"Oh, yes," replied the man. "He does a bit in my way;" and, on further investigation, it turned out, that both the porter, and his friend the weaver, were skilful botanists, and able to give Sir J. E. Smith the very information which he wanted.
Such are the tastes and pursuits of some of the thoughtful, little understood, working men of Manchester.
And Margaret's grandfather was one of these. He was a little wiry-looking old man, who moved with a jerking motion, as if his limbs were worked by a string like a child's toy, with dun coloured hair lying thin and soft at the back and sides of his head; his forehead was so large it seemed to overbalance the rest of his face, which had indeed lost its natural contour by the absence of all the teeth. The eyes absolutely gleamed with intelligence; so keen, so observant, you felt as if they were almost wizard-like. Indeed, the whole room looked not unlike a wizard's dwelling. Instead of pictures were hung rude wooden frames of impaled insects; the little table was covered with cabalistic books; and a case of mysterious instruments lay beside, one of which Job Legh was using when his grand-daughter entered.
On her appearance he pushed his spectacles up so as to rest midway on his forehead, and gave Mary a short, kind welcome. But Margaret he caressed as a mother caresses her first-born; stroking her with tenderness, and almost altering his voice as he spoke to her.
Mary looked round on the odd, strange things she had never seen at home, and which seemed to her to have a very uncanny look.
"Is your grandfather a fortune-teller?" whispered she to her new friend.
"No," replied Margaret, in the same voice; "but you're not the first as has taken him for such. He is only fond of such things as most folks know nothing about."
"I know a bit about some of the things grandfather is fond on; just because he's fond on 'em I tried to learn about them."
"What things are these?" said Mary, struck with the weird looking creatures that sprawled around the room in their roughly-made glass cases.
But she was not prepared for the technical names which Job Legh pattered down on her ear, on which they fell like hail on a skylight; and the strange language only bewildered her more than ever. Margaret saw the state of the case, and came to the rescue.