutely repulsive, without pouring some of the riches of her affection upon him. As for him, Gladys herself had not the remotest idea how he regarded her, did not dream that she had awakened in his withered heart a slow and all-absorbing affection, the strength of which surprised himself. He bade her stand back while he went to the booking-office for the tickets, and they were in the train before she repeated her question regarding their destination.
'I think it would only be fair, Uncle Abel, if you told me now where we are going,' she said playfully.
For answer, he held out the ticket to her, and in amazement she read 'Mauchline' on it. The colour flushed all over her face, and she looked at him with eager, questioning eyes.
'Oh, Uncle Abel, what does it mean? Why are you going there to-day? I cannot understand it.'
'I have my reasons, Gladys. You will know them, perhaps, sooner than you think.'
'Is it a long journey, uncle? I am so afraid for you. Let me shut the window up quite. And are we really, really going into Ayrshire at last?'
She was full of excitement as a child. She sat close to the window, and when the train had left the city behind, looked out with eagerest interest on the wintry landscape.
'Oh, Uncle Abel, it is so beautiful to see it, the wide country, and the sky above it so clear and lovely. Oh, there is room to breathe!'
'I am sure it looks wintry and bleak enough,' the old man answered, with a grunt. 'I don't see much beauty in it myself.'
'How strange! To me it is wholly beautiful. Is this Ayrshire yet? Tell me when we come to Ayrshire.'
A slow smile was on the old man's face as he looked and listened. He enjoyed her young enthusiasm, but it seemed to awaken in him some sadder thought, for once he sighed heavily, and drew himself together as if he felt cold, or some bitter memory smote him.
In little more than an hour the train drew up at the quiet country station, and Gladys was told they had reached their journey's end. It was a lovely spring morning; the sun shone out cheerfully from a mild, bright sky, the air was laden with the awakening odours of spring, and the spirit of life seemed to be everywhere.
'Now, my girl, we have a great deal to do to-day,' said the old man, when they had crossed the footbridge. 'What do you want most to see here?'
'Mossgiel and Ballochmyle, and the house where you lived in Mauchline.'
'We'll go to that first; it's not a great sight, I warn you—only a whitewashed, thatched cottage in a by-street. When we've seen that, we'll take a trap and drive to the other places.'
'But that will cost a great deal,' said Gladys doubtfully, recalled for the moment to the small economies it was her daily lot to practise.
'Perhaps; but we'll manage it, I daresay. It is impossible for us to walk, so there's no use saying another word. Give me your arm.'
Gladys was ready in a moment. Never since the old fen days had she felt so happy, because the green earth was beneath her feet, the trees waving above her, the song of birds in her ears instead of the roar of city streets. They did not talk as they walked, until they turned into the quaint, wide street of the old-fashioned village; then it was as if the cloak of his reserve fellfrom Abel Graham, and he became garrulous as a boy over these old landmarks which he had never forgotten. He led Gladys by way of Poosie Nancie's tavern, showed her its classic interior, and then, turning into a little narrow lane, pointed out the cottage where he and her father had been boys together.
It was the girl's turn to be silent. She was trying to picture the dear father a boy at his mother's knee, or running in and out that low doorway, or helping to swell the boyish din in the narrow street; and when they turned to go, her eyes were wet with tears.
'I would rather have come here to-day, Uncle Abel, than anywhere else in the whole wide world. But why did you wish to come? Did you take a sudden longing to see the old place?'
'No; that was not my object at all. You will know what it was some day. Now we'll go to the inn and get something to eat while they get our machine ready. See, there's the old kirk; there's a lot of famous folk buried in that kirkyard. We'd better go in, and I'll show you where I want to be laid.'
They got the key of the churchyard gates, and, stepping across the somewhat untidily kept graves, stood before an uneven mound, surrounded by a very old mossgrown headstone.
'There's a name on it, child. You can't read it, but it doesn't matter,' he said; but Gladys, bending down, brushed the tall grass from the stone, and read the name, John Bourhill Graham of Bourhill, and his spouse, Nancy Millar.
'Whose names are these, uncle—your father's and mother's?'
'Oh no;theywere not Grahams of Bourhill,' he answered dryly. 'That's generations back.'
'But the same family?'
'I suppose so—yes. I see you would like to explore this place; but we can't, it's not the most cheerful occupation, anyhow. Come on, let us to the inn.'
