“Men resemble the gods in nothing so much as in doing good to their fellow-creatures.” — CICERO.

“He is very dirty,” said Miss Mercer.

“He is that,” said Alison.

“He will need a good wash,” pursued Miss Mercer.

“Ay, will he,” assented Alison.

“That is, if he remains,” Miss Mercer continued, in a dubious way.

“Aweel, mem, I wad say he was wantin’ a scour onyway,” said Alison, in a tone which contained no doubt whatsoever.

Looking at the object under discussion, one could not but thoroughly agree with Alison: if ever a boy wanted washing, this one did. He was, perhaps, four years old, a sturdily made little chap, with brown eyes, and a mat of brown hair; his garments in the last stage of decay; and over all, grime and dirt unspeakable.

Miss Mercer, clad in her plain black silk gown, white Shetland shawl, and cap with mauve ribbons, sat in her armchair; while Alison, in a lilac print with sleeves rolled up above her elbows, a large coarse clean apron, and a good-sized white cap on her grizzled locks, stood behind her. They both gazed at the small boy, and the small boy gazed back at them. He was much the most calm and unperturbed of the three; his look was simply inquiring, and did not contain the element of perplexity which formed so large a part of theirs. He may have felt that the situation was not of his creating, and that therefore responsibility for the future did not rest with him. Although the chances are that he felt nothing at all but a vague wonder as to where he had got to now, and what was likely to happen next.

Alison’s look was becoming less perplexed, for she felt that she had got a definite idea at last; something to be doing had suggested itself to her.

“I’ll just tak’ the wee laddie up the stair,” she said, “and fill the bath; and, maybe, by the time I’ve gotten the dirt aff him, mem, ye’ll ken better what’s tae be done next.” And forthwith Alison took the boy by the hand and departed.

Miss Mercer sat and meditated. Things out of the ordinary did not often happen at Gailside, and this was decidedly out of the ordinary. Miss Mercer had been out walking; to be precise, she had been paying a visit to Miss Hamilton, the laird’s elder sister, who had presided over Glengail and the destinies of his only child since the death of his wife. Miss Mercer had duly paid her visit, and was proceeding down the road on her return to her own dwelling, Gail Cottage, when, by the roadside, sitting in a ditch and nursing one bare foot, she discovered a small dirty ragged boy—a boy who, as her practiced eye at once told her, was no native of Gailside.

Miss Mercer paused, and looked at him doubtfully. He studied her gravely for a moment with big brown eyes; then he held one dirty foot towards her, and said—partly stating a fact, partly making an appeal—“Sore.”

If there was one thing on the face of the earth that Miss Mercer thoroughly objected to, it was a dirty child; so what followed was all the more remarkable. She bent forward and examined the foot, discovering it had been badly cut by a stone.

“It is sore,” she assented.

The boy nodded. “Couldn’t walk no more,” he said.

And then Miss Mercer realized more fully that he could not belong to the neighbourhood of Gailside; he had “an English accent.”

“Where are your father and mother, my man?” she said.

He shook his head.

“Where have you come from?”

Again he shook his head. Obviously, he could give no information on either point.

“How did you get here?” Miss Mercer said, making another effort to obtain reliable data.

“Couldn’t walk no more,” said the small boy. “My foot sore.” And he began to nurse it again.

Miss Mercer was completely baffled. “But—but you must have been with somebody,” she said at last.

The boy nodded. “Big Joe, and Sal, and Tommy,” he began.

Then suddenly Miss Mercer thought she saw light.

“Would it be the tinkers?” she interrupted.

The small boy shook his head; he had never heard the word, and it conveyed nothing to him.

“They went through the village this morning, and will be far enough away by now,” she said, apparently addressing a cow, which had advanced to the other side of the hedge, and was looking over at her in an inquiring way. Then she turned again to the small boy with a sort of desperation.

“But what are you going to do?” she said. “You know you can’t sit there all day.”

He shook his head; it appeared he had formed no plans for the future. Then he held out his foot, and returned to his original statement—“Sore.”

Miss Mercer turned to the cow in a distracted way.

“And the minister away up to Dundee, too!” she gasped.

She was left without advice, and had to act on her own responsibility. She did; she broke the record of good Samaritanship; she picked up that dirty little boy, and she carried him home herself.

It was a deed of heroism, as you would have understood had you known Miss Mercer. She was verging on sixty, and in the course of her life not so much as a speck of dirt had been permitted to remain for five minutes within her range of vision. In her own person she always looked as if she had “come out of a band-box;” and Gail Cottage shone “like a new pin,” for Alison’s views of cleanliness coincided exactly with those of her mistress; and woe betide “the lassie,” who formed the remaining portion of the household, if she did not wield her broom and duster with the uncompromising thoroughness which Alison ordained. The neighbourhood of dirt was little short of agony to Miss Mercer; and now, clad in her Sunday gown and mantle, she carried that boy home. If all heroic deeds were rewarded as they ought to be, she would have had a Victoria Cross, or something of the sort. But, you see, what is heroism in one sort of person would not be so in another, and vice versâ, so much of it has to go unrecognised on this side. Yet I cannot help thinking that on the other side, which Miss Mercer has reached now, an extra jewel may shine in her crown on account of that afternoon.

