Harry Muir. A story of Scottish life

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

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CHAPTER 1. Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits

Two Gentlemen of Verona.

And this is the pillar that Rob Roy hid behind, the Sabbath rir.v that be warned the young English gentleman in the kiik. It’s ike very place itsel’. Here was the pulpit — and the seats were a’ heie, and this is the pillar that hid Rob Roy.”

A party of young men were in the crypt of Glasgow cathedral— the little, sleek, bumble-looking man, who very unobtrusively acted as cicerone, was pointing out to them the notability, with these w Drds.

One of the visitors turned away with a grave smile, and leaving his companions, began to wander slowly down one of the long black aisles. The dim withdrawing vistas— the pillars with their floral chaplets— the singular grace and majesty of those dark and ponderous arches— impressed him with very different associations. The young man’s smile, slightly scorn! ill at first, melted as he reached the lower end, and looking up through this grand avenue, saw the little knot of dim figures in the distance. He was glad to escape from their laughter and unsuitable merriment. These noble oltL cloisters were too grave and solemn to have their stillness so invaded.

Rut ne was not suffered long to remain uninterrupted in his contemplative mood. “ What ails Cuthbert?” said one of the younger of the party, a lad in the transition station between boy and man. “ See to him down yonder at the very end, like a craw in the mist — I say, Cuthbert!”

As the piping shrill voice called out his name at its highest pitch, the young man began slowly to advance again. The Jad came forward to meet him. ” What are you smiling at— what did you go away for?”

“ 1 was smiling at myself, John,” answered the accused.

John was curious. ” What for?”

“ For thinking there were things more interesting here, than the pillar that # hid Rob Roy. Come along— never mind. Where are they all bound for, now?”

They were boifhd for a very dissimilar place — no other than the crowded Broomielaw, where John’s brothers were bent upon showing their Edinburgh cousin, Cuthbert Charteris, and an English stranger who accompanied them, one or two fine ships belonging to “ the house,” then in port. These young men were the sons of a prosperous merchant, all of them already in harness in the office

HARRY MUIR.

and beginning to make private ventures on their own behalf. There were three of them — Richard, Alick, and John Buchanan; the two elder had reached the full dignity of young manhood, and rejoiced in mighty whiskers, which John, poor fellow, could only covet intensely, and cultivate with all his might; hut even John had begun to have the shrewd man of business engrafted on the boy, and was sometimes precociously calculating and commercial — sometimes disagreeably swaggering and loud— though not unfrequently simple, foolish, and gent-rous, as better became his years.

“ I say, Culhbert,” said the communicative John, as he swung his arm through his grave cousin’s, and fol'owed his gay brothers on the way to the river, “ did you ever see Ilarry Muir? Dick says he’s going to make him come and dine with us to-ntght.”

“ Aud who is Harry Muir?” asked Charteris.

“Oh, he’s nobody — only a clerk in the office, j T ou know — but you never saw sucn a clever chap. lie can sing anything you like. He’s a grand singer. And when Harry’s in a good humor, you should just hear him with the fellows in the office. My father looks out of his own room sometimes to see what’s the row, and there’s Gilchrist sucking his pen, and Macauley and Alick close down over their books, writing for a race, and Muir quite cool, and looking as innocent as can be. You should just see them, and see how puzzled my father is, when he finds that there’s no row at all!”

" And in such emergencies, how do you behave yourself, Johnnie?”

44 Johnnie! I wish you’d mind that I’m not a hoy now.”

4 Jack, then! Will that please you, young man?” said Charteris, smiling.

44 Me? 1 behave the best way I can,” said the mollified John. 44 The best plan is, to set to working, and never let on that you hear the door open; but we like to get him among a lot of us when there’s nobody in the way; and you’ll just see to-night, Culhbert, what a grand fellow he is for fun.”

Culhbert did not look very much delighted. 44 And when is this famous dinner to be?” he asked. “ Is Dick to entertain us at home?”

Master John burst into a great laugh. “ Man, Cutlibert, what a simple fellow you are! You don’t think my mother would ask Harry Muir to dine.”

44 And why not, my boy?” asked the Edinburgh advocate.

44 Why net! Man. is that the way you do in the east country? He’s only a clerk, and everybody knows you Edinburgh folk are as proud as proud can be. Would you ask your clerk to dine with you?”

