Part 4 (1/2)

him but he bood come hame an' tak' things in haun. He was strongly advised to have nothing to do wi' it, an' to let the creditors handle what was left as best it was likely to pay them. But Tom said, ”No.” All he asked frae the creditors was time an' secrecy as far as was possible as to how things stood, an' frae the Almighty health an' strength, an', given these, he promised to clear his dead faither's name an' see every yin get his ain. That's three years ago past the May term, an', honour an' praise to the puir laddie, he's nearly succeeded. But it has been a terrible struggle for him; an' had it no' been for his determination, his sobriety, his pride in his faither's guid name, an' abune a' the help o' a lovin' wife wha's a perfect mother in Israel, he wad ha'e gi'en it up lang or noo as an impossible, thankless job. Nathan and me lent his faither sixty pounds. We had nae writin' to speak o', only his signed name. I showed the paper to Tom shortly efter he had settled doon here, an' instead o' questionin' it he thanked us for our kindness an promised to pay it back in the same proportion as the ithers. Up to noo we've got back thirty pounds. I was in his shop the ither day, an' he said he thocht he wad be able to gi'e's anither ten pounds at the November term. What think ye o' that noo, Maister Weelum?'

'I think your neighbour is a splendid fellow, Betty, and I would like to shake hands with him. Have you the paper beside you on which his father's name appears for sixty pounds?'

'Ay, that I have,' said Betty. She went downstairs, and returned a minute later with a sheet of notepaper.

I glanced at the unstamped promise, and smiled. 'Betty,' I said seriously, 'are you aware this is not worth the paper it is written on?'

'Ay, perfectly,' she said with unconcern.

'How did you find that out?' I inquired.

'Oh, when I showed it to Tom Jardine he used exactly the same words as you did; but, said he, ”My faither signed that. I have every confidence in you an' Nathan. My faither an' mither thought the world o' ye, an'

wi' my a.s.surance that ye'll be paid back, I tender you my best thanks for your kindness in time o' need.”'

Betty folded up her worthless doc.u.ment and put it in the breast of her gown. 'An honest man like Tom Jardine makes up for a lot o' worthless yins, Maister Weelum,' she said as she lifted her tea-tray; and I looked through the wee round window to Tom's back-yard with an increased appreciation of the coatless and hatless grocer, who was sitting down on an empty soap-box with a long needle and a roset-end, mending his old gray mare's collar.

It has rained continuously for three days, and according to Nathan something has gone very far wrong, as St Swithin's Day from early morn to dewy eve was cloudless and fair, and accordingly we had every right to antic.i.p.ate forty days of dry, fine weather.

Harvest is early with us this year. The corn, which was waving green when Betty and I drove south from Elvanfoot, is already studding the fields in regular rows of yellow stooks, and but for this break in the weather it would even now be on its way to the stackyard in groaning, creaking carts. The Newton pippins on the apple-tree at the foot of the garden are showing a bright red cheek, and the phloxes and gladioli in the plot at the kitchen window are crowned with a ma.s.s of bloom so rich and luxuriant that every one of Betty's cooking utensils reflects their colourings and appears to be blus.h.i.+ng rosy-red. During these past three days I have missed Tom's cheery song, and I am beginning to wonder if the gloomy weather has chilled his lightsome heart and silenced the chords of his tuneful throat.

Time was when I loved to be abroad on a rainy day, whether as an unprotected boy fis.h.i.+ng away up Capel Linn and Cample Cleugh, with the rain dribbling down the neckband of my s.h.i.+rt and oozing through the lace-holes of my boots, or as a man with waterproof and hazel staff, breasting the scarred side of Caerketton or the gra.s.sy slopes of Allermuir, with the pelting, pitiless raindrops blinding my eyes and stinging my cheek, and the vivid fire of heaven lighting up Halkerside and momentarily showing the short zigzag course of that 'nameless trickle' whose rippling music the Wizard of Swanston loved.

How I enjoyed these Pentland rambles, alone in the rain and the soughing winds! Underfoot, the dank, sodden gra.s.s and the broken fern; overhead, the sombre sky, the scurrying clouds, and the drifting mist; on every side the gra.s.sy mounds of the Dunty Knowes, with their s.h.i.+vering birks tossing to windward, and a rain-soaked hogg beneath every sheltering crag. Alone, yet not alone; for a Presence was with me, guiding me on, showing me through the gathering gloom the sun-bathed crown of Allermuir, bringing to my ear from out the rage of the storm the wail of the curlew, and summoning to my side the plaided shepherd 'Honest John'

and his gray, rough-coated collie Swag.