When she reached home, there followed the consultation with Alison, subsequent to which the small dirty waif was removed for washing purposes. There was a pause, while Miss Mercer reflected on what course to pursue; and, after a lapse of time, Alison returned, bearing a burden wrapped in a blanket.

“What’ll we put on him?” she inquired. “Thae things he had will be better at the back o’ the kitchen fire.”

Miss Mercer started with renewed consternation. What was there in this entirely feminine household suited to the requirements of even so small a member of the opposite sex?

“My word!” continued Alison. “The dirt that cam’ aff him! Just you tak’ a look at the bath when ye gang up the stair,” she added in an encouraging way to her mistress. Miss Mercer perceptibly shuddered. “I wad hae taken a scrubbin’ brush tae him, but his skin’s that white and tender—when ye get at it. Look tae his bonny hair noo it’s clean,” she added, unfolding a bit of the blanket, and exhibiting the top of it’s contents—a small clean boy now, with the thick brown hair unmatted, and something like a glint of gold through it.

He sat up and looked at Miss Mercer.

“She put the soap in my eyes,” he said gravely.

“Ye should just hae keepit yer eyes shut,” said Alison. “And there wasna an inch o’ ye that wasna the better o’ soap. Guid soap and water never hurt onything or onybody yet,” enunciating a favourite maxim. “And ye didna cry, I’ll say that for ye.” Then changing her tone, “Look, mem, at his left airm—a W. or an M., which will it be? He’ll, maybe, hae come o’ sailor folks; it’s like the marks they hae on them whiles.”

Miss Mercer examined the arm, on which a rudely tattooed M. or W. certainly appeared.

“Perhaps he may be traced by this,” she said.

“That was what I was thinkin’,” said Alison. “But, keep me! what are we tae dress the bairn in?”

Miss Mercer considered. “I have laid away in a box upstairs,” she said, “some clothes that belonged to my brother, who died as a bairn. My mother kept them till her death, and I have kept them since.”

“That wad dae fine,” said Alison, promptly. And Miss Mercer took her key-basket, and went to seek the garments.

It was a queer little figure that appeared later in these clothes, which dated back some forty years; as queer as any small boy of these days would look were he attired in the clothes belonging to the period in which my story opens, which, to prevent mistakes, I may as well mention now was the year of grace 1840.

“They’ll dae fine till we can get him ithers,” Alison observed, when he was clothed.

“That is—if he remains,” suggested Miss Mercer.

“Ou ay, mem, there’s aye the poor’s-house,” said Alison, briskly.

Miss Mercer gave a little shiver. “I was not thinking of the poor’s-house,” she said. “He doesn’t—he doesn’t look to me that sort of child.”

“Whiles ye canna tell by looks,” said Alison.

“No,” said Miss Mercer, “that’s true; and he may be one of the tinker’s bairns. But it was in my mind that he might have been stolen away by them from respectable folk, and if I was to put an advertisement in the papers, his own parents might see it, and come to claim him. The mark on his arm would be something to describe him by.”

“Aweel, mem, that’s a truth,” Alison agreed; “and, maybe, when he’s had a meal o’ meat, he’ll tell us something o’ himsel’ yet.”

“That’s well thought of, Alison,” said Miss Mercer; “just take him into the kitchen now, and give him something to eat. Maybe the bairn’s starving all this while.”

He had a good healthy appetite, anyhow, that was certain; and he did full justice to the mutton-broth, the oat-cakes, and the scones with which Alison supplied him. He even offered a criticism on the broth, when he had partaken of his first few spoonfuls. Looking up, he regarded Alison gravely, while he enunciated with extreme deliberation, “It’s good.”

“Ay, is it,” said Alison, not ill-pleased; “just you tak’ your fill, my mannie; it’ll dae ye no hairm.”

And the visitor followed her advice without any apparent reluctance.

“What’s yer name?” she asked, after she judged he had taken the first edge off his appetite.

“Jim,” he replied, pausing between his mouthfuls.

“Jim,” said Alison; “ye’ll hae been christened James?”

He shook his head; his knowledge did not extend to that point.

“Jim what?” continued Alison. “Ye wad hae more than the one name; what else was there?”

Jim looked thoughtful. “I know what Sal said,” he observed after a moment’s consideration.

“What was it?” said Alison.

And then Jim told her clearly, and without any suppression, the exact mode of address which had been employed towards him by the person he described as “Sal.”

“Gudesakes!” cried Alison. “Never you let me hear the like o’ that again! Ye’ll no say thae words in this hoose, mind that. What like language! Eh, laddie, and was yon yer mither?”

And here, at least, Jim was able to contribute a little definite information.

“No,” he said.

“Was she with ye among thae folk?” pursued Alison.

“No,” said Jim, again.

“Where was she?” said Alison, eagerly, thinking she was getting on the right tack at last.

Jim only shook his head this time. And then, after a pause, he added vaguely, “It was a long time ago.”

Alison gave it up.

“We’ll let him stay the night,” said Miss Mercer, when the result of this conversation had been communicated to her. “You might put the little room at the top ready for him. And when the minister gets back from Dundee, to-morrow, I will consult with him.”

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