44 1 don’t possess such an appendage, Sir Jehu,” sail the briefless barrister, 44 except it be a little scrubby boy like what you were the last time 1 was west here — and he ceitainiy would «ieed some brushing up So he’s not a gentleman, this wi^of yours? He would not be presentable in the drawing- room?”

“Hum! 1 don’t know,” said honest John, hesitating. “ He looks quite as well as Dick or Alick, or that, JLiverpool man there.” The lad drew himself up and arranged his neckcloth complacently.

There’s handsomer men,, to be sure- but ’ think Muir's better, looking than any of you. Culhbert'.”

HARRY MUIR.

Charteris laughed: “ Is he not well-bred, then?’

“ Oh, yes, lie can behave himself well enough. He’s got a way* of his own, you know; but then he’s a clerk.”

“ And so are you, Jack, my man,” said Charteris.

“ Oh, yes, but there’s a difference. He’s got no money— and morethan tnat,” said the juvenile merchant, “he's got no enterprise, Cuthbert. There’s Alick. he had a share in a plan, sending out a lot. of things to San Francisco on a venture, just when the news came about the gold, you know, and he cleared a hundred pounds;, that’s the way to do. But then, that fellow Muir, he never tries a thing; and worse than that, he went, away and married somebody last year, and he had three sisters before, and them all living will* him. Just think of that. Four women all dragging a young man down when he might be rising in the world, lsnh it awful?”

“ A very serious burden,” said Oharteiis, smiling; “ hut what is his salary, John?”

II is salarv’s sixty pounds; my father gives very good salaries. He’s just a clerk, you know. 'The cashier has two hundred.”

“ Sixty pounds! and live people live on sixty pounds!” said the lawyer.

“ And they've got a baby,” said John, solemnly

It was the climax; there was no more said.

The respectable firm of George Buchanan & Sons had its office in a dingy businesss street near the Exchange. The earlj darkness ot the February night had almost blotted out the high somber houses opposite, except for the gh anting gas-light streaming from office windows in irregular patches from garret to basement. It was not a very busy time, and at five o’clock the clerks were preparing to leave the office.

“ I say, Muir,” cried Richard Buchanan, bursting in hastily,

come and dine with us.”

Chatteris was behind. The famous Harry Muir was certainly handsome — very much better looking than any other of the party, and had a fine, sparkling, joyous, intelligent lace — but the lines of it had everything in them but firmness.

“ Not to-night,” said ihe clerk, “ you must not ask me to-night.”

“ Why not to-night?” said the young master. “ Come along now, Harry, do be a gcod fellow. AVliy, it’s just to-night ot all nights that we want you. There’s my Cousin Charteris, and there’s an Englishman; and we’re all as flat as the Clyde. Come along, Muir, don’t disoblige us.”

“ 1 am very sorry,” said Muir, “ but 1 can’t stay in town to-night. Let me off to-night; 1 will be more obedient next time.”

“ He wants to get home to nurse his wife,” said Buchanan, with a sneer.

“ My wife is quite well,” answered Harry, with a quick flush of anger; “ she does not need my nursing, Mr. Buchanan.”

“ Mr. BuchanaL! don’t be ill-natured, Harry — come along.”

“ No, no; 1 carT not go to-night. I don’t think I can stay to-night,” said the brilliant, facile clerk.

The entreaties continued a little longer; the resistance became feebler and more feeble, and at last, stipulating that he was to leave them early, the genius of the counting-house consented.

HARRY MUIR.

“ Harry, my mao, send a message to your vvife,” said a grave snuffy person, who enjoyed the two hundred pounds a year ot which John had boasted, and was cashier to the Messrs. Buchanan.

Harry wavered a moment. “ Where is the boy?’'

“ Perhaps she’ll come for you, Harry,” suggested the malicious Buchanan.

The poor clerk threw down, angrily, the pen he had taken up, anti lifted his hat. in another minute, with quickly recovered gayety, they went out in a band to the adjacent square where they were to dine.

