“A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind.”—GARRICK.

The advertisement so carefully composed by Miss Mercer and the minister produced no result whatsoever: no one wrote to inquire about Jim; no one came to identify him. And so, after waiting for three or four weeks, Miss Mercer formally took the responsibility of his up-bringing upon herself. She consulted Alison first, perhaps with some lurking doubt how she might receive the proposal; but Alison was entirely favourable. “A bairn was lightsome aboot a hoose,” she said; “and she doubted not but he wad keep them lively.” And, to do Jim justice, he answered this purpose admirably.

His precise position in the house had to be determined; for, as Miss Mercer wisely observed, “Better begin as we are to go on.” Both she and the minister had, after consideration, come to the conclusion that Jim must belong to the class which story-books describe as “poor, but honest.” No doubt he had come of “decent folk,” but folk who would have brought him up to labour with his hands at some respectable trade. So Miss Mercer sent him daily to the village school, and at first kept in view the idea that later she would apprentice him to that trade whereby he was eventually to earn his own living.

As the years went on she changed her mind in some degree, and began to think of a clerkship for him. That would not be too much of a rise in life; it really quite suited the “poor, but honest” theory. Jim was “fond of his book” too; and then, besides, there were times when Miss Mercer, studying the boy unobserved, had passing doubts whether poorness and honesty were all that might have been comprised in his pedigree.

Jim seemed to possess instinctive good manners; and sometimes when Miss Mercer, after inquiring into his school progress, dismissed him to a meal in the kitchen with Alison, she wondered if, after all, his proper place might not be with her. Not that his good manners ever suffered from contact with Alison. She possessed the very best of good manners herself; for she was old-fashioned, and knew her own place, and kept it; while she believed in others doing the same, and did not feel that any loss of self-respect was entailed in showing respect and civility to those whom, as she herself expressed it, “It had pleased the Lord tae set aboon her.” In which category she included Miss Mercer, the minister, and the family of the laird, Mr. Hamilton, of Glengail.

Her first care had been to eradicate those flowers of speech, which Jim had evidently acquired during his sojourn with big Joe, Sal, and the rest. I believe the tawse did come into play once or twice; but, on the whole, Jim’s speech was so soon purified of these uncleanly additions that Alison was confirmed in her idea they could not be a habit of long use.

Miss Mercer must often have been tried by the increased dirt and litter which Jim’s presence entailed in her erstwhile spotless abode; not that he was a specially dirty child—but he was a boy. There was no disguising of that fact. As Alison said, “A laddie’s a laddie, say what ye like.” And then she generally added, “Deed, and wha wad be wantin’ him if he wasna?”

Perhaps this was the view which Miss Mercer took; for, in after years, Jim could not remember ever receiving an unduly sharp word from the prim little spinster lady; though muddy boots, which had paid insufficient attention to the door-mat, and bundles of cherished rubbish from the woods and hedges, inadvertently sprinkled over well-brushed carpets, recurred to him readily enough.

The boy’s name had caused Miss Mercer some anxious consideration. She had no certainty that Jim was his Christian name. After discussion with the minister, it had been assumed that the mammie, who held him up to the picture and cried and kissed it, must have attended to the obvious duty of having him baptized. Of his surname she had no inkling whatever; unless that W. or M. on his left arm had something to do with it. On the supposition that it was an M., Miss Mercer suggested that he might take her name; but Alison was strongly of opinion it should be read from the other point of view, as W.

“It might stand for Wilson then,” Miss Mercer suggested; but Alison did not view Wilson with much favour.

“Yon drunken body, that was postman for a while, was Wilson,” she said.

“There are plenty of respectable Wilsons,” Miss Mercer rejoined.

“Wallace is a guid Scots name,” Alison pursued, without traversing her mistress’s statement.

“But we can tell by his speech that he’s not Scots himself,” Miss Mercer objected.

