CHAPTER XI. “Winter hath many days most like to Spring; Soft thawing winds, and rains like dew, and gleams Of sweet inconstant sunshine.--I have seen An old man’s heart that ne’er was done with seedtime, Abiding in its gracious youth for ever.” THE next morning very early, while Martha Muir, unable to rest, sat at the window, carefully mending the torn coat which was poor Harry’s only one, Cuthbert Charteris set out on the top of the coach for Ayr. What he had seen on the previous night oppressed him heavily, weighing down even the natural exhilaration which the morning sunshine usually brought to a mind void of offence towards men, and walking by faith humbly with God. Continually that scene rose up before him--the hidden tears and trembling of Agnes and Rose--the stern agitation of Martha--the fatuous smile upon poor Harry’s white conscious face. “Poor Harry!” the stranger echoed with emotion, the sad tenderness of this lamentation so familiar to Harry’s nearest friends. Harry, meanwhile, was peacefully asleep, unconscious of the hopeless musing of his sister, as she sat by the window not long after sunrise, doing this sad piece of work for him, and of the gloom which he cast over the happier mind of his friend; a common case--almost too common to need recording. It was the afternoon before Charteris left his inn to seek the house of Alexander Muir. In the intermediate time he had been wandering about the town, and hunting through one old churchyard which lay in his way for the graves of the Allenders; but his search was not successful. The afternoon was bright and warm, the month being now far advanced, and he was directed easily to the residence of the old man whom everybody seemed to know. It was in one of the quiet back streets of the town, a narrow-causewayed lane, kept in a kind of constant twilight by the shadows of tall houses. The house he sought was not tall--its low door opened immediately from the rough stones of the street; and on either side was a square window fortified with strong panes of greenish glass, which gave a hue by no means delightful to the little checked-muslin blinds within. The upper story was a separate house, and had an outside stair ascending to it, which stair darkened the lower door, and served as a sort of porch, supported on the further side by a rude pillar of mason-work. Cuthbert thought it a very dim dusky habitation for the gentle uncle of the Muirs.