tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86526153724730130782012-02-16T13:11:36.017-08:00VVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11428134362191737549noreply@blogger.comBlogger11100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652615372473013078.post-87911159095509079642007-10-12T07:34:00.000-07:002007-10-12T07:36:23.301-07:00The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson<br />The Master of Ballantrae<br />A Winter's Tale<br />To Sir Percy Florence and Lady Shelley<br />Here is a tale which extends over many years and travels into many<br />countries. By a peculiar fitness of circumstance the writer began,<br />continued it, and concluded it among distant and diverse scenes.<br />Above all, he was much upon the sea. The character and fortune of<br />the fraternal enemies, the hall and shrubbery of Durrisdeer, the<br />problem of Mackellar's homespun and how to shape it for superior<br />flights; these were his company on deck in many star-reflecting<br />harbours, ran often in his mind at sea to the tune of slatting<br />canvas, and were dismissed (something of the suddenest) on the<br />approach of squalls. It is my hope that these surroundings of its<br />manufacture may to some degree find favour for my story with<br />seafarers and sea-lovers like yourselves.<br />And at least here is a dedication from a great way off: written by<br />the loud shores of a subtropical island near upon ten thousand<br />miles from Boscombe Chine and Manor: scenes which rise before me<br />as I write, along with the faces and voices of my friends.<br />Well, I am for the sea once more; no doubt Sir Percy also. Let us<br />make the signal B. R. D.!<br />R. L. S.<br />WAIKIKI, May 17, 1889<br />PREFACE<br />Although an old, consistent exile, the editor of the following<br />pages revisits now and again the city of which he exults to be a<br />native; and there are few things more strange, more painful, or<br />more salutary, than such revisitations. Outside, in foreign spots,<br />he comes by surprise and awakens more attention than he had<br />expected; in his own city, the relation is reversed, and he stands<br />amazed to be so little recollected. Elsewhere he is refreshed to<br />see attractive faces, to remark possible friends; there he scouts<br />the long streets, with a pang at heart, for the faces and friends<br />that are no more. Elsewhere he is delighted with the presence of<br />what is new, there tormented by the absence of what is old.<br />Elsewhere he is content to be his present self; there he is smitten<br />with an equal regret for what he once was and for what he once<br />hoped to be.<br />He was feeling all this dimly, as he drove from the station, on his<br />last visit; he was feeling it still as he alighted at the door of<br />his friend Mr. Johnstone Thomson, W.S., with whom he was to stay.<br />A hearty welcome, a face not altogether changed, a few words that<br />sounded of old days, a laugh provoked and shared, a glimpse in<br />passing of the snowy cloth and bright decanters and the Piranesis<br />on the dining-room wall, brought him to his bed-room with a<br />somewhat lightened cheer, and when he and Mr. Thomson sat down a<br />few minutes later, cheek by jowl, and pledged the past in a<br />preliminary bumper, he was already almost consoled, he had already<br />almost forgiven himself his two unpardonable errors, that he should<br />ever have left his native city, or ever returned to it.<br />"I have something quite in your way," said Mr. Thomson. "I wished<br />to do honour to your arrival; because, my dear fellow, it is my own<br />youth that comes back along with you; in a very tattered and<br />withered state, to be sure, but - well! - all that's left of it."<br />"A great deal better than nothing," said the editor. "But what is<br />this which is quite in my way?"<br />"I was coming to that," said Mr. Thomson: "Fate has put it in my<br />power to honour your arrival with something really original by way<br />of dessert. A mystery."<br />"A mystery?" I repeated.<br />"Yes," said his friend, "a mystery. It may prove to be nothing,<br />and it may prove to be a great deal. But in the meanwhile it is<br />truly mysterious, no eye having looked on it for near a hundred<br />years; it is highly genteel, for it treats of a titled family; and<br />it ought to be melodramatic, for (according to the superscription)<br />it is concerned with death."<br />"I think I rarely heard a more obscure or a more promising<br />annunciation," the other remarked. "But what is It?"<br />"You remember my predecessor's, old Peter M'Brair's business?"<br />"I remember him acutely; he could not look at me without a pang of<br />reprobation, and he could not feel the pang without betraying it.<br />He was to me a man of a great historical interest, but the interest<br />was not returned."<br />"Ah well, we go beyond him," said Mr. Thomson. "I daresay old<br />Peter knew as little about this as I do. You see, I succeeded to a<br />prodigious accumulation of old law-papers and old tin boxes, some<br />of them of Peter's hoarding, some of his father's, John, first of<br />the dynasty, a great man in his day. Among other collections, were<br />all the papers of the Durrisdeers."<br />"The Durrisdeers!" cried I. "My dear fellow, these may be of the<br />greatest interest. One of them was out in the '45; one had some<br />strange passages with the devil - you will find a note of it in<br />Law's MEMORIALS, I think; and there was an unexplained tragedy, I<br />know not what, much later, about a hundred years ago - "<br />"More than a hundred years ago," said Mr. Thomson. "In 1783."<br />"How do you know that? I mean some death."<br />"Yes, the lamentable deaths of my Lord Durrisdeer and his brother,<br />the Master of Ballantrae (attainted in the troubles)," said Mr.<br />Thomson with something the tone of a man quoting. "Is that it?"