CHAPTER XXI.

Clutha Leader, Volume VII, Issue 372, 26 November 1880, Page 7

CHAPTER XXI.

Mr Morgan did nob go the length of prohibiting intercourse between the families, but if he had. I would not have considered myself bound by the decree. I went frequently to spend an evening- with Lizzie and George, and it was on one of these occasions that I heard ' provisions ' mooted as the future field of enterprise. ' You see, Miss Noble,' said George, ' I mean to try to get a small shop in this district where I am known ; when F went with the omnibus I was popular. Hadn't I a manner that pleased the ladies, Lizzie V 1 I never heard of it,' replied Lizzie, gravely. . . .. -- ■ < ' May be, but it's true though/ said George, * and lots of them will come to the provision shop — but where to get the provisions is the puzzle to begin with V * Oh,' said Lizzie, • begin with very little and go on gradually, yourexpenses will be trifling ; your shop-rent won't be heavy, and you needn't keep a shopmain. I'll" help you to keep the shop.' ( Well done Ksaid he, * I think I see you slicing bacon and spading out butter — you wouM.be a dear .shopman— -I mean an expensive one. While yo\i are in the shop things are going to sixes and sevens here — the bairns with no one to look after them growing up

to run away with any low fellow that might take advantage of them — we'll have none of .that Mrs Myles;' . ' That we shall not,' said Lizzip, * they'll be better looked after, they'll not get wandering at their own sweet will as their precious mamma did.' '."..* 'I used to feel, like a fool,. Lizzie, when you used to trip down the omnibus steps in your dainty little boots, and alight on the ground like a feather. Then when you dropped the money into my great weather-beaten paw, out of a hand on which the pretty glove seemed to have grown, it fitted so exactly, I felt, I felt—' ' Probably like an earthworm looking up at a bird of Paradise,' she said, f but you svould know that birds of Paradise sometimes stooped to gobble up earthworms r 1 1 knew that earthworms never presumed to look at birds of Paradise, unless birds of Paradide first ' ' George !' ' Well, it's true, but I'll never tell. I once read an autobiography of what's called a self-made man J — what I'm going to be you know — and in it he describes fully how his wife courted him. I could have sent my fist into j the fellow's face. When I have made I a plum I'll likely write my biography, but I'll not tell, Lizzie, you ma} r depend on me.' ' Miss Noble,' said sha, pa}' no attention to the nonsense he - speaks, he might have something more serious to think about ;' then in a tew minutes she said, * I wonder if any body will ever tell the children — I wouldn't like them to know V She said this with such simple earnestness that George and I could not help laughing. There is a charm about the simple sayings of acute, clever people that is not about the common run of simple remarks. * I don't know how we'll manage aboub that,' said Geonre, ' thev'il come to know, as sure as eggs are eggs — see how my thoughts run on the provision business — -3'ou must be their sister, Lizzie, as well as their mother, make them all your own, and then they'll tell you what they think of the man in the place that papa once was, when he was very poor, before he was a great wholesale merchant, and kept his carriage.' '• There now, George, take care and don't kick your basket of eggs.; just look well lo the shop, and as long as we can walk we won't need a carriage. I don't mean to take a ride even in the omnibus now; we must be thrifty, and you must be serious and think.' Certainly he must, about how to begin business for instance, without capital, for, as I conjectured, he had nothing but what he might have saved during the past few years, little enough likely, for, as might be supposed, Lizzie's ideas of economy were not over stringent. If, reader, you are on the out-look for objects to pity, don't select young people in necessitous circumstances ; Lizzie and George seemed only pleasantly exhilarated; it was simply holiday excitement with them; he had faith, she had no fear, and they were much nearer their end than if, to use a populor expression, they had fretted themselves to fiddle-strings. Probably Mr M organ: pictured them to himself sitting in blank despair, repenting their childish folly in dust and ashes, only waiting for ever so slight encouragement — which he resolved they should never have ; they had sinned of their own accord, and of their own accord they must own it — to humble themselves at his feet, and ask to be re-instated. He could not imagine their happy, hearty enjoyment — so independent of external circumstances. Lizzie, her husband, and myself were still sitting talking when riie bell rang, and we heard the patter of little feet accompanying the servant who went to open the door. Then we heai'd a voice we had no difficulty in recognising, say, ' Bairn, has ye're mother nae mair sense than to hae the like o' you oot o' ye're bed at this time o' nicht ? W nan's she to get a steek put in, if it's no after the weans are in their bed ? An' hoo are ye bairnikie V said the voice to the little girl. ' Bite veil— how ou V said Lizzie the less. * That's aunt Betsy,' said Mrs Myles j ' what can have happened to bring her from home — nothing 1 disagreeable, I hope V Miss Betsy Morgan entered with no evil tidings in her face certainly. * An' hoo's a' wi' ye V she says, ( I'm blythe to see ye sac canty like.' ' I hope ye didn't expect to find us anything else, auntie ?' said Lizzie, as she settled the old lady in an easy chair, and took her bonnet and shawl. * Weel, Lizzie lass, there's never ony kp.nnin' hoo ye're to find folk in this warld. 1 * We haven't found the world such a bad one yet, Miss Betsy,' said George. : ' Aye, ye're young ; yel l maybe no say the same thing fifty years after this -4-no but that I've had a gay canny time o't mysel, being a single woman ; but oh, let ye keep yersel to yersel as ye like, ye will get mixed up wi' folk, an' whiles get a sair heart or ever ye ken.' 'Auntie, who's vexing 3'ou now— > what's the matter V i 'I didna say ony body's vexin' me —may be somebody's : pleesurin' me— -. what wad ye think V - ! *I would, be very glad indeed, 1 said Lizzie. • : I * Weel it's c'en so— fulish folk, nae