‘‘ There’s the makings of a capital man in that lad, and there’s the makings of a blackguard,” said the grave Mr. Gilchrist, shaking his head ruefully, and taking a pinch of snuff; ‘‘it’ll be a hard lace— which of them will win?”

The dinner in George’s Square went off very well, and the young clerk, as he warmed, dazzled the little company; he was only a clerk— they were inclined lo patronize him at other times — but now the unmistakable, undesired pre-eminence, which these young men yielded to their poor companion, was a noticeable thing. The mutter of ambition now, was, who should seem most intimate with, who should most attract the attention of, the brilliant clerk.

Outhbert Charteris was a more completely educated man than any other of the party. The thorough literary training will not ally itself to the commercial, as it seems. None of the young merchants had time for the long discipline and athletic mental exercises of the student. They were all making money before they should have been well emancipated from the school-room— all independent men when they should have been boys — and the contrast was marked enough. There was a good deal ot boisterousness in their enjoyment, and they were enjoying themselves heartily, while Outhbert, getting very weary, felt himself only preserved from utter impatience of their mirth by the interest with which the stranger inspired him — this poor, clever, facile Harry Muir.

The quick mind of this young man seemed to have attained somehow to the resultB of education without the training and discipline which forms so principal a part of it. He seemed to have been a desultory reader, a devourer of everything which came in his way, and while the Buchanans knew few books beyond the serial literature of the time, harry threw delicate allusions about him, which it seemed he made only for his own enjoyment, since the arrows flew most innocently over the heads of all the rest. Threads of connection with those great thoughts which form the common country of imaginative minds, ideas radiating out from the center of these, like the lessening circles in the water— the student Outhbert ' heard and understood, and wondered — the Buchanans applauded, and did not understand.

One of them at last proposed to go to the theater— the rest chimed in eagerly. Outhbert, anxious to have the evening concluded as soon as possible, and resolving to seek no more of the delectable society of his young cousins except at home, where they were tolerable, remonstrated only to be laughed at and overpowered. The grown-up, mature, educated man resigned himselt to their boyish guidance very wearily— and what would tlieii wit do now?

HARRY MUIR.

lie said he would go home — he took up his hat, aud played hesitatingly with his gloves. He was excited with the company, the applause, and a little with the wine, and was permitting himself to parley with the tempter.

“ Come along, Muir, it’s only for once: let us just have this one night.”

“ Ho, no.” • The noes grew faint; the hesitation increased. He consented again.

And so, louder and more boisterous than before, they again entered the busy streets. John Buchanan was a good deal inclined to be obstreperous. It was all that Cuthbeit could manage to keep him within bounds. They had reached the Trongate, and Cuthbert stopped his young companion a moment to look down the long gleaming line of the crowded street. It had been wet in the morning, and the brilliant light from the shop windows glistened in the w T et causeway in long lines, and the shifting groups of passengers went and came, ceaselessly, and the hum ami din of the great thoroughfare was softened by the gloom and brightened by the light of traffic that illuminated all.

“ What are you looking at? See! they’re all away across the street. What’s the good of glowering down the Trongate? Man, Cuthbert, how slow you are,” said John Buchanan, dragging the loiterer on.

There was a crowd on the opposite side which bad absorbed the others. Cuthbert and John crossed over.

The accident which attracted the crowd was a very common one — an overtasked horse, wearied with the long day’s labor, had stumbled and fallen; and now, the weight of the cart to which it was attached having been removed, was making convulsive plunges in the effort to rise. The carters, and the kindred class who are always to be found ready in such small emergencies, were leaping aside themselves, and pressing back the lookers on^ as the poor animal struck out his great weary limbs, endeavoring to raise himself from the ground.

Suddenly there was a shrill cry — “ The wean — look at the wean; the brute’s tit’ll kill the wean.”

John Buchanan had pushed his way into the crowd, dragging with him the reluctant Cuthbert— and there indeed, close to the great hoofs of the prostrate animal, stood one of those little, pale, careworn, withered children whom one sees only in the streets of great cities, and ofteuest only at this unwholesome hour of night. But the acuteness peculiar to the class seemed to have forsaken the very little, wrinkled old man of the Trongate, He was standing where the nexl plunge would inevitably throw him down, with the strange scared look which is not fear, common to children in great peril, upon his small, white, puckered lace. Again the panting horse threw out his hoofs in another convulsive exertion. The child was down.

