Up in Ardmuirland | Page 8

yet."

III
ARCHIE
"Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die; Steal
from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie." (_Pope--"Ode to
Solitude"_)
He was an unusually wretched semblance of a man. A tattered
coat--some one's cast-off overcoat--green, greasy, mud-stained, clung
round his shaking knees; trousers which might have been of any hue
originally, but were now "sad-colored," flapped about his thin legs and
fringed his ankles; shoes, slashed across the front for ease, revealed
bare feet beneath; an antique 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