Part 6 (1/2)

”What's his name, Jane?”

”He wouldn't give it, miss. He said it would be all right. Mrs. Mesurier would know him well enough.”

”Whoever can it be? What's he like, Jane?”

”He looks like a workman, miss,--very old, and rather dotey.”

”Who can it be? Go and ask him his name again.”

Esther would then arouse her mother; and the maid would come in to say that at last the old man had been persuaded to confide his name as Clegg--Samuel Clegg.

”Tell the missus it's Samuel Clegg,” the old man had said, with a certain amusing conceit. ”She'll be glad enough to see Samuel Clegg.”

”Why!” said Mrs. Mesurier, ”it's your father's poor old uncle, Mr.

Clegg. Now, girls, you mustn't run away, but try and be nice to him.

He's a simple, good, old man.”

Mrs. Mesurier was no more interested in Mr. Clegg than her daughters; but she had a great fund of humanity, and an inexhaustible capacity for suffering bores brilliantly.

”Why, I never!” she would say, adapting her idiom to make the old man feel at home, as he was presently ushered in, chuntering and triumphant; ”you don't mean to say it's Uncle Clegg. Well, we are glad to see you! I was just having a little nap, and so you must excuse my keeping you waiting.”

”Ay, Mary. It's right nice of you to make me so welcome. I got a bit mis...o...b..ful at the door, for the young maid seemed somehow a little frightened of me; but when I told the name it was all right. 'Samuel Clegg,' I said. 'She'll be glad enough to see Samuel Clegg,' I said.”

”Glad indeed,” murmured Mrs. Mesurier, ”I should think so. Find a chair for your uncle, Esther.”

”Ay, the name did it,” chuckled the old man, who as a matter of fact was anything but a humble old person, and to whom the bare fact of existence, and the name of Clegg, seemed warrant enough for thinking quite a lot of yourself.

”I'm afraid you don't remember your old uncle,” said the old man to Esther, looking dimly round, and rather bewildered by the fine young ladies. Actually, he was only a remote courtesy uncle, having married their father's mother's sister.

”Oh, of course, Uncle Clegg,” said Esther, a true daughter of her mother; ”but, you see, it's a long time since we saw you.”

”And this is Dorcas. Come and kiss your uncle, Dorcas. And this is Matilda,” said Mrs. Mesurier.

”Ay,” said the old man, ”and you're all growing up such fine young ladies. Deary me, Mary, but they must make you feel old.”

”We were just going to have some tea,” said Esther; ”wouldn't you like a cup, uncle?”

”I daresay your uncle would rather have a gla.s.s of beer,” said Mrs.

Mesurier.

”Ay, you're right there, Mary,” answered the old man, ”right there. A gla.s.s of beer is good enough for Samuel Clegg. A gla.s.s of beer and some bread and cheese, as the old saying is, is good enough for a king; but bread and cheese and water isn't fit for a beggar.”

All laughed obligingly; and the old man turned to a bulging pocket which had evidently been on his mind from his entrance.

”I've got a little present here from Esther,” he said,--”Esther” being the aunt after whom Mike's Esther had been named,--bringing out a little newspaper parcel. ”But I must tell you from the beginning.

”Well, you know, Mary,” he continued, ”I was feeling rather low yesterday, and Esther said to me, 'Why not take a day off to-morrow, Samuel, and see Mary, it'll shake you up a bit, and I'll be bound she's right glad to see you?' 'Why, la.s.s!' I said, 'it's the very thing. See if I don't go in the morning.'

”So this morning,” he continued, ”she tidies me up--you know her way--and sends me off. But before I started, she said, 'Here, Samuel, you must take this, with my love, to Mary.' I've kept it wrapped up in this drawer for thirty years, and only the other day our Mary Elizabeth said, 'Mother, you might give me that old jug. It would look nice in our little parlour.'” ”But no!” I says, ”Mary Elizabeth, if any one's to have that jug, it's your Aunt Mary.”

”How kind of her!” murmured Mrs. Mesurier, sympathetically.