The lavish manner in which her uncle spent his money that day amazed Gladys, but she made no remark. Immediately after their hot and abundant dinner at the inn, they drove to the places Burns has immortalised, and which Gladys had so long yearned to see. Ballochmyle, in lovely spring dress, so far exceeded her expectation that she had no words wherein to express her deep enjoyment.
'Do not let us hurry away, uncle,' she pleaded, as they wandered through the wooded glades, 'unless you are very tired. It is so warm and pleasant, and it cannot be very late.'
'It is not late, half-past two only; but I want you to see Bourhill, where our forbears lived when we had them worth mentioning,' he said grimly. 'Did your father never speak to you about Bourhill?'
'No, never, Uncle Abel. I am quite sure I never heard the name until I read it to-day in the churchyard.'
'I will tell you why. He had a dream—a foolish one it proved—a dream that he might one day restore the name Graham of Bourhill again. He hoped to make a fortune by his pictures, but it was a vain delusion.'
A shadow clouded the bright face of Gladys as she listened to these words.
'This place, Bourhill, is it an estate, or what?' she asked.
'Not now. A hundred years ago it had some farms, and was a fair enough patrimony, but it's all squandered long syne.'
'How?'
'Oh, drink and gambling, and such-like. My grand-father, David Graham, kent the taste of Poosie Nancie's whisky too well to look after his ain, and it slipped through his fingers like a knotless thread.'
He had become even more garrulous, and unearthed from the storehouse of his memory a wealth of reminiscences of those old times, mingled with many bits of personal history, which Gladys listened to with breathless interest. She had never seen him so awakened, so full of life and vigour; she could only look at him in amazement. They drove leisurely through the pleasant spring sunshine over the wide, beautiful country, past fields where the wheat was green and strong, and others where sowing was progressing merrily—sights and sounds dear to Gladys, who had no part nor lot in cities.
'Oh, Uncle Abel, Ayrshire is lovely. Look at these low green hills in the distance, and the woods everywhere. I do not wonder that Burns could write poetry here. There is poetry everywhere.'
'Ay, to your eyes, because you are young and know no better. Look, away over yonder, as far as your eyes can see, is the sea. If it was a little clearer you would see the ships in Ayr Harbour; and down there lies Tarbolton; away over there, the way we have come, Kilmarnock. And do you see that little wooded hill about two miles ahead to the left? Among these trees lies Bourhill.'
'It is a long drive to it, Uncle Abel. I hope it has not tired you very much?'
'No, no; I'm all right. We'll drive up the avenue to the house and back. I want you to see it.'
'Does nobody live in it?'
'Not just now.'
Another fifteen minutes brought them to an unpretending iron gateway, which gave entrance to an avenue of fine old trees. The gate stood open, and though a woman ran out from the lodge when the trap passed, she made no demur.
The avenue was nearly half a mile in length, and ended in a sharp curve, which brought them quite suddenly before the house—a plain, square, substantial family dwelling, with a pillared doorway and long wide windows, about which crept ivy of a century's growth. It was all shut up, and the gravel sweep before the door was overgrown with moss and weeds, the grass on the lawns, which stretched away through the shrubberies, long and rank; yet there was a homely look about it too, as if a slight touch could convert it into a happy home.
'This is Bourhill, my girl; and whatever ambitions your father may have had in later years, it was once his one desire to buy it back to the Grahams. Do you like the place?'
'Yes, uncle; but it is very desolate—it makes me sad.'
'It will not be long so,' he said; and, drawing himself together with a quick shiver, he bade the driver turn the horses' heads. But before the house vanished quite from view he cast his gaze back upon it, and in his eye there was a strange, even a yearning glance. 'It will not be long so,' he repeated under his breath,—'not long; and it will be a great atonement.'
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n the night Gladys was awakened by her uncle's voice sharply calling her name, and when she hastened to him she found him in great pain, and breathing with the utmost difficulty. Her presence of mind did not desert her. She had often seen her father in a similar state, and knew exactly what to do. In a few minutes she had a blazing fire, and the kettle on; then she ran to awaken Walter, so that he might go for the doctor. The simple remedies experience had taught the girl considerably eased the old man, and when the doctor came he found him breathing more freely. But his face was quite grave after his examination was made.