<br />"To say truth," said I, "I have only seen some dim reference to the<br />things in memoirs; and heard some traditions dimmer still, through<br />my uncle (whom I think you knew). My uncle lived when he was a boy<br />in the neighbourhood of St. Bride's; he has often told me of the<br />avenue closed up and grown over with grass, the great gates never<br />opened, the last lord and his old maid sister who lived in the back<br />parts of the house, a quiet, plain, poor, hum-drum couple it would<br />seem - but pathetic too, as the last of that stirring and brave<br />house - and, to the country folk, faintly terrible from some<br />deformed traditions."<br />"Yes," said Mr. Thomson. "Henry Graeme Durie, the last lord, died<br />in 1820; his sister, the honourable Miss Katherine Durie, in '27;<br />so much I know; and by what I have been going over the last few<br />days, they were what you say, decent, quiet people and not rich.<br />To say truth, it was a letter of my lord's that put me on the<br />search for the packet we are going to open this evening. Some<br />papers could not be found; and he wrote to Jack M'Brair suggesting<br />they might be among those sealed up by a Mr. Mackellar. M'Brair<br />answered, that the papers in question were all in Mackellar's own<br />hand, all (as the writer understood) of a purely narrative<br />character; and besides, said he, 'I am bound not to open them<br />before the year 1889.' You may fancy if these words struck me: I<br />instituted a hunt through all the M'Brair repositories; and at last<br />hit upon that packet which (if you have had enough wine) I propose<br />to show you at once."<br />In the smoking-room, to which my host now led me, was a packet,<br />fastened with many seals and enclosed in a single sheet of strong<br />paper thus endorsed:<br />Papers relating to the lives and lamentable deaths of the late Lord<br />Durisdeer, and his elder brother James, commonly called Master of<br />Ballantrae, attainted in the troubles: entrusted into the hands of<br />John M'Brair in the Lawnmarket of Edinburgh, W.S.; this 20th day of<br />September Anno Domini 1789; by him to be kept secret until the<br />revolution of one hundred years complete, or until the 20th day of<br />September 1889: the same compiled and written by me, EPHRAIM<br />MACKELLAR,<br />For near forty years Land Steward on the estates of his Lordship.<br />As Mr. Thomson is a married man, I will not say what hour had<br />struck when we laid down the last of the following pages; but I<br />will give a few words of what ensued.<br />"Here," said Mr. Thomson, "is a novel ready to your hand: all you<br />have to do is to work up the scenery, develop the characters, and<br />improve the style."<br />"My dear fellow," said I, "they are just the three things that I<br />would rather die than set my hand to. It shall be published as it<br />stands."<br />"But it's so bald," objected Mr. Thomson.<br />"I believe there is nothing so noble as baldness," replied I, "and<br />I am sure there in nothing so interesting. I would have all<br />literature bald, and all authors (if you like) but one."<br />"Well, well," add Mr. Thomson, "we shall see."<br />CHAPTER I. - SUMMARY OF EVENTS DURING THIS MASTER'S WANDERINGS.<br />The full truth of this odd matter is what the world has long been<br />looking for, and public curiosity is sure to welcome. It so befell<br />that I was intimately mingled with the last years and history of<br />the house; and there does not live one man so able as myself to<br />make these matters plain, or so desirous to narrate them<br />faithfully. I knew the Master; on many secret steps of his career<br />I have an authentic memoir in my hand; I sailed with him on his<br />last voyage almost alone; I made one upon that winter's journey of<br />which so many tales have gone abroad; and I was there at the man's<br />death. As for my late Lord Durrisdeer, I served him and loved him<br />near twenty years; and thought more of him the more I knew of him.<br />Altogether, I think it not fit that so much evidence should perish;<br />the truth is a debt I owe my lord's memory; and I think my old<br />years will flow more smoothly, and my white hair lie quieter on the<br />pillow, when the debt is paid.<br />The Duries of Durrisdeer and Ballantrae were a strong family in the<br />south-west from the days of David First. A rhyme still current in<br />the countryside -<br />Kittle folk are the Durrisdeers,<br />They ride wi' over mony spears -<br />bears the mark of its antiquity; and the name appears in another,<br />which common report attributes to Thomas of Ercildoune himself - I<br />cannot say how truly, and which some have applied - I dare not say<br />with how much justice - to the events of this narration:<br />Twa Duries in Durrisdeer,<br />Ane to tie and ane to ride,<br />An ill day for the groom<br />And a waur day for the bride.<br />Authentic history besides is filled with their exploits which (to<br />our modern eyes) seem not very commendable: and the family<br />suffered its full share of those ups and downs to which the great<br />houses of Scotland have been ever liable. But all these I pass<br />over, to come to that memorable year 1745, when the foundations of<br />this tragedy were laid.<br />At that time there dwelt a family of four persons in the house of<br />Durrisdeer, near St. Bride's, on the Solway shore; a chief hold of<br />their race since the Reformation. My old lord, eighth of the name,<br />was not old in years, but he suffered prematurely from the<br />disabilities of age; his place was at the chimney side; there he<br />sat reading, in a lined gown, with few words for any man, and wry<br />words for none: the model of an old retired housekeeper; and yet<br />his mind very well nourished with study, and reputed in the country<br />to be more cunning than he seemed. The master of Ballantrae, James<br />in baptism, took from his father the love of serious reading; some<br />of his tact perhaps as well, but that which was only policy in the<br />father became black dissimulation in the son. The face of his<br />behaviour was merely popular and wild: he sat late at wine, later<br />at the cards; had the name in the country of "an unco man for the<br />lasses;" and was ever in the front of broils. But for all he was<br />the first to go in, yet it was observed he was invariably the best<br />to come off; and his partners in mischief were usually alone to pay<br />the piper. This luck or