A shade tv shot across the light. There were several cries of women. The chihl was thrown into somebody’s arms uninjured. The horse was on its feet, aud a man, indistinctly seen in the midst of the eager crowd, struggled ineffectually to raise himself from the ground, where he had fallen.

HARRY MUIR.

“1 am hurt a little,” said the voice of Harry Muir. ‘‘Never mind, it is not much, 1 dare say. Some of you help me up. ”

There was a rush to assist him; a burst of eager inquiries.

“ I got a blow from the hoof; ah I 1 can’t tell what it is,” gasped the young man, over whose face the pallor of deadly sickness was stealing. He could not stand. They carried him — these rough slroug men, so gentlv — with his fiiends crowding abqut him, to the nearest surgeon’s. Everybody was sympathetic; every one interested. But Harry Muir's head had sunk upon his breast, and the iiedit had gone lrom his eyes. He was conscious of nothing but pain.

The accident was a serious one; his leg was broken.

CHAPTER IT.

He sent me hither, stranger as I am, To tell this story.

As You Like It.

“ Cuthbert,” said Richard Buchanan, “ do, like a good fellow, go and tell his wile.”

“ Do you not see, man, that a stranger would alarm her more? Why make me the messenger? You say she knows you, Dick.”

“ Ay, she knows him,” said the second brother, ‘‘ but she does not know him for any good. You see, Cuthbert, Dick’s always enticing poor Muir away— as he did to-night — and the wife wouldn’t flatter him if he went up now.”

” I don’t care a straw for the wife,” said Richard angrily. “ It’s yon grim sister Martha, and that white-faced monkey of a girl 1 say. Cuthbert— you needn’t go in, and they don’t know you— do go beiore and tell them lie’s coming. I’ll come up with him myself in the noddy — just to oblige me, Cuthbert, will you go?”

“lie lives in Port Durdas Road, it’s not very far. John will > show you wiiere it is,” urged Alick.

Cuthbert consented to go; and the obstreperous John was very much subdued, and very ready to accompany his cousin to poor Muir’s house. It was now nearly ten o’clock. The young men were all greatly concerned, and in an inner room poor Harry was getting his leg examined, and looking so deadly sick aud pale as to alarm both surgeon and friends. It was his temperament, so finely organized, as to feel either pain or pleasure far more exquisitely, than is I lie common lot.

“ What will you say to them? Man, Cuthbert, are you not feared?” asked John.

” Why should I be feared? I ant very sorry for her, poor woman * — but is she such a lury, this wile?”

“ It’s not the wife, it’s his eldest sister. Dick went home with Muir ODe night when he wasn’t quite able to take care of himself, •and 1 cau tell you Dick was feared.”

Dick was to blame— I do not feel that I am,” said Charteris;

” but why was he afraid? — did she say so much to him?”

“ Shed dn t say anything to him: but you know they say she’s awful passionate, and she’s a great deal older than Harry; and she’s just been like bis mother. They’re always so strict, these old maids — and Miss Muir’s an old maid.”

“ W nit, then, till I see, John,” said Cuthbert; “don’t try to intimi.late me.”

“ Yonder’s the house,” said John.

They had just passed a great quarry, across which the dome of some large building loomed dark against the sky. Then there wa3 a field raised high above the road, with green grass waving over the copestoue of a high wall, and at the end of the field stood a solitary house. A house of some pretension, for it boasted its street-door, and was “ selt-contained;” and albeit the ground floor on either side was occupied by two not very ambitious shops, the upper flat looked substantial and respectable, although decayed.

They were on the onposite side— the street was very quiet, and their stepsuind voices echoed through it so clearly that the loud John sunk into whispering and felt himself guilty. The light of a very pale moon was shining into one of the windows. Looking up, Cuthbert saw some one watching them -eagerly pressing against the dark dull panes; as they crossed the street, the face suddenly disappeared.

“ That's one of them,” whispered John. “ Isn’t it awful that a poor fellow can’t be out a little late, but these women are watching for him that way?”

Cuthbert did not answer. He was thinking of “ these women, and of tlieir w T atching, rather than of the poor fellow who was the object of it.