doot, wi' an a wfu' , wan t. o' warily ;wis-dom,-throwin' awa -a -gude -gaun,^. weel.. payin' business, and landin' themsels on the parish — it's nae joke.' | 'It's a sober truth,' said George, with possibly a squint at a pun. ' The soberer the better,' said Miss Betsy ; *ye wad wonder hoo the likes o' me aye hears tell o' a 1 thing 1 j weel, I just cam of! ance errand to see what ye'ra gaun to turn ye're hand to next V * George thinks of going- into the provision business,' said Lizzie, ' and I wa« offering- to be his shopman, but he wont have mo.' * Weel, I wadna say but he's richt in no ha'in' ye in the shop ; ye wad aye be giein' far ower gude wecht, an' ye wad be by ordinar' lavish wi' the paper an' the string, an' thae things tell on a business ; no to say that if a woman looks after her boose an' bairns, she has handlin' eneuoh without keepin' a shop ; but it's no a bad thocht the provisions — folk maun aye hae provisions, an' they're aye rinnin' dune ; but ye wad need to take tent hoo ye gie credit — I'm no ower fond o' thae bits o' pass-books, there's ower mony o' i them gaun aboot' 4 I doubt,' said George, I'll have to ask credit before I give much.' 'That's it noo — I jist thocht that,' said Miss Betty, * but it'll no do — it'll jist no do, ye raaum gaun to the market wi' the siller in ye're pouch — it's a wonderfu' advantage. 1 1 Wonderfu/ said George. * I'll have to tak« to the omnibus again, and try if I can find a fat purse in the bottomof it, that nobody claims ; that my likeliest chance of such an advantage.' *It would 'be better than stealing handkerchiefs,' said Lizzie. * Miss Noble felt shocked and alarmed at your dishonesty, George. I don't think she is over fond of you playing with her scissors yet, You had better put them down.' ' Certainly,' said George, and I really think he blushed. ' Noo, that's some story o' what yell ca' the. auld times, I'll warrant,' said Miss Betsy. • 'Ye wad break a crookit saxpence atvveen ye, na doot. A. weel. mair fules hae dune that in their day than you, and no aye for luck either,' and Miss Betsy strangled a sigh in th« birth. Was there some romantic taJp, with Miss Betsy for it's heroine? Those keen, dark eyes had proboblv done execution in their day, and the handsome face, though withered now, and the figure that must have been graceful before years bent the shoulders and made it stiff, had in time past attracted their share of admiration. ' But,' she went on, * we're away frae the bit — Leezie there kens I seldom speak without raisori, an' what I was gaun to say is this — I'll gie ye the siller — an' f daursay I'm maybe an auld gowk for doin't, but I'll gie ye'it; gin ye lose'c — an' ye may — ■ for prosperity's no the promise o 1 the New Testament — I'll fend, an' gin ye doobl't I'll get it back. I'll no say it was easy come by ; few folk ken I hae sic a posy — the feck o't was left me by an' auld mistress, mony a year sin' — eh, she was a fashous body, an' rauckle I put up wi'. wi' na« expectation o' gettin' a bawbee mair than my wage. Naething ever pleased her; but she was a gude body for a' that. It's an auld savin', that grace will hide where neither you nor me wad like to bide — an' l'se warrant she's gotten a' things to her mind noo. Weel, that'll gang its length in the stockin' o' ye're shop. Ye've come oot like Abraham, no kennin' where ye was gaun, and there's five hundred pound to ye,' and she laid a cheque for tha f amount on the table. We were all struck dumb for a minute,; then Lizzie silently kissed her aunt, and George said, ' I feel your kindness deeply, hut I 5 don't think I can take it— l can't take it.' ' What for should na ye tak' it, if I've made up my mind to gie yet ? I canna say I've aye had an easy mind wi' sac muckle siller lyin' by an' sac money folk ill aff — a body's no to live here aye, and we canna tak' it wi' us. I'm glad o' sic a gude use to put it to. I approve o' the provisions. My certie, whan ye come to dee, as ye will some day, for a' sac far awa, as it 100k — yell find the meal pocks a hantle safter cod to lay yer head on than the whisky casks' The argument was quaintly put but it was forcible — George took the money and began business at once. George Myles went home with me to Honeycomb House that evening, but beyond the gate he couldn't go, nor could I ask him to go. It is a very dreary thing the breaking up of a close family intercourse from whatever cause. People come round to your door every little while professing to mend the finest china and crystal so that it shall be as strong as ever, and no flaw be visible -[— some* good people try the same thing, and flatter themselves they have reached the same result in reuniting the shattered fragments of a broken friendship, b!ut whatever they may say or think, neither, article is perfect as at first; you must use them gingerly, take care -r-a drop of hot water, or cold — an inadvertent word, and 10. crack ! They go to pieces in your hands again. No, no, never break them, that's the best and only plan. ; I don't think Fanny had missed me niuch, for although her papa and David tiad been out during the evening, Dr England and Charles Brown had been in ', they had not left when I returned. As I looked at, and listened to Charles } Brown, I thought that evon the doctor-