'I suppose my hour's come?' said Abel Graham in a matter-of-fact way. 'I don't think much of your fraternity,—I've never had many dealings with you,—but I suppose you can tell a man what he generally knows himself, that he'll soon be in grips with death?'
The doctor looked at him with an odd smile. He was a young man, fighting his way up against fierce competition—an honest, straightforward fellow, who knew and loved his work.
'You don't think highly of us, Mr. Graham, but I daresay we have our uses. This young lady appears to be an accomplished nurse; she has done the very best possible under the circumstances.'
He turned to Gladys, not seeking to hide his surprise at finding such a fair young creature amid such surroundings. Walter Hepburn, standing in the background, experienced a strange sensation when he saw that look. Though he knew it not, it was his first jealous pang.
'I had to nurse my father often in such attacks,' Gladys answered, with her quiet, dignified calm. 'If there is anything more I can do, pray tell me, and I will follow your instructions faithfully.'
'There is not much we can do in such a case. I never heard anything so foolhardy as to go off, as you say he did yesterday, driving through the open country for hours on a March day. I don't think a man who takes such liberties with himself can expect to escape the penalty, Mr. Graham.'
'Well, well, it doesn't matter. If my hour's come, it's come, I suppose, and that's the end of it,' he retorted irritably. 'How long will I last?'
'Years, perhaps, with care—after this attack is conquered,' replied the doctor; and the old man answered with a grim, sardonic smile.
'We'll see whether you or I am right,' he replied. 'You needn't stay any longer just now.'
Gladys took the candle, and herself showed the doctor to the outer door.
'Will he really recover, do you think?' she asked, when they were out of hearing.
'He may, but only with care. The lungs are much congested, and his reserve of strength is small.What relation is he to you, may I ask? Your grandfather?'
'No; my uncle?'
'And do you live here always?'
'Yes, this is my home,' Gladys answered, and she could scarcely forbear a smile at the expression on the young doctor's face.
'Indeed! and you are contented? You seem so,' he said, lingering at the door a moment longer than he need have done.
'Oh yes; I have a great deal to be thankful for,' she answered. 'You will come again to-morrow early, will you not?'
'Certainly. Good-morning. Take care of yourself. You do not look as if your reserve of strength were very great either.'
'Oh, I am very strong, I assure you,' Gladys answered, with a smile; and as she looked into his open, honest face, she could not help thinking what a pleasant face it was.
Then she went back to keep her vigil by the sick-bed, and to exercise her woman's prerogative to ease and minister to pain. There was so little any one could do now, however, to help Abel Graham, the issue of his case being in the hand of God. In obedience to the request of Gladys, Walter went back to bed, and she sat on by the fire, thoroughly awake, and watchful to be of the slightest use to her uncle. He did not talk much, but he appeared to watch Gladys, and to be full of thoughts concerning her.
'Do you remember that night I came, after your father died?' he asked once.
'Yes,' she answered in a low voice. 'I remember it well.'
'You felt bitter and hard against me, did you not?'
'If I did, Uncle Abel, it has long passed,' she answered. 'There is no good to be got recalling what is past.'
'Perhaps not; but, my girl, when a man comes to his dying bed it is the past he harks back on, trying to get some comfort out of it for the future he dreads, and failing always.'
'It is not your dying bed, Uncle Abel, I hope; you are not so old yet,' she said cheerfully.
'No, I'm not old in years—not sixty—but old enough to regret my youth,' he said. 'Are you still of the same mind about the spending of money, if you should ever have it to spend?'
'Yes; but it is so unlikely, Uncle Abel, that I shall ever have any money to spend. It is quite easy saying what we can do in imaginary circumstances. Reality is always different, and more difficult to deal with.'
'You are very wise for your years. How many are they?'
'Seventeen and three months.'
'Ay, well, you look your age and more. You'd pass for twenty, but no wonder; and'—
'I wish you would not talk so much, uncle; it will excite and exhaust you,' she said, in gentle remonstrance.
'I must talk, if my time is short. Suppose I'm taken, what will you do with yourself, eh?'
'The way will open up for me, I do not doubt; there must be a corner for me somewhere,' she said bravely; nevertheless, her young cheek blanched, and she shivered slightly as she glanced round the place—poor enough, perhaps, but which at least afforded her a peaceful and comfortable home. These signs were notunnoticed by the dying man, and a faint, slow, melancholy smile gathered about his haggard mouth.