dexterity got him several ill-wishers, but<br />with the rest of the country, enhanced his reputation; so that<br />great things were looked for in his future, when he should have<br />gained more gravity. One very black mark he had to his name; but<br />the matter was hushed up at the time, and so defaced by legends<br />before I came into those parts, that I scruple to set it down. If<br />it was true, it was a horrid fact in one so young; and if false, it<br />was a horrid calumny. I think it notable that he had always<br />vaunted himself quite implacable, and was taken at his word; so<br />that he had the addition among his neighbours of "an ill man to<br />cross." Here was altogether a young nobleman (not yet twenty-four<br />in the year '45) who had made a figure in the country beyond his<br />time of life. The less marvel if there were little heard of the<br />second son, Mr. Henry (my late Lord Durrisdeer), who was neither<br />very bad nor yet very able, but an honest, solid sort of lad like<br />many of his neighbours. Little heard, I say; but indeed it was a<br />case of little spoken. He was known among the salmon fishers in<br />the firth, for that was a sport that he assiduously followed; he<br />was an excellent good horse-doctor besides; and took a chief hand,<br />almost from a boy, in the management of the estates. How hard a<br />part that was, in the situation of that family, none knows better<br />than myself; nor yet with how little colour of justice a man may<br />there acquire the reputation of a tyrant and a miser. The fourth<br />person in the house was Miss Alison Graeme, a near kinswoman, an<br />orphan, and the heir to a considerable fortune which her father had<br />acquired in trade. This money was loudly called for by my lord's<br />necessities; indeed the land was deeply mortgaged; and Miss Alison<br />was designed accordingly to be the Master's wife, gladly enough on<br />her side; with how much good-will on his, is another matter. She<br />was a comely girl, and in those days very spirited and self-willed;<br />for the old lord having no daughter of his own, and my lady being<br />long dead, she had grown up as best she might.<br />To these four came the news of Prince Charlie's landing, and set<br />them presently by the ears. My lord, like the chimney-keeper that<br />he was, was all for temporising. Miss Alison held the other side,<br />because it appeared romantical; and the Master (though I have heard<br />they did not agree often) was for this once of her opinion. The<br />adventure tempted him, as I conceive; he was tempted by the<br />opportunity to raise the fortunes of the house, and not less by the<br />hope of paying off his private liabilities, which were heavy beyond<br />all opinion. As for Mr. Henry, it appears he said little enough at<br />first; his part came later on. It took the three a whole day's<br />disputation, before they agreed to steer a middle course, one son<br />going forth to strike a blow for King James, my lord and the other<br />staying at home to keep in favour with King George. Doubtless this<br />was my lord's decision; and, as is well known, it was the part<br />played by many considerable families. But the one dispute settled,<br />another opened. For my lord, Miss Alison, and Mr. Henry all held<br />the one view: that it was the cadet's part to go out; and the<br />Master, what with restlessness and vanity, would at no rate consent<br />to stay at home. My lord pleaded, Miss Alison wept, Mr. Henry was<br />very plain spoken: all was of no avail.<br />"It is the direct heir of Durrisdeer that should ride by his King's<br />bridle," says the Master.<br />"If we were playing a manly part," says Mr. Henry, "there might be<br />sense in such talk. But what are we doing? Cheating at cards!"<br />"We are saving the house of Durrisdeer, Henry," his father said.<br />"And see, James," said Mr. Henry, "if I go, and the Prince has the<br />upper hand, it will be easy to make your peace with King James.<br />But if you go, and the expedition fails, we divide the right and<br />the title. And what shall I be then?"<br />"You will be Lord Durrisdeer," said the Master. "I put all I have<br />upon the table."<br />"I play at no such game," cries Mr. Henry. "I shall be left in<br />such a situation as no man of sense and honour could endure. I<br />shall be neither fish nor flesh!" he cried. And a little after he<br />had another expression, plainer perhaps than he intended. "It is<br />your duty to be here with my father," said he. "You know well<br />enough you are the favourite."<br />"Ay?" said the Master. "And there spoke Envy! Would you trip up<br />my heels - Jacob?" said he, and dwelled upon the name maliciously.<br />Mr. Henry went and walked at the low end of the hall without reply;<br />for he had an excellent gift of silence. Presently he came back.<br />"I am the cadet and I SHOULD go," said he. "And my lord here in<br />the master, and he says I SHALL go. What say ye to that, my<br />brother?"<br />"I say this, Harry," returned the Master, "that when very obstinate<br />folk are met, there are only two ways out: Blows - and I think<br />none of us could care to go so far; or the arbitrament of chance -<br />and here is a guinea piece. Will you stand by the toss of the<br />coin?"<br />"I will stand and fall by it," said Mr. Henry. "Heads, I go;<br />shield, I stay."<br />The coin was spun, and it fell shield. "So there is a lesson for<br />Jacob," says the Master.<br />"We shall live to repent of this," says Mr. Henry, and flung out of<br />the hall.<br />As for Miss Alison, she caught up that piece of gold which had just<br />sent her lover to the wars, and flung it clean through the family<br />shield in the great painted window.<br />"If you loved me as well as I love you, you would have stayed,"<br />cried she.<br />"'I could not love you, dear, so well, loved I not honour more,'"<br />sang the Master.<br />"Oh!" she cried, "you have no heart - I hope you may be killed!"<br />and she ran from the room, and in tears, to her own chamber.<br />It seems the Master turned to my lord with his most comical manner,<br />and says he, "This looks like a devil of a wife."