Alec Forbes of Howglen Part 93

"No, no, James," returned his mistress. "I am not going to take your money to pay Mr Bruce."

"He's an awfu' cratur that, mem. He wad tak the win'in' sheet aff o'

the deid."

"Well, I must see what can be done. I'll go and consult Mr Gibb."

James took his leave, dejected on his mistress's account, and on his own. As he went out, he met Annie.

"Eh, Annie!" he said; "this is awfu'."

"What's the matter, Dooie?"

"That schochlin' (waddling, mean) cratur, Bruce, is mintin'

(threatening) at roupin' the mistress for a wheen siller she's aucht him."

"He daurna!" exclaimed Annie.

"He'll daur onything but tyne (lose) siller. Eh! la.s.sie, gin we hadna len' 't him yours!"

"I'll gang till him direcly. But dinna tell the mistress. She wadna like it."

"Na, na. I s' haud my tongue, I s' warran'.?-Ye're the best cratur ever was born. She'll maybe perswaud the ill-faured tyke (dog)."

Murmuring the last two sentences to himself, he walked away. When Annie entered Bruce's shop, the big spider was unoccupied, and ready to devour her. He put on therefore his most gracious reception.

"Hoo are ye, Miss Anderson? I'm glaid to see ye. Come benn the hoose."

"No, I thank ye. I want to speak to yersel', Mr Bruce. What's a' this aboot Mrs Forbes and you?"

"Grit fowk maunna ride ower the tap o' puir fowk like me, Miss Anderson."

"She's a widow, Mr Bruce"-?Annie could not add "and childless"?-"and lays nae claim to be great fowk. It's no a Christian way o' treatin'

her."

"Fowk _maun_ hae their ain. It's mine, and I maun hae't. There's naething agen that i' the ten tables. There's nae gospel for no giein'

fowk their ain. I'm nae a missionar noo. I dinna haud wi' sic things. I canna beggar my faimily to haud up her muckle hoose. She maun pay me, or I'll tak' it."

"Gin ye do, Mr Bruce, ye s' no hae my siller ae minute efter the time's up; and I'm sorry ye hae't till than."

"That's neither here nor there. Ye wad be wantin' 't or that time ony hoo."

Now Bruce had given up the notion of leaving Glamerton, for he had found that the patronage of the missionars in grocery was not essential to a certain measure of success; and he had no intention of proceeding to an auction of Mrs Forbes's goods, for he saw that would put him in a worse position with the public than any amount of quiet practice in lying and stealing. But there was every likelihood of Annie's being married some day; and then her money would be recalled, and he would be left without the capital necessary for carrying on his business upon the same enlarged scale?-seeing he now supplied many of the little country shops. It would be a grand move then, if, by a far-sighted generalship, a careful copying of the example of his great ancestor, he could get a permanent hold of some of Annie's property.?-Hence had come the descent upon Mrs Forbes, and here came its success.

"Ye s' hae as muckle o' mine to yer nainsel' as'll clear Mrs Forbes,"

said Annie.

"Weel. Verra weel.?-But ye see that's mine for twa year and a half ony gait. That wad only amunt to losin' her interest for twa year an' a half?-a'thegither. That winna do."

"What will do, than, Mr Bruce?"

"I dinna ken. I want my ain."

"But ye maunna torment her, Mr Bruce. Ye ken that."

"Weel! I'm open to onything rizzonable. There's the enterest for twa an' a half?-ca' 't three years?-at what I could mak' o' 't?-say aucht per cent?-four and twenty poun'. Syne there's her arrears o'

interest?-and syne there's the loss o' the ower-turn?-and syne there's the loss o' the siller that ye winna hae to len' me.?-Gin ye gie me a quittance for a hunner an' fifty poun', I'll gie her a receipt.?-It'll be a sair loss to me!"

"Onything ye like," said Annie.

And Bruce brought out papers already written by his lawyer, one of which he signed and the other she.

"Ye'll min'," he added, as she was leaving the shop, "that I hae to pay ye no interest noo excep' upo' fifty poun'?"

He had paid her nothing for the last half year at least.

He would not have dared to fleece the girl thus, had she had any legally const.i.tuted guardians; or had those who would gladly have interfered, had power to protect her. But he took care so to word the quittance, that in the event of any thing going wrong, he might yet claim his hundred pounds from Mrs Forbes.

Annie read over the receipt, and saw that she had involved herself in a difficulty. How would Mrs Forbes take it? She begged Bruce not to tell her, and he was ready enough to consent. He did more. He wrote to Mrs Forbes to the effect that, upon reflection, he had resolved to drop further proceedings for the present; and when she carried him a half-year's interest, he took it in silence, justifying himself on the ground that the whole transaction was of doubtful success, and he must therefore secure what he could secure.

As may well be supposed, Annie had very little money to give away now; and this subjected her to a quite new sense of suffering.

CHAPTER XC.

It was a dreary wintry summer to all at Howglen. Why should the ripe corn wave deep-dyed in the gold of the sunbeams, when Alec lay frozen in the fields of ice, or sweeping about under them like a broken sea-weed in the waters so cold, so mournful? Yet the work of the world must go on. The corn must be reaped. Things must be bought and sold.

Even the mourners must eat and drink. The stains which the day had gathered must be washed from the brow of the morning; and the dust to which Alec had gone down must be swept from the chair in which he had been wont to sit. So things did go on?-of themselves as it were, for no one cared much about them, although it was the finest harvest that year that Howglen had ever borne. It had begun at length to appear that the old labour had not been cast into a dead grave, but into a living soil, like that of which Sir Philip Sidney says in his sixty-fifth psalm:

"Each clodd relenteth at thy dressing,"

as if it were a human soul that had bethought itself and began to bring forth fruit.?-This might be the beginning of good things. But what did it matter?

Annie grew paler, but relaxed not a single effort to fill her place.

She told her poor friends that she had no money now, and could not help them; but most were nearly as glad to see her as before; while one of them who had never liked receiving alms from a girl in such a lowly position, as well as some who had always taken them thankfully, loved her better when she had nothing to give.

She renewed her acquaintance with Peter Whaup, the blacksmith, through his wife, who was ill, and received her visits gladly.

"For," she said, "she's a fine douce la.s.s, and speyks to ye as gin ye war ither fowk, and no as gin she kent a'thing, and cam to tell ye the muckle half o' 't."

I wonder how much her friends understood of what she read to them? She did not confine herself to the Bible, which indeed she was a little shy of reading except they wanted it, but read anything that pleased herself, never doubting that "ither fowk" could enjoy what she enjoyed.

She even tried the _Paradise Lost_ upon Mrs Whaup, as she had tried it long ago upon Tibbie Dyster; and Mrs Whaup never seemed tired of listening to it. I daresay she understood about as much of it as poets do of the celestial harmonies ever toning around them.

And Peter Whaup was once known, when more than half drunk, to stop his swearing in mid-volley, simply because he had caught a glimpse of Annie at the other end of the street.