'You believe, I suppose, that the Lord will provide for you?' he said grimly.
'Yes, I do.'
'Does He never fail, eh?'
'Never. He does not always provide just as we expect or desire, but provision is made all the same,' answered the girl, and her eyes shone with a steadfast light.
'It's a very comfortable doctrine, but not practicable, nor, to my thinking, honest. Do you mean to say that it is right to sit down with folded hands waiting for the Lord to provide, and living off other people at the same time?'
Gladys smiled.
'No, that is not right, but wrong, very wrong, and punishment always follows. Heaven helps those who help themselves; don't you remember that?'
'Ay, well, I don't understand your theology, I confess. But we may as well think it out. What do you suppose will become of me after I shuffle off, eh?'
'I don't know, uncle. You best know what your own hope is,' she replied.
'I have no hope, and I don't see myself how anybody can presume to have any. It's all conjecture about a future life. How does anybody know? Nobody has ever come back to tell the tale.'
'No; but we know, all the same, that there are many mansions in heaven, and that God has prepared them for His children.'
'You would not call me one of them, I guess?' said the old man, with a touch of sarcasm, yet there was something behind—a great wistfulness, a consuminganxiety, which betrayed itself in his very eye, as he awaited her reply. It was a curious moment, a curious scene. The old, toilworn, world-weary man, who had spent his days in the most sordid pursuit of gold—gold for which he would at one time almost have sold his soul, hanging on the words of a young, untried maiden, whose purity enabled her to touch the very gates of heaven. It was a sight to make the philosopher ponder anew on the mysteries of life, and the strange anomalies human nature presents.
She turned her sweet face to him, and there was a mixture of pathos and brightness in her glance.
'Why not, uncle? I may not judge. It is God who knows the heart.'
'Ay, maybe. But what would you think yourself? You have shrewd enough eyes, though you are so quiet.'
'But I cannot know this, uncle; only if you believe that Christ died for you, you are one of God's children, though'—she added, with a slight hesitation—'you may not have served Him very well.'
'Then you think I have not served Him, eh?' he repeated, with strange persistence.
'Perhaps you might have done more, uncle. If you get better you will do more for others, I feel sure,' she said. 'But now you must be still and keep quiet. I shall not talk another word to you, positively not a word.'
'Ay,' he said dryly, and, turning on his pillow, closed his eyes—not to sleep, oh no, brain and heart were too full of conflicting and disturbing thought.
In the dull hours of the early morning Gladys dozed a little in her chair, imagining the sick man slept. When the light grew broader she roused herself, and began to move about with swift but noiselesssteps, fearing to awake him. But he did not sleep. Lying there, with his face turned to the wall, Abel Graham held counsel with himself, reviewing his life, which lay before him like a tale that is told. None knew better than he what a poor, mean, sordid, selfish life it had been, how little it had contributed to the good or the happiness of others, and these memories tortured him now with the stings of the bitterest regret. It was not known to any save himself and his Maker what agony his awakened soul passed through in the still hours of that spring day. Seeing him lie apparently in such restfulness, the two young creatures spoke to each other at their breakfast only in whispers, and when Walter went up to the warehouse, Gladys continued to perform her slight tasks as gently and noiselessly as possible; but sometimes, when she looked at the face on the pillow, with its closed eyes and pinched, wan features, she wished the doctor would come again.
About half-past nine a knock came to the door, and Gladys ran out almost joyfully, expecting to see the young physician with the honest face and the pleasant eyes, but a very different-looking personage was presented to her view when she opened the door. A man in shabby workman's garb, dirty, greasy, and untidy—a man with a degraded type of countenance, a heavy, coarse mouth, and small eyes looking out suspiciously from heavy brows. She shrank away a little, and almost unconsciously began to close the door, even while she civilly inquired his business.
'Is Wat in? I want to see my son, Walter Hepburn,' he said; and when he opened his mouth Gladys felt the smell of drink, and it filled her with both mental and physical repulsion. So this was Walter's father? Poor Walter! A vast compassion,greater than any misery she had before experienced, filled the girl's gentle soul.
'Yes, he is in, up-stairs in the warehouse. Will you come in, please?' she asked; but before the invitation could be accepted, Wat came bounding down the stairs, having heard and recognised the voice, and there was no welcoming light in his eye as he gazed on his father's face.