“Aweel, mem,” said Alison, “we’ll no’ cast that up at him; he couldna’ help it, puir laddie; and Wallace is a fine name.”

And as Miss Mercer was really not greatly enamoured of Wilson, she yielded; and the small dirty waif she had picked out of the wayside ditch began life at Gailside as James Wallace.

It was holiday-time at the village school some years later, and Jim was free to ramble about. He had no business in the Glengail grounds, but he was innocent of any intention of trespassing when the engrossing pursuit of minnows took him up the Gail Water, under the bridge, and into the “policies,” before he had given a thought to where he was going. And before he had realized where he had got to, he heard a small dignified voice inquiring, “Who are you, boy?”

Jim had seen little Miss Hamilton of Glengail before often enough on the road and in church, and had always carefully touched his cap to her, as he had been instructed; but he had never quite met her face to face as now, and she was scarcely aware of his identity, although his face was in some degree familiar.

“I’m James Wallace,” he said, “Miss Mercer’s Jim,” employing the description generally applied to him in the village; and then adding, “I wasn’t thinking, that was how I came,” he touched his cap and prepared to go.

It was holiday-time at Glengail too, and the laird’s daughter was dull—she often was—for want of a playmate. She looked after this other young human creature rather wistfully; he was paddling in the water with bare feet, as she had often wanted, and was not allowed to do; and he had made himself damp and muddy, as she was also not allowed to do, though it sometimes happened, and then she spoke.

“Stop, boy!”

Jim paused obediently.

“You may stay,” said Miss Hamilton. “I want to speak to you.”

Then there was silence on both sides while they inspected each other.

“Tell me all about yourself,” said she.

Jim considered this comprehensive order before he replied.

“I’m James Wallace. I go to school. I’m ten. I haven’t got a father or a mother. I live at Miss Mercer’s. She found me in a ditch.”

To the honour of Gailside, be it said, the fact that Jim was an unknown foundling had never been, as Alison would have said, “cast up at him,” and he never dreamed of concealing the fact.

The small lady interrupted. “I was found in a cabbage-bed,” she said. “Nurse told me.”

“In a cabbage-bed!” said Jim, interested. “Who found you?”

“The doctor,” returned Miss Hamilton. “Nurse told me so. Most babies are found in cabbage-beds, you know,” she added with an experienced air; “but, perhaps, there are some in ditches too.”

“I wasn’t exactly a baby,” said Jim; “I was four.”

In passing, it may be mentioned that it had been settled to regard the day of Jim’s discovery as his birthday, and to assume that he had then attained the age of four.

“And I had hurt my foot,” he continued.

“Oh,” said his interlocutor, evidently feeling that there was some discrepancy, “that wasn’t like me. But then,” she added, after a moment’s thought, “perhaps to begin with, when you were a tiny wee baby, they found you among the cabbages.”

“Perhaps,” Jim assented politely, if a little doubtfully.

“I’ll tell you all about me now,” said the little lady of Glengail. “My name’s Evelyn, but everybody says Evie. I had a mother a little, little time; but I’ve only father now. I’ve no brothers or sisters. Aunt Janet lives with us, and she looks after everything. I’m seven. I don’t go to school. Miss Hay teaches me. She comes every day; she’s kind, but her mother is always ill, you know, and she’s sad. It’s dull. Aunt Janet says I must behave properly; she is old, you see, and old people have to be proper. And father is so clever, he has no time. Father is kind, but there are all the books, and he’s so clever. It’s dull,” Evie concluded with a sigh.

Jim looked interested. “Can’t you have some of the books?” he asked.

Evie looked surprised. “Oh, father’s books are hard,” she said, “but I have my own story-books. Have you story-books?”

“I got two prizes different times at school,” Jim said, drawing himself up a little, with a proper feeling of dignity. “The master said I should have got another; but I don’t like ’rithmetic.”

“I hate it!” said Evie, with decision, and they regarded each other sympathetically.