<br />"I think you are a devil of a son to me," cried his father, "you<br />that have always been the favourite, to my shame be it spoken.<br />Never a good hour have I gotten of you, since you were born; no,<br />never one good hour," and repeated it again the third time.<br />Whether it was the Master's levity, or his insubordination, or Mr.<br />Henry's word about the favourite son, that had so much disturbed my<br />lord, I do not know; but I incline to think it was the last, for I<br />have it by all accounts that Mr. Henry was more made up to from<br />that hour.<br />Altogether it was in pretty ill blood with his family that the<br />Master rode to the North; which was the more sorrowful for others<br />to remember when it seemed too late. By fear and favour he had<br />scraped together near upon a dozen men, principally tenants' sons;<br />they were all pretty full when they set forth, and rode up the hill<br />by the old abbey, roaring and singing, the white cockade in every<br />hat. It was a desperate venture for so small a company to cross<br />the most of Scotland unsupported; and (what made folk think so the<br />more) even as that poor dozen was clattering up the hill, a great<br />ship of the king's navy, that could have brought them under with a<br />single boat, lay with her broad ensign streaming in the bay. The<br />next afternoon, having given the Master a fair start, it was Mr.<br />Henry's turn; and he rode off, all by himself, to offer his sword<br />and carry letters from his father to King George's Government.<br />Miss Alison was shut in her room, and did little but weep, till<br />both were gone; only she stitched the cockade upon the Master's<br />hat, and (as John Paul told me) it was wetted with tears when he<br />carried it down to him.<br />In all that followed, Mr. Henry and my old lord were true to their<br />bargain. That ever they accomplished anything is more than I could<br />learn; and that they were anyway strong on the king's side, more<br />than believe. But they kept the letter of loyalty, corresponded<br />with my Lord President, sat still at home, and had little or no<br />commerce with the Master while that business lasted. Nor was he,<br />on his side, more communicative. Miss Alison, indeed, was always<br />sending him expresses, but I do not know if she had many answers.<br />Macconochie rode for her once, and found the highlanders before<br />Carlisle, and the Master riding by the Prince's side in high<br />favour; he took the letter (so Macconochie tells), opened it,<br />glanced it through with a mouth like a man whistling, and stuck it<br />in his belt, whence, on his horse passageing, it fell unregarded to<br />the ground. It was Macconochie who picked it up; and he still kept<br />it, and indeed I have seen it in his hands. News came to<br />Durrisdeer of course, by the common report, as it goes travelling<br />through a country, a thing always wonderful to me. By that means<br />the family learned more of the Master's favour with the Prince, and<br />the ground it was said to stand on: for by a strange condescension<br />in a man so proud - only that he was a man still more ambitious -<br />he was said to have crept into notability by truckling to the<br />Irish. Sir Thomas Sullivan, Colonel Burke and the rest, were his<br />daily comrades, by which course he withdrew himself from his own<br />country-folk. All the small intrigues he had a hand in fomenting;<br />thwarted my Lord George upon a thousand points; was always for the<br />advice that seemed palatable to the Prince, no matter if it was<br />good or bad; and seems upon the whole (like the gambler he was all<br />through life) to have had less regard to the chances of the<br />campaign than to the greatness of favour he might aspire to, if, by<br />any luck, it should succeed. For the rest, he did very well in the<br />field; no one questioned that; for he was no coward.<br />The next was the news of Culloden, which was brought to Durrisdeer<br />by one of the tenants' sons - the only survivor, he declared, of<br />all those that had gone singing up the hill. By an unfortunate<br />chance John Paul and Macconochie had that very morning found the<br />guinea piece - which was the root of all the evil - sticking in a<br />holly bush; they had been "up the gait," as the servants say at<br />Durrisdeer, to the change-house; and if they had little left of the<br />guinea, they had less of their wits. What must John Paul do but<br />burst into the hall where the family sat at dinner, and cry the<br />news to them that "Tam Macmorland was but new lichtit at the door,<br />and - wirra, wirra - there were nane to come behind him"?<br />They took the word in silence like folk condemned; only Mr. Henry<br />carrying his palm to his face, and Miss Alison laying her head<br />outright upon her hands. As for my lord, he was like ashes.<br />"I have still one son," says he. "And, Henry, I will do you this<br />justice - it is the kinder that is left."<br />It was a strange thing to say in such a moment; but my lord had<br />never forgotten Mr. Henry's speech, and he had years of injustice<br />on his conscience. Still it was a strange thing, and more than<br />Miss Alison could let pass. She broke out and blamed my lord for<br />his unnatural words, and Mr. Henry because he was sitting there in<br />safety when his brother lay dead, and herself because she had given<br />her sweetheart ill words at his departure, calling him the flower<br />of the flock, wringing her hands, protesting her love, and crying<br />on him by his name - so that the servants stood astonished.<br />Mr. Henry got to his feet, and stood holding his chair. It was he<br />that was like ashes now.<br />"Oh!" he burst out suddenly, "I know you loved him."<br />"The world knows that, glory be to God!" cries she; and then to Mr.<br />Henry: "There is none but me to know one thing - that you were a<br />traitor to him in your heart."<br />"God knows," groans he, "it was lost love on both sides."