'Well, what do you want?' he asked abruptly; and Gladys, slipping back hastily, left them alone.
And after she had returned to the kitchen she heard the hum of their voices in earnest talk for quite five minutes. Then the door was closed, and she heard Walter returning to his work. It appeared to her as if his step sounded very heavy and reluctant as it ascended the stair.
Presently her uncle roused himself up, and asked for something to eat or drink.
'Are you feeling better?' she asked, as she shook up his pillows, and did other little things to make him comfortable.
'No; there's a load lying here,' he answered, touching his chest, 'which presses down to the grave. If they can't do something to remove that, I'm a dead man. No word of that young upstart doctor yet?'
'Not yet. Shall I send for him, uncle?'
'No, no; he'll come sure enough, and fast enough—oftener than he's wanted,' he answered. 'Who was that at the door?'
'Walter's father.'
'Eh? Walter's father? What did he want? Is he smelling round too, to see if he can get anything?' he said querulously. 'When you've given me that tea, I wish you to take my keys from my coat pocketand go up to the safe. When you've opened it, you'll find an old pocket-book, tied with a red string. I want you to bring it down to me.'
'Very well.'
Gladys did exactly as she was bid, and, leaving the old man at his slender breakfast, ran up to the warehouse. To her surprise, she found Walter, usually so active and so energetic, sitting on the office stool with his arms folded, and his face wearing a look of deepest gloom. Some new trouble had come to him, that was apparent to her at once.
'Why, Walter, how troubled you look! No bad news from home, I hope?'
'Bad enough,' he answered in a kind of savage undertone. 'I knew something was going to happen. Haven't I been saying it for days?'
'But what has happened? Nothing very bad, I hope?'
'So bad that it couldn't be worse,' he said. 'Liz has run away.'
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ladys opened her eyes.
'Run away! How? Where? I don't understand.'
'All the better if you don't,' he answered harshly. 'She's run away, anyhow, and it's their blame. Then they come to me, after the mischief's done, thinking I can make it right. I'm not going to stir a foot in the matter. They can all go to Land's End for me.'
He spoke bitterly—more bitterly than Gladys had ever heard him speak before. She stood there, with the keys on her forefinger, the picture of perplexity and concern. She did not understand the situation, and was filled with curiosity to know where Liz had run to.
'Have they quarrelled, or what?' she asked.
'No; I don't suppose there's been any more than the usual amount of scrimmaging,' he said, with a hard smile. 'I don't blame Liz; she's only what they've made her. I'll tell you what it is,' he said, suddenly clenching his right hand, his young face set with the bitterness of his grief and shame, 'if there's no punishment for those that bring children into the world and then letthem go to ruin, there's no justice in heaven, and I don't believe in it.'
Gladys shrank back, paling slightly under this torrent of passionate words. Never had she seen Walter so bitterly, so fearfully moved. He got up from his stool, and paced up and down the narrow space between the boxes in a very storm of indignation; and it seemed to Gladys that a few minutes had changed him from a boy into a man.
'Dear Walter,' she said gently, 'try to be brave. Perhaps it will not be so bad as you think.'
'It's so bad for Liz, poor thing, that it won't be any worse. She's lost, and she was the only one of them I cared for. If she'd had a chance, she'd have been a splendid woman. She has a good heart, only she never had anybody to guide her.'
Gladys could not speak. She had only the vaguest idea what he meant, but she knew that something terrible had happened to Liz. A curious reticence seemed to bind her tongue. She could not ask a single question.
'Just when a fellow was beginning to get on!' cried Walter rebelliously, 'this has to happen to throw him back. It was a fearful mistake trying to better myself. I wish I had sunk down into the mud with the rest. If I do it yet, it will be the best thing for me.'
Then Gladys intervened. Though she did not quite comprehend the nature of this new trouble which appeared so powerfully to move him, she could not listen to such words without remonstrance.
'It is not right to speak so, Walter, and I will not listen to it. Whatever others may do, though it may grieve and cut you to the heart, it cannot take away your honour or integrity, always remember that.'
'Yes, it can,' he said impetuously. 'That kind of disgrace hangs on a man all his days. He has to bear the sins of others. That is where the injustice comes in. The innocent must suffer for and with the guilty always. There is no escape.'