Ah, these are memories only! memories only! for Cample Cleugh and Capel Linn are lost to me with my boyhood. No more am I the strong, able-bodied lover of the open, moving with firm, sure step among scenes which a master's touch has made immortal; but a poor, crippled, pain-racked invalid, as parochial in feeling as in outlook, sitting in an easy-chair by an attic fire, watching through a rain-washed window-pane a scene which fills me with forebodings and touches my heart to the very quick.

Down there in the courtyard, where the water in the imperfect pavement is lying in muddy pools, Tom Jardine, hatless, coatless, and regardless of the splas.h.i.+ng rain, is walking to and fro like a lion in his cage.

His face is set and white, his finger-tips clenched in the palm of his hand, and there is an anxious, troubled expression in his eye which recalls memories of unfortunate, hara.s.sed clients. For a moment he stands with feet apart and eyes dolefully fixed on the wet, sloppy flagstones. A door quietly opens, a tiny, smiling-faced figure darts through the rain, and in an instant two round, bare, chubby arms are encircling his knee, and a fair, curly head is nestling against his thigh. But there is no fatherly response to the loving embrace, no reply to the childish prattle. With a jerky wrench Tom frees himself from the wee, cuddling arms, and two wide-opened, surprised blue eyes follow him as again, in thoughtful measured tread, he walks up and down and up and down. Then red dimpled knuckles are pressed into these blue eyes, a sob breaks from a wounded little heart, and Tom comes to a sudden halt. In an instant his clouded face is wreathed in smiles and beams with loving solicitude. Bending down, he lifts the sobbing morsel; and as he disappears through the kitchen doorway with the precious burden in his strong arms and his hungry lips pressed against a soft red cheek, I say to myself, with a heavy, welling heart, 'Tom, you surely have your troubles, but as surely you have the antidote.'

CHAPTER V.

Of late I have noticed that Betty, in the course of our frequent cracks, has with considerable tact and adroitness turned the topic of our conversation into channels matrimonial and domestic. I know full well that my state of celibacy is to her a subject of wonderment and speculation; but, though other cases similar to my own have been commented upon--threshed to chaff, I may say--she has never, until to-day, come to close quarters, and vested the matter with any direct personal application. How she manoeuvred and worked her way round was distinctly characteristic, but not worth detailing; and I shall not readily forget the surprise, and, I might say, incredulity, with which she received my a.s.sertion that I had never married for the very simple reason that I had never been in love.

With her head thoughtfully to one side, she plied her needles a.s.siduously. 'Ye're--let me see noo, ye'll be'----

'Thirty next birthday, Betty,' I promptly answered.

'Ay, imphm! Ye're quite richt; ye're juist exactly that, an' nae mair.

Lovan me, imphm!' and she laughed and looked toward me. 'And, eh! d'ye mean to tell me--seriously noo--that ye're here at this time o' day withoot havin' met ony young leddy ye could mak' your wife?'

She was probing very near the quick, and I puffed vigorously at my pipe.

'Seriously and truthfully, Betty, I haven't yet met the woman I could marry.'

'Gosh me! that _is_ maist extraordinar', Maister Weelum, an' you within a cat's jump o' thirty. It's almost inconceivable! It strikes me ye havena been lookin' aboot ye very eidently, for it's no' as if there was a scarcity o' womenfolk. There's aye routh to pick an' choose frae; at least, if there's no' in Edinbro, there's plenty in Thornhill. It may happen, though, that ye're ower parteecular, or it may be ye're lookin'

oot for yin wi' a towsy tocher. Ministers an' lawyers, they tell me, ha'e a wonderfu' penetration in sniffin' oot siller, an' the faculty o'

placin' their he'rt where the handy lies.'

'That may be, Betty; but I must be an exception to this rule among lawyers, for I can a.s.sure you monetary considerations would never influence me. More than that, Betty, I don't consider my case altogether hopeless, although I am nearly thirty. There's luck in leisure, and you mustn't forget that you can't command love. It has to come of its own free-will--unasked, as it were; and when it comes, rest a.s.sured it won't be a case of pounds, s.h.i.+llings, and pence with me. The fact is, Betty, I'm waiting.'