"No, dear, you look very nice," she observed, as though in reply to this mute question; "you are not at all too smart. Now I must go and read my letters. Have a good time, children; and, Malcolm, remember Anna must not be overtired," and then Mrs. Herrick nodded cheerfully and withdrew to the library. Anna ran off to put on her hat, while Malcolm read his paper.
They went first to Lincoln's Inn, and Anna stood on the wide steps looking at the pigeons fluttering over the old buildings, quite unaware, in her innocent excitement—though Malcolm was not—that many an admiring glance rested on her.
In spite of her lack of beauty, Anna's pretty girlish figure and youthful grace often attracted people—her expression was so guileless and sweet, and the fair fluffy hair so softly tinted; and as she stood there in the morning sunshine, in her white gown and shady hat, Malcolm felt secretly proud of his young companion, and his manner became still more affectionate.
They interviewed Malachi, and to Anna's delight Malcolm put him through his paces. Then they went into the inner room, and Anna sat down on the chair Cedric had occupied, and looked round her with undisguised amazement: the shabbiness and ugliness of the surroundings almost shocked her.
"Oh, Malcolm, it is not a bit nice and comfortable," she said with an anxious frown: "fancy your spending your days in this dreary room."
Then Malcolm gave an amused laugh.
"Poor little girl, so you are disappointed in my literary den. I suppose you thought I should have carved oak and Russia leather bindings; but we don't go in for aesthetic furniture in Lincoln's Inn."
"But it is so ugly and so dingy, Malcolm."
"Is it?" he returned, quite surprised at this severe criticism. "I think it quite snug myself. I have done some good work here, Anna, so I suppose the ugliness and dinginess are somewhat inspiring." And Malcolm glanced at his littered writing-table rather proudly.
As Anna felt no temptation to linger, they started off briskly in search of Todmorden's Lane.
They found it with little difficulty. It was a small side street, of somewhat unprepossessing appearance, leading out of Beauchamp Street. Bennet, boot-maker and umbrella-maker, had a dark, dingy little shop just at the corner. It had evidently been an ordinary dwelling-house in old times, but a bow window had been added to transform it into a shop. A flight of broken steps led to the basement, where the cobbler and his household lived; but as they carefully descended, Malcolm suddenly paused.
"What on earth is that noise?" he asked in a puzzled tone. And Anna, drawing her dainty white skirts closely round her, stood still to listen.
It was certainly an extraordinary combination of sounds. It seemed at first as though two people were singing a duet in different tunes and without any regard to time; there was persistent melody and yet there was utter discord, and it seemed accompanied by the clanging of fire-irons.
Presently Anna began to laugh. "Do let us go in and see what it means," she whispered. "Somebody—a man, I think—is singing 'Rule Britannia' and 'Hark, hark, my soul' by turns, and there is a woman talking or scolding at the same time."
"I believe you are right," was Malcolm's answer. "Take care of that last step, child, it is quite worn away." And then, as they stood side by side in the dismal little area, he looked vainly for a bell. Finally, he rapped so smartly at the door with Anna's sunshade that they distinctly heard an irate voice say, "Drat their imperence," and a tall, bony-looking woman, in a flowered gingham dress and a very red face, bounced out on them.
She was so tall and so excessively bony, and so altogether aggressive-looking, that Anna felt inclined to hide herself behind Malcolm. Indeed, he remarked afterwards himself, that he had never seen a finer specimen of a muscular Christian, barring the Christianity, in his life.
"What's your pleasure?" observed the Amazon, folding her arms in a defiant manner, while through the open door they could now hear distinctly the cobbler's subdued and singularly toneless voice meandering on—"O'er earth's green fields, and ocean's wave-beat shore."
"Deuce take the man!" continued the woman wrathfully. "Will you hold your old doddering tongue, Caleb, and let the gentlefolk speak!" But there was no cessation of the dreary, dirge-like sounds. They found out afterwards that Caleb always worked with cotton-wool in his ears, so his wife's remonstrance failed to reach him.
"You see, it is like this, sir," he observed to Malcolm afterwards, when they became better acquainted with each other: "Ma'am's tongue is like a leaking water-butt. It is bound to drip, drip from week's end to week's end, and there's no stopping it. It is a way she has, and Kit and me are bound to put up with it. She means no harm, doesn't Kezia; she is a hard-working crittur, and does her duty, though she is a bit noisy over it; she is good to us both in her way, and I am not quarrelsome by nature, so, as I like to work in peace, I just stop my ears and hum to myself, and if she scolds I mind it no more than I do the buzzing of the blue-bottles on the glass."
"But the child Kit?" questioned Malcolm a little anxiously. Then a queer little twisted smile came to Caleb's face.
"She is used to it, is Kit, and she don't take it to heart much. I have heard her cheek Ma'am sometimes. Ma'am wouldn't hurt a hair of her head, for all her bouncings and flinging of pots and kettles when she is in a temper. It is the basement tries her, poor soul. She says she has never been used to it. Her first husband was in the tin trade, and they had a tidy little shop in the Borough."
"Oh, Mrs. Martin has been married before," observed Malcolm. He was rather surprised at this piece of intelligence.
"Lord love you, yes, sir; and when she became Josh Leggett's widow she just took up with me because she said she felt lonesome. She did it with her eyes open as I often tell her, but she has never got over the basement. It does not agree with her constitution, and it never will."
"I suppose Kit is Mrs. Martin's child?" asked Malcolm, as he digested this information.
Then Caleb gave a dry little laugh.
"Bless you, no, sir. Kezia never had any family. That was always a sore point with her. She said that was why she was so lonesome, and I believe she married me mostly on Kit's account. Oh, she has a good heart, has Ma'am," continued Caleb in his slow, ruminative way, "though she would talk a dozen men stupid, one after another, and be as fresh as paint herself." And with this graphic description of the second Mrs. Martin, Caleb touched his old hat and slouched away.
CHAPTER VI
YEA-VERILY AND BABS
We will have a swashing and a martial outside.
—As You Like It.
The direct influence of good women is the greatest of all forces under Divine Grace for making good men.
—KNOX LITTLE.
Never had that much-loved hymn "The Pilgrims of the Night" sounded so flatly and discordantly in Anna's ears as when she listened to Caleb's monotonous croak; but her sense of irritation changed to alarm when Mrs. Martin suddenly shook her fist at the open door and vanished. Malcolm, who promptly followed her, was just in time to see her shaking the cobbler by his coat-collar, much after the fashion of a terrier shaking a rat.
"Are you a born natural?" she screamed. "Pilgrims of the night, indeed! I'll pilgrim you, you chuckle-headed idiot. Here are your betters trying to make themselves heard." Then Caleb slowly unstopped his ears, and rose rather stiffly to his feet.
"You have got no call to be so violent, Kezia," he returned meekly. "Oh, it is the gentleman who lent us the umbrella. Kit and I were going to bring it back this afternoon, sir, but I had to finish a job I had in hand."
"There is no hurry," returned Malcolm. "We were in this direction, so I thought I would save you the trouble."