Gladys sighed, and her face became pale and weary-looking. Never had life appeared so hard, so full of pain and care. Looking at the face of Walter, which she had always thought so noble and so good,—the index to a soul striving, though sometimes but feebly, yet striving always after what was highest and best,—looking at his face then, and seeing it so shadowed by the bitterness of his lot, her own simple faith for the moment seemed to fail.
'You saw him, then, this morning, and I hope you admired him,' said Walter, with harsh scorn. 'Reeking with drink, speaking thick through it at ten o'clock in the morning! What chance has a fellow with a father like that? Ten to one, I go over to drink myself one of these days. Well, I might do worse. It drowns care, they say, and I know it destroys feelings, which, from my experience, seem only given for our torture.'
Gladys gave a sob, and turned aside to the safe. That sound recalled Walter to himself, and in a moment his mood changed. His eyes melted into tenderness as he looked upon the pale, slight girl, whom his words in some sad way had wounded.
'Forgive me. I don't know what I am saying; but I had no right to vex you, the only angel I know in this whole city of Glasgow.'
His extravagant speech provoked a smile on her face, and she turned her head from where she knelt before the safe, and lifted her large earnest eyes to his.
'How you talk! You must learn to control yourself a little more. It is self-control that makes a man,' she said quietly. 'I do not know how to comfort you, Walter, in this trouble, which seems so much heavier than even I think; but in the end it will be for good. Everything is, you know, to them that love God.'
She was so familiar with Scripture, and depended so entirely on it for comfort and strength, that her words carried conviction with them. They fell on the riven heart of Walter like balm, and restored a measure of peace to it. Before he could make any answer, a quick knocking, and the uplifting of the feeble voice from below, indicated that the old man was impatient of the girl's delay. She hastily lifted the pocket-book, relocked the safe door, and, with a nod to Walter, ran down-stairs.
'What kept you so long chattering up-stairs?' queried the old man, with all the peevishness of a sick person. 'You don't care a penny-piece, either of you, though I died this very moment.'
'Oh, Uncle Abel, hold your tongue; you know that is not true,' she said quickly. 'Walter is in great trouble this morning. Something has happened to his sister.'
'Ay, what is it, eh?'
'I don't know exactly, but she has left home.'
'Ay, ay, I'm not surprised; she was a bold hussy, and had no respect for anything in this world. And is Walter taking on badly?'
'Very badly. I never saw him so distressed.'
'Well, it's hard on a chap trying to do well. It's a hopeless case trying to fly out of an ill nest.'
'Uncle Abel, you must not say that. Nothing ishopeless, if only we are on the right side,' said Gladys stoutly, though inwardly her heart re-echoed sadly that dark creed.
'Well, well, you're young, and nothing seems impossible,' he said good-naturedly. 'Here, take off this string. My fingers are as feckless as a thread.'
Gladys opened the pocket-book, which was stuffed full of old papers. The old man fingered them lovingly and with careful touch, until he found the one he sought. It was a somewhat long document, written on blue, official-looking paper, and attested by several seals. He read it from beginning to end with close attention, and gave a grunt of satisfaction when he laid it down.
'Is Wat busy?' he asked then.
'He has not much heart for his work to-day, uncle,'
'Cry him down; I've a message for him. Or, stop, you'd better go yourself, in case anybody comes to the warehouse. Do you know St. Vincent Street?'
'Yes, uncle.'
'You don't know Fordyce & Fordyce, the lawyers' office, do you?'
'No, but I can find it.'
'Very well; go just now and ask for old Mr. Fordyce. If he isn't in, just come back.'
'And what am I to say to him?'
'Tell him to come here just as soon as ever he can. I want to see him, and there is not any time to lose.'
The girl's lip quivered. A strange feeling of approaching desolation was with her, and her outlook was of the dreariest. If it were true, as the old man evidently believed, that his hour had come, she would again be friendless and solitary on the face of the earth. Abel Graham saw these signs of grief, and a curioussoftness visited his heart, though he could scarce believe one so fair and sweet could really care for him.