“Miss Mercer thinks, perhaps, I might get to be a clerk some day,” Jim said, encouraged to confidences.

“What’s a clerk?” asked Evie.

“He sits in an office, and does sums all day,” said Jim, despondently.

Evie gave a horrified cry at this graphic description of clerkly duties.

“Oh,” she said, “don’t be that!”

Jim looked gratified at this unusual sympathy with his own views; and, after a pause, he went on with further unaccustomed confidences.

“I want,” he said, in a quick eager way—“I want to be a soldier.”

Evie nodded approvingly.

“I like soldiers,” she said; “they look nice.”

“It isn’t the looks,” said Jim, finding the reason feminine and unsatisfactory. “But—but—I can’t explain.”

Apparently Evie required no explanations. “What else do you like?” she asked. “I have a beautiful doll.”

Jim endeavoured to look politely interested, but dolls did not enter into his scheme of happiness.

“I like horses,” he said, “and books.”

Evie considered ways and means.

“I’ll lend you some of my books,” she said at last. “I’ll fetch you some to-morrow. You can come here again. Good-bye, Jim Wallace.”

“Good-bye, Miss Evie,” said Jim, touching his cap; and stepping back into the Gail Water, he passed under the bridge, and departed as he had come.

And that was the beginning of the friendship between Jim and Evie; between the waif found in the Gailside ditch and the laird’s daughter.

When he returned to Gailside Cottage, and related the story of his trespass on the Glengail property, and his meeting with Evie Hamilton, both Miss Mercer and Alison were rather scandalized.

“Eh, laddie,” cried Alison, “the like o’ ye tae be walkin’ intae the laird’s policies withoot sae muckle as, ‘By yer leave!’ My certie! but ye’re no’ blate!”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Jim explained, as he had to Evie. “I just walked up the water and under the bridge before I knew where I was. And she didn’t mind,” he added; “she asked me to come again.”

“I think,” said Miss Mercer, “she would have to ask her father before she would have the right to do that.”

“But she will expect me to-morrow,” Jim urged.

It was a new little excitement for him; and, besides, there was the prospect of books, and books would have drawn Jim far.

Miss Mercer considered. “I think,” she said, “you may go to-morrow. And then you will say to little Miss Hamilton that you are much obliged to her for her kindness, but that you feel it would not be right to accept of it without her father’s permission.”

And, on this understanding, Jim kept his tryst on the morrow.

I cannot say that he exactly delivered himself as Miss Mercer suggested; but, at least, he did succeed in conveying to Evie that, if he was to come again, the laird would have to be asked.

Evie opened her eyes. “But father won’t mind; he never knows what I do.”

“That’s what Miss Mercer told me,” Jim said; “she always knows about me. I always tell her.”

“But,” said Evie, “father doesn’t know if I tell him,” which was unfortunately true.

However, as her chances of a playmate appeared to depend on her father knowing and understanding, she approached him on the subject, following him into the library next morning after breakfast.

“Please, father,” she said, “I want to play with Jim Wallace.”

“Jim Wallace,” said her father, kindly and vaguely, his eyes wandering to the outside of a new book lying on the table. “Who is he?”

“He’s Miss Mercer’s Jim,” Evie said, describing him as he had described himself.

“Miss Mercer is much respected in the neighbourhood,” observed the laird, irrelevantly, as Evie considered, and without any notion what Jim’s position in Miss Mercer’s household might be.

“Jim’s a very nice boy,” she proceeded; “he lives with Miss Mercer, and I want to play with him; but she says he mustn’t come till you say so.”

The laird nodded. “Quite right, quite right,” he said.

“So he may come, mayn’t he, father?” Evie went on quickly.

He had opened the new book, and she knew from experience in another moment he would be beyond her reach.

“If he is not a rough boy, and you will not get into mischief,” said the laird, “you can play with him.”

And then he soared away on the wings of science to regions where Evie could not follow.

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