<br />Time went by in the house after that without much change; only they<br />were now three instead of four, which was a perpetual reminder of<br />their loss. Miss Alison's money, you are to bear in mind, wag<br />highly needful for the estates; and the one brother being dead, my<br />old lord soon set his heart upon her marrying the other. Day in,<br />day out, he would work upon her, sitting by the chimney-side with<br />his finger in his Latin book, and his eyes set upon her face with a<br />kind of pleasant intentness that became the old gentleman very<br />well. If she wept, he would condole with her like an ancient man<br />that has seen worse times and begins to think lightly even of<br />sorrow; if she raged, he would fall to reading again in his Latin<br />book, but always with some civil excuse; if she offered, as she<br />often did, to let them have her money in a gift, he would show her<br />how little it consisted with his honour, and remind her, even if he<br />should consent, that Mr. Henry would certainly refuse. NON VI SED<br />SAEPE CADENDO was a favourite word of his; and no doubt this quiet<br />persecution wore away much of her resolve; no doubt, besides, he<br />had a great influence on the girl, having stood in the place of<br />both her parents; and, for that matter, she was herself filled with<br />the spirit of the Duries, and would have gone a great way for the<br />glory of Durrisdeer; but not so far, I think, as to marry my poor<br />patron, had it not been - strangely enough - for the circumstance<br />of his extreme unpopularity.<br />This was the work of Tam Macmorland. There was not much harm in<br />Tam; but he had that grievous weakness, a long tongue; and as the<br />only man in that country who had been out - or, rather, who had<br />come in again - he was sure of listeners. Those that have the<br />underhand in any fighting, I have observed, are ever anxious to<br />persuade themselves they were betrayed. By Tam's account of it,<br />the rebels had been betrayed at every turn and by every officer<br />they had; they had been betrayed at Derby, and betrayed at Falkirk;<br />the night march was a step of treachery of my Lord George's; and<br />Culloden was lost by the treachery of the Macdonalds. This habit<br />of imputing treason grew upon the fool, till at last he must have<br />in Mr. Henry also. Mr. Henry (by his account) had betrayed the<br />lads of Durrisdeer; he had promised to follow with more men, and<br />instead of that he had ridden to King George. "Ay, and the next<br />day!" Tam would cry. "The puir bonnie Master, and the puir, kind<br />lads that rade wi' him, were hardly ower the scaur, or he was aff -<br />the Judis! Ay, weel - he has his way o't: he's to be my lord, nae<br />less, and there's mony a cold corp amang the Hieland heather!" And<br />at this, if Tam had been drinking, he would begin to weep.<br />Let anyone speak long enough, he will get believers. This view of<br />Mr. Henry's behaviour crept about the country by little and little;<br />it was talked upon by folk that knew the contrary, but were short<br />of topics; and it was heard and believed and given out for gospel<br />by the ignorant and the ill-willing. Mr. Henry began to be<br />shunned; yet awhile, and the commons began to murmur as he went by,<br />and the women (who are always the most bold because they are the<br />most safe) to cry out their reproaches to his face. The Master was<br />cried up for a saint. It was remembered how he had never any hand<br />in pressing the tenants; as, indeed, no more he had, except to<br />spend the money. He was a little wild perhaps, the folk said; but<br />how much better was a natural, wild lad that would soon have<br />settled down, than a skinflint and a sneckdraw, sitting, with his<br />nose in an account book, to persecute poor tenants! One trollop,<br />who had had a child to the Master, and by all accounts been very<br />badly used, yet made herself a kind of champion of his memory. She<br />flung a stone one day at Mr. Henry.<br />"Whaur's the bonnie lad that trustit ye?" she cried.<br />Mr. Henry reined in his horse and looked upon her, the blood<br />flowing from his lip. "Ay, Jess?" says he. "You too? And yet ye<br />should ken me better." For it was he who had helped her with<br />money.<br />The woman had another stone ready, which she made as if she would<br />cast; and he, to ward himself, threw up the hand that held his<br />riding-rod.<br />"What, would ye beat a lassie, ye ugly - ?" cries she, and ran away<br />screaming as though he had struck her.<br />Next day word went about the country like wildfire that Mr. Henry<br />had beaten Jessie Broun within an inch of her life. I give it as<br />one instance of how this snowball grew, and one calumny brought<br />another; until my poor patron was so perished in reputation that he<br />began to keep the house like my lord. All this while, you may be<br />very sure, he uttered no complaints at home; the very ground of the<br />scandal was too sore a matter to be handled; and Mr. Henry was very<br />proud and strangely obstinate in silence. My old lord must have<br />heard of it, by John Paul, if by no one else; and he must at least<br />have remarked the altered habits of his son. Yet even he, it is<br />probable, knew not how high the feeling ran; and as for Miss<br />Alison, she was ever the last person to hear news, and the least<br />interested when she heard them.<br />In the height of the ill-feeling (for it died away as it came, no<br />man could say why) there was an election forward in the town of St.<br />Bride's, which is the next to Durrisdeer, standing on the Water of<br />Swift; some grievance was fermenting, I forget what, if ever I<br />heard; and it was currently said there would be broken heads ere<br />night, and that the sheriff had sent as far as Dumfries for<br />soldiers. My lord moved that Mr. Henry should be present, assuring<br />him it was necessary to appear, for the credit of the house. "It<br />will soon be reported," said he, "that we do not take the lead in<br />our own country."<br />"It is a strange lead that I can take," said Mr. Henry; and when<br />they had pushed him further, "I tell you the plain truth," he said,<br />"I dare not show my face."<br />"You are the first of the house that ever said so," cries Miss<br />Alison.