Gladys made the utmost haste to do her errand, and to her great satisfaction was told when she reached the large and well-appointed chambers of that influential firm, that Mr. Fordyce senior would attend to her in a moment. She stood in the outer office waiting, unconscious that she was the subject of remark and speculation among the clerks at their desks, still more unconscious that one day her name would be as familiar and respected among them as that of the governor himself. After the lapse of a few minutes the office boy ushered her into the private room of Mr. Fordyce senior. He was a fine, benevolent-looking, elderly gentleman, with a rosy, happy face, silver hair and whiskers, and a keen but kindly blue eye. He appeared to be a very grand gentleman indeed in the eyes of Gladys.
'Well, my dear miss, what can I do for you, eh?' he asked, beaming at her over the gold rims of his double eyeglass in a very reassuring way.
'Please, my uncle has sent me to ask you to come and see him at once, as he is very ill.'
'And who is your uncle, my dear? It will be necessary for you to tell me that,' he said, with the slightest suggestion of a twinkle in his eye.
'My uncle, Mr. Graham, who lives in Colquhoun Street.'
'Abel Graham? Oh yes. Is he ill? And, bless me, areyouhis niece?'
Never was surprise so genuinely felt or expressed as at that moment by Mr. Fordyce.
'Yes, I am his niece; and, please, could you comeas soon as possible? He is very ill. I am afraid he thinks he is dying.'
The girl's voice trembled, and a tear fell like a dew-drop from her long eyelashes. These things still more amazed the soul of Mr. Fordyce. That anybody should shed a tear for a being so sordid and unsociable as Abel Graham struck him as one of the extraordinary things he had met with in his career; and to see this fair young creature, fitted by nature for a sphere and for companionship so different, sincerely grieving for the old man's distress, seemed the most extraordinary thing of all. Mr. Fordyce rose, and, calling the boy, bade him bring a cab to the door, then he began to get into his greatcoat.
'I'll drive you back, if you have nowhere else to go. Soyouare his niece? Well, there's more sense and shrewdness in the old man than I gave him credit for.'
These remarks were, of course, quite enigmatical to Gladys; but she felt cheered and comforted by the strong, kindly presence of the genial old lawyer. As for him, he regarded her with a mixture of lively interest, real compassion, and profound surprise. Perhaps the latter predominated. He had, in the course of a long professional career, encountered many strange experiences, become familiar with many curious and tragic life stories, but, he told himself, he had never met a more interesting case than this.
'It's a romance,' he said loud out in the cab; and Gladys looked at him in mild surprise, but though she did not stand in awe of him at all, she did not presume to ask what he meant.
'Now tell me, my dear, have you been happy inthis—this place?' he inquired significantly, as the cab rumbled over the rough causeway of the Wynd into Colquhoun Street.
'Yes, I have been happy. I only know now, when I think it may not be my shelter very long.'
Mr. Fordyce looked at her keenly.
'Poor girl, she knows nothing, absolutely nothing,' he said to himself. 'What a revelation it will be to her! Yes, it's a thrilling romance.'
The greeting between the well-known lawyer and his strange client was not ceremonious. It consisted of a couple of nods and a brief good-morning. Then Gladys was requested to leave them alone. Nothing loath, she ran up-stairs to Walter, whose sorrow lay heavy on her heart.
'Your niece has surprised me, Mr. Graham,' said the lawyer. 'Yes, very much indeed.'
'Why? What did you expect to see? Eh?'
'Not a refined and lovely young woman in a place like this, certainly,' he said frankly, and looking round with an expression of extreme disgust. 'Has it never occurred to you what poor preparation Miss Graham has had for the position you intend her to fill?'
'That's none of your business,' retorted the old man sharply. 'Shedoesn't need any preparation, I tell you. Cottage or palace are the same to her; she'll be a queen in either.'
This strange speech made the lawyer look at the old man intently. He perceived that underneath his brusque, forbidding exterior there burned the steady light of a great love for his brother's child, and here, surely, was the greatest marvel of all.
'I did not bring you here to make remarks on my niece,' he said peevishly. 'Read that over, see, andtell me if it's all right, if there's anything to be added or taken away. There's a clause I want added about the boy, Walter Hepburn. He's been with me a long time, and though he's a very firebrand, he's faithful and honest. He won't rue it.'
Mr. Fordyce adjusted his eyeglass and spread out the will before him. Up-stairs the two young beings, drawn close together by a common sorrow and a common need, tried to look into the future with hopeful eyes, not knowing that, in the room below, that very future was being assured for them in a way they knew not.