Up in Ardmuirland | Page 8

and dirty red woolen muffler swathed his neck almost to the ears. Surmounting these woeful garments appeared a yellow, wrinkled face surrounded by a straggling fringe of gray whisker; gray locks strayed from an old red handkerchief tied round the brows under a dilapidated wide-awake hat. To add to his woe-begone aspect, the poor wretch was streaming with wet, for a Scottish mist had been steadily falling all the morning.
Leaning on his stick, the man slowly shuffled up the central path toward the porch in which I was sitting, striving to get the nearest possible approach to an open-air pipe. Touching his sorry headgear, he looked at me with mild eyes of faded blue, and smiled benignly as he asked:
"Could I see himsel'?"
I had not long come to that part of the country, and I was not thoroughly conversant with the terminology of the people, but it flashed upon me what he meant.
"Did you wish to see the priest?" I rejoined.
"Aye," replied the old vagrant--for so I deemed him. The smile seemed stereotyped, for it never faded. His face, when one regarded it attentively, had a quite attractive pleasantness.
"I'm sorry to say he's out just now," I said. "But you may go round to the back and get something to eat, if you wish."
It struck me as strange that he did not ask for money, but thanked me profusely and politely, as he touched his wretched hat once more and shuffled off toward the kitchen quarters.
He did not reappear for so long a time that I began to think it would be prudent to investigate. Traveling gentry of such a class are not always desirable visitors when the kitchen happens to be unoccupied for the nonce. As I made my way in that direction through the little hall I heard voices through the half-open door beyond.
"It'll be all right, Archie," Penny was saying. "The priest shall have the money as soon as he comes in, and if he can't say the Mass to-morrow, I'll take care to send you word by Willy. Now, mind you get a bit of fire lighted when you get back home. You must be wet through!"
"Thank ye kindly, Mistress Spence," came the slow response in the quavering voice of the old man. "It's yersel' that's aye kind and thochtful!"
I waited till I heard the door close upon the supposed "tramp" before venturing to make the inquiries that rushed to my lips. And even then I paused a while. When needing information from Penny, one has to be circumspect; she has a way of shutting off the supply with ruthless decision, yet with a seeming absence of deliberate purpose, whenever she suspects a "pumping" operation.
"I'm one that won't be drove," I've often heard her say. So we old fellows are often obliged to have recourse to diplomacy in dealing with our old nurse.
Consequently I lounged casually, as it were, into Penny's domain with the remark, "That poor old chap looked awfully wet, Penny."
"Wet enough he was, Mr. Edmund," replied the unsuspecting Penny, "and I have just been giving him a good hot cup of tea; for he never touches wine or spirits."
She was evidently betrayed by my apparent lack of inquisitiveness into a relation of the details I was longing to hear.
"To think," she continued, "of the creature walking down in such weather, and he such a frail old mortal, too, just to make sure of Mass to-morrow for his wife's anniversary. I can't help thinking, Mr. Edmund, that some of us might take an example in many things from poor old Archie McLean!"
"Does he live far away?" I asked--just to encourage the flow of the narrative.
"A good three miles--and his rheumatism something hawful," exclaimed Penny, now thoroughly started on her recital. I had but to lend an ear, and my curiosity would be satisfied.
Archie, it appeared, had been a soldier in his young days, but when he came to settle in Ardmuirland his time of service had expired; that was long ago, for he was now quite an elderly man. He took up his residence in a deserted mill, by the Ardmuir Burn. As he proved to be thoroughly quiet and inoffensive, the neighbors--true to their national character, not speedily attracted by strangers--began in course of time to make his acquaintance, and he eventually became a great favorite with all. When younger, Penny had been told, he had been "a wonderful good gardener," and for trifling payment, or in return for a meal, would always "redd-up" the gardens of the district. Thus he acquired the designation of "Airchie Gairdener," and by that was usually known.
What his neighbors could not comprehend was how Archie spent these small earnings, but more especially to what use he had put his army pension, which every one knew he once