<br />"We will go all three," said my lord; and sure enough he got into<br />his boots (the first time in four years - a sore business John Paul<br />had to get them on), and Miss Alison into her riding-coat, and all<br />three rode together to St. Bride's.<br />The streets were full of the rift-raff of all the countryside, who<br />had no sooner clapped eyes on Mr. Henry than the hissing began, and<br />the hooting, and the cries of "Judas!" and "Where was the Master?"<br />and "Where were the poor lads that rode with him?" Even a stone<br />was cast; but the more part cried shame at that, for my old lord's<br />sake, and Miss Alison's. It took not ten minutes to persuade my<br />lord that Mr. Henry had been right. He said never a word, but<br />turned his horse about, and home again, with his chin upon his<br />bosom. Never a word said Miss Alison; no doubt she thought the<br />more; no doubt her pride was stung, for she was a bone-bred Durie;<br />and no doubt her heart was touched to see her cousin so unjustly<br />used. That night she was never in bed; I have often blamed my lady<br />- when I call to mind that night, I readily forgive her all; and<br />the first thing in the morning she came to the old lord in his<br />usual seat.<br />"If Henry still wants me," said she, "he can have me now." To<br />himself she had a different speech: "I bring you no love, Henry;<br />but God knows, all the pity in the world."<br />June the 1st, 1748, was the day of their marriage. It was December<br />of the same year that first saw me alighting at the doors of the<br />great house; and from there I take up the history of events as they<br />befell under my own observation, like a witness in a court.<br />CHAPTER II. SUMMARY OF EVENTS (continued)<br />I made the last of my journey in the cold end of December, in a<br />mighty dry day of frost, and who should be my guide but Patey<br />Macmorland, brother of Tam! For a tow-headed, bare-legged brat of<br />ten, he had more ill tales upon his tongue than ever I heard the<br />match of; having drunken betimes in his brother's cup. I was still<br />not so old myself; pride had not yet the upper hand of curiosity;<br />and indeed it would have taken any man, that cold morning, to hear<br />all the old clashes of the country, and be shown all the places by<br />the way where strange things had fallen out. I had tales of<br />Claverhouse as we came through the bogs, and tales of the devil, as<br />we came over the top of the scaur. As we came in by the abbey I<br />heard somewhat of the old monks, and more of the freetraders, who<br />use its ruins for a magazine, landing for that cause within a<br />cannon-shot of Durrisdeer; and along all the road the Duries and<br />poor Mr. Henry were in the first rank of slander. My mind was thus<br />highly prejudiced against the family I was about to serve, so that<br />I was half surprised when I beheld Durrisdeer itself, lying in a<br />pretty, sheltered bay, under the Abbey Hill; the house most<br />commodiously built in the French fashion, or perhaps Italianate,<br />for I have no skill in these arts; and the place the most<br />beautified with gardens, lawns, shrubberies, and trees I had ever<br />seen. The money sunk here unproductively would have quite restored<br />the family; but as it was, it cost a revenue to keep it up.<br />Mr. Henry came himself to the door to welcome me: a tall dark<br />young gentleman (the Duries are all black men) of a plain and not<br />cheerful face, very strong in body, but not so strong in health:<br />taking me by the hand without any pride, and putting me at home<br />with plain kind speeches. He led me into the hall, booted as I<br />was, to present me to my lord. It was still daylight; and the<br />first thing I observed was a lozenge of clear glass in the midst of<br />the shield in the painted window, which I remember thinking a<br />blemish on a room otherwise so handsome, with its family portraits,<br />and the pargeted ceiling with pendants, and the carved chimney, in<br />one corner of which my old lord sat reading in his Livy. He was<br />like Mr. Henry, with much the same plain countenance, only more<br />subtle and pleasant, and his talk a thousand times more<br />entertaining. He had many questions to ask me, I remember, of<br />Edinburgh College, where I had just received my mastership of arts,<br />and of the various professors, with whom and their proficiency he<br />seemed well acquainted; and thus, talking of things that I knew, I<br />soon got liberty of speech in my new home.<br />In the midst of this came Mrs. Henry into the room; she was very<br />far gone, Miss Katharine being due in about six weeks, which made<br />me think less of her beauty at the first sight; and she used me<br />with more of condescension than the rest; so that, upon all<br />accounts, I kept her in the third place of my esteem.<br />It did not take long before all Patey Macmorland's tales were<br />blotted out of my belief, and I was become, what I have ever since<br />remained, a loving servant of the house of Durrisdeer. Mr. Henry<br />had the chief part of my affection. It was with him I worked; and<br />I found him an exacting master, keeping all his kindness for those<br />hours in which we were unemployed, and in the steward's office not<br />only loading me with work, but viewing me with a shrewd<br />supervision. At length one day he looked up from his paper with a<br />kind of timidness, and says he, "Mr. Mackellar, I think I ought to<br />tell you that you do very well." That was my first word of<br />commendation; and from that day his jealousy of my performance was<br />relaxed; soon it was "Mr. Mackellar" here, and "Mr. Mackellar"<br />there, with the whole family; and for much of my service at<br />Durrisdeer, I have transacted everything at my own time, and to my<br />own fancy, and never a farthing challenged. Even while he was<br />driving me, I had begun to find my heart go out to Mr. Henry; no<br />doubt, partly in pity, he was a man so palpably unhappy. He would<br />fall into a deep muse over our accounts, staring at the page or out<br />of the window; and at those times the look of his face, and the<br />sigh that would break from him, awoke in me strong feelings of<br />curiosity and commiseration. One day, I remember, we were late<br />upon some business in the steward's room.