might admit that his rawness was gone .a ! nd replaced-by a manufactured article of a high order. J Fanny and he were brisk oh total abstinence topics j the doctor sat by and said nothing. I gave them Miss" Betsy Morgan's comparative, "view of the provision and spirit trades in her own original terms. ' It's very true,' said Fanny ; it may turn out that this change may be for George's worldly advantage, but Icon-, sider him a kind of martyr for the cause.' ' Martyr !' I said ; ♦ look at Dr England — he is just forming his mouth to say " bosh." ' * I was forming my mouth to say, I am a teetotaler,' said he with comic gravity. . ' You !' I said, ' Oh, doctor, don't say you are anything so absurd — because one man makes a beast ofhimself is that any reason why you and I should not take what will do us good V. 1 No reason at all,' he said j 'but if T can prevent a man making a beast of himself by my abstinence, that's tv reason why I should abstain.' ' Your reason and your no reason shave close,' said I ; 'female intellects are hardly equal to such nice, hairsplitting—is. your conversion recent?' ' iTot very — why so?' ' ' Because I wonder we haven't heard of it before?' ' I'm not a very public character, but if you had been much interested, I daresay you might have made the discovery.' ' We are much interested, and you ought to be a public character. If you and Mr Brown wei'e to make the round of the country, and exhibit your gigantic selves as specimens of what can be done on water-drinking, I think it might do good.' * I don'c know — big things are seldom good for much but to be looked at. We would need some noble little spirit to point us out and illustrate us— what dp you say V 1 That we'll think over it.' (To be continued.)