They had not time to knock, when the door was opened wide to them, and a pale girl’s face looked out eagerly. She shrunk back at once with a look of blank disappointment which touched Cuthbert’s heart. “ l—l beg your pardon— 1 thought it was my brother.”

“ Your brother will be here very soon. He has done a very brave tiling to-night, and has had a slight accident in consequence. 1 beg you will not he alarmed,” said Cuthbert hastily.

“ Oh! come in. sir. come in,” said the youDg sister. “ A very brave tiling.” She repeated it again and again, under her breath.

“ There’s the noddy,” whispered John, as he lingered behind. “]’h wait and help him in.”

The door admitted into a long paved passage, terminating in a little damp “ green.” John Buchanan remained at the door, while Cuthbert followed the steps of his eager conductor, through the passage, aud up an outside stair/ iuto the house. She seemed very eager, aud only looking round to see that he followed her, ian

into a ft tile parlor. . , , .

“ Harry is coming. He has been helping somebody, and has hurt himself, Martha; the gentleman will tell you,” exclaimed poor Harry’s anxious advocate, placing herself beside the chair where sat a tall faded woman, sternly composed and quiet.

“ is Harry hurt?” cried another younger and prettier person, who occupied the seat of honor by the fire-side.

“ He has done a very brave thing;” Cuthbert heard u whispered

earnestly, into the elder sister’s ear.

He told them the story. The little wife was excited and nervous —she began to cry. The sister Martha sat firmly in her chair, her

HARRY MUIR.

stern face moved and melting. The younger girl stood behind, with her arm round her sister, aud her bright tearful face turned toward 'Chart eris. “Our Harry— our poor Harry! it tvas this iha! kept him, Maltha— and he saved the child.”

“ What shall we do? AVill he be lame?” sobbed the little wife.

The srra^e Martha suddenly rose from her chair as the faint sound of wheels reached them. “ He is here. Hose, make the room ready for him, poor fellow. Do not let him see you crying. Agnes. Come to the door, and meet him.”

They went away hastily, leaving Charteris still in the room. Rose vanished by another door into an inner apartment. They were overmuch excited and anxious to remember the courtesy due to a stranger; and the stranger, for his part, was too much interested to leave them until he had seen how the sufferer bore his removal.

“Rose,” said a very small voice, “has Harry come home?— Rose!” Charteris looked round him a good deal puzzled, for there was no visible owner of the little voice. There certainly was a -cradle in a corner, but nothing able to speak could inhabit that.

“ Rose!”

There was no answer. Then there followed a faint rustling, and then a third door opened, and a little head in a white nightcap, looked out with a pair of bewildered dark eyes, and suddenly shrunK in again, when it found tiie room in possession of a stranger. The stranger smiled at his own somewhat strange position, and began to move toward the door — but suddenly the cradle gave sound of life, and a lusty baby voice began to cry. They were carrying the baby’s father then, into the house. The good-humored Cuthert rocked the cradle.

Poor Harry was still very pale, though the surgeon who accompanied him was as tender of him as the most delicate nurse, and the strong young arms of the Buchanans carried the patient like a child. They made their escape immediately, however— but divided between sympathy for the family, and a consciousness of his own somewhat ridiculous position, Cuthbeit stood at his post, rocking the refractory cradle. Tney all passed into the inner apartment. He was alone again.

It was a very plain parlor, and various articles of feminine work were scattered about the room: some small garment for the sleeping baby lay on the ground, where it had fallen from the young mother’s hand; on the table, where Martha had been sitting, was a piece of fine embroidery, stretched on two small hoops which fitted closely into each other. She had been engaged in filling up the buds and -blossoms of those embroidered flowers with a species of fine needlework, peculiar to Glasgow and its dependent provinces. Another hoop, and another piece of delicate work, remained where Rose had left it. The sisters of the poor clerk maintained themselves so.

The baby voice had ceased. Groans of low pain were coming from the inner room. Cuthbert felt that he did wrong to wait, and turned again toward the door— but just then Miss Muir entered the parlor.

“ Tne doctor thinks he will do well,” said Martha. “ To-night 1 can hardly thank you. But he is everything to us all— poor

HAR11Y MUIR.