<br />This room is in the top of the house, and has a view upon the bay,<br />and over a little wooded cape, on the long sands; and there, right<br />over against the sun, which was then dipping, we saw the<br />freetraders, with a great force of men and horses, scouring on the<br />beach. Mr. Henry had been staring straight west, so that I<br />marvelled he was not blinded by the sun; suddenly he frowns, rubs<br />his hand upon his brow, and turns to me with a smile.<br />"You would not guess what I was thinking," says he. "I was<br />thinking I would be a happier man if I could ride and run the<br />danger of my life, with these lawless companions."<br />I told him I had observed he did not enjoy good spirits; and that<br />it was a common fancy to envy others and think we should be the<br />better of some change; quoting Horace to the point, like a young<br />man fresh from college.<br />"Why, just so," said he. "And with that we may get back to our<br />accounts."<br />It was not long before I began to get wind of the causes that so<br />much depressed him. Indeed a blind man must have soon discovered<br />there was a shadow on that house, the shadow of the Master of<br />Ballantrae. Dead or alive (and he was then supposed to be dead)<br />that man was his brother's rival: his rival abroad, where there<br />was never a good word for Mr. Henry, and nothing but regret and<br />praise for the Master; and his rival at home, not only with his<br />father and his wife, but with the very servants.<br />They were two old serving-men that were the leaders. John Paul, a<br />little, bald, solemn, stomachy man, a great professor of piety and<br />(take him for all in all) a pretty faithful servant, was the chief<br />of the Master's faction. None durst go so far as John. He took a<br />pleasure in disregarding Mr. Henry publicly, often with a slighting<br />comparison. My lord and Mrs. Henry took him up, to be sure, but<br />never so resolutely as they should; and he had only to pull his<br />weeping face and begin his lamentations for the Master - "his<br />laddie," as he called him - to have the whole condoned. As for<br />Henry, he let these things pass in silence, sometimes with a sad<br />and sometimes with a black look. There was no rivalling the dead,<br />he knew that; and how to censure an old serving-man for a fault of<br />loyalty, was more than he could see. His was not the tongue to do<br />it.<br />Macconochie was chief upon the other side; an old, ill-spoken,<br />swearing, ranting, drunken dog; and I have often thought it an odd<br />circumstance in human nature that these two serving-men should each<br />have been the champion of his contrary, and blackened their own<br />faults and made light of their own virtues when they beheld them in<br />a master. Macconochie had soon smelled out my secret inclination,<br />took me much into his confidence, and would rant against the Master<br />by the hour, so that even my work suffered. "They're a' daft<br />here," he would cry, "and be damned to them! The Master - the<br />deil's in their thrapples that should call him sae! it's Mr. Henry<br />should be master now! They were nane sae fond o' the Master when<br />they had him, I'll can tell ye that. Sorrow on his name! Never a<br />guid word did I hear on his lips, nor naebody else, but just<br />fleering and flyting and profane cursing - deil hae him! There's<br />nane kent his wickedness: him a gentleman! Did ever ye hear tell,<br />Mr. Mackellar, o' Wully White the wabster? No? Aweel, Wully was<br />an unco praying kind o' man; a dreigh body, nane o' my kind, I<br />never could abide the sight o' him; onyway he was a great hand by<br />his way of it, and he up and rebukit the Master for some of his ongoings.<br />It was a grand thing for the Master o' Ball'ntrae to tak<br />up a feud wi' a' wabster, wasnae't?" Macconochie would sneer;<br />indeed, he never took the full name upon his lips but with a sort<br />of a whine of hatred. "But he did! A fine employ it was:<br />chapping at the man's door, and crying 'boo' in his lum, and<br />puttin' poother in his fire, and pee-oys (1) in his window; till<br />the man thocht it was auld Hornie was come seekin' him. Weel, to<br />mak a lang story short, Wully gaed gyte. At the hinder end, they<br />couldnae get him frae his knees, but he just roared and prayed and<br />grat straucht on, till he got his release. It was fair murder,<br />a'body said that. Ask John Paul - he was brawly ashamed o' that<br />game, him that's sic a Christian man! Grand doin's for the Master<br />o' Ball'ntrae!" I asked him what the Master had thought of it<br />himself. "How would I ken?" says he. "He never said naething."<br />And on again in his usual manner of banning and swearing, with<br />every now and again a "Master of Ballantrae" sneered through his<br />nose. It was in one of these confidences that he showed me the<br />Carlisle letter, the print of the horse-shoe still stamped in the<br />paper. Indeed, that was our last confidence; for he then expressed<br />himself so ill-naturedly of Mrs. Henry that I had to reprimand him<br />sharply, and must thenceforth hold him at a distance.<br />My old lord was uniformly kind to Mr. Henry; he had even pretty<br />ways of gratitude, and would sometimes clap him on the shoulder and<br />say, as if to the world at large: "This is a very good son to me."<br />And grateful he was, no doubt, being a man of sense and justice.<br />But I think that was all, and I am sure Mr. Henry thought so. The<br />love was all for the dead son. Not that this was often given<br />breath to; indeed, with me but once. My lord had asked me one day<br />how I got on with Mr. Henry, and I had told him the truth.<br />"Ay," said he, looking sideways on the burning fire, "Henry is a<br />good lad, a very good lad," said he. "You have heard, Mr.<br />Mackellar, that I had another son? I am afraid he was not so<br />virtuous a lad as Mr. Henry; but dear me, he's dead, Mr. Mackellar!<br />and while he lived we were all very proud of him, all very proud.<br />If he was not all he should have been in some ways, well, perhaps<br />we loved him better!" This last he said looking musingly in the<br />fire; and then to me, with a great deal of briskness, "But I am<br />rejoiced you do so well with Mr. Henry. You will find him a good<br />master." And with that he opened his book, which was the customary<br />signal of dismission. But it would be little that he read, and<br />less that he understood; Culloden field and the Master, these would<br />be the burthen of his thought; and the burthen of mine was an<br />unnatural jealousy of the dead man for Mr. Henry's sake, that had<br />even then begun to grow on me.<br />I am keeping Mrs. Henry for the last, so that this expression of my<br />sentiment may seem unwarrantably strong: the reader shall judge<br />for himself when I have done. But I must first tell of another<br />matter, which was the means of bringing me more intimate. I had<br />not yet been six months at Durrisdeer when it chanced that John<br />Paul fell sick and must keep his bed; drink was the root of his<br />malady, in my poor thought; but he was tended, and indeed carried<br />himself, like an afflicted saint; and the very minister, who came<br />to visit him, professed himself edified when he went away. The<br />third morning of his sickness, Mr. Henry comes to me with something<br />of a hang-dog look.<br />"Mackellar," says he, "I wish I could trouble you upon a little<br />service. There is a pension we pay; it is John's part to carry it,<br />and now that he is sick I know not to whom I should look unless it<br />was yourself. The matter is very delicate; I could not carry it<br />with my own hand for a sufficient reason; I dare not send<br />Macconochie, who is a talker, and I am - I have - I am desirous<br />this should not come to Mrs. Henry's ears," says he, and flushed to<br />his neck as he said it.<br />To say truth, when I found I was to carry money to one Jessie<br />Broun, who was no better than she should be, I supposed it was some<br />trip of his own that Mr. Henry was dissembling. I was the more<br />impressed when the truth came out.<br />It was up a wynd off a side street in St. Bride's that Jessie had<br />her lodging. The place was very ill inhabited, mostly by the<br />freetrading sort. There was a man with a broken head at the entry;<br />half-way up, in a tavern, fellows were roaring and singing, though<br />it was not yet nine in the day. Altogether, I had never seen a<br />worse neighbourhood, even in the great city of Edinburgh, and I was<br />in two minds to go back. Jessie's room was of a piece with her<br />surroundings, and herself no better. She would not give me the<br />receipt (which Mr. Henry had told me to demand, for he was very<br />methodical) until she had sent out for spirits, and I had pledged<br />her in a glass; and all the time she carried on in a light-headed,<br />reckless way - now aping the manners of a lady, now breaking into<br />unseemly mirth, now making coquettish advances that oppressed me to<br />the ground. Of the money she spoke more tragically.<br />"It's blood money!" said she; "I take it for that: blood money for<br />the betrayed! See what I'm brought down to! Ah, if the bonnie lad<br />were back again, it would be changed days. But he's deid - he's<br />lyin' deid amang the Hieland hills - the bonnie lad, the bonnie<br />lad!"<br />She had a rapt manner of crying on the bonnie lad, clasping her<br />hands and casting up her eyes, that I think she must have learned<br />of strolling players; and I thought her sorrow very much of an<br />affectation, and that she dwelled upon the business because her<br />shame was now all she had to be proud of. I will not say I did not<br />pity her, but it was a loathing pity at the best; and her last<br />change of manner wiped it out. This was when she had had enough of<br />me for an audience, and had set her name at last to the receipt.<br />"There!" says she, and taking the most unwomanly oaths upon her<br />tongue, bade me begone and carry it to the Judas who had sent me.<br />It was the first time I had heard the name applied to Mr. Henry; I<br />was staggered besides at her sudden vehemence of word and manner,<br />and got forth from the room, under this shower of curses, like a<br />beaten dog. But even then I was not quit, for the vixen threw up<br />her window, and, leaning forth, continued to revile me as I went up<br />the wynd; the freetraders, coming to the tavern door, joined in the<br />mockery, and one had even the inhumanity to set upon me a very<br />savage small dog, which bit me in the ankle. This was a strong<br />lesson, had I required one, to avoid ill company; and I rode home<br />in much pain from the bite and considerable indignation of mind.<br />Mr. Henry was in the steward's room, affecting employment, but I<br />could see he was only impatient to hear of my errand.<br />"Well?" says he, as soon as I came in; and when I had told him<br />something of what passed, and that Jessie seemed an undeserving<br />woman and far from grateful: "She is no friend to me," said he;<br />"but, indeed, Mackellar, I have few friends to boast of, and Jessie<br />has some cause to be unjust. I need not dissemble what all the<br />country knows: she was not very well used by one of our family."<br />This was the first time I had heard him refer to the Master even<br />distantly; and I think he found his tongue rebellious even for that<br />much, but presently he resumed - "This is why I would have nothing<br />said. It would give pain to Mrs. Henry . . . and to my father," he<br />added, with another flush.<br />"Mr. Henry," said I, "if you will take a freedom at my hands, I<br />would tell you to let that woman be. What service is your money to<br />the like of her? She has no sobriety and no economy - as for<br />gratitude, you will as soon get milk from a whinstone; and if you<br />will pretermit your bounty, it will make no change at all but just<br />to save the ankles of your messengers."<br />Mr. Henry smiled. "But I am grieved about your ankle," said he,<br />the next moment, with a proper gravity.<br />"And observe," I continued, "I give you this advice upon<br />consideration; and yet my heart was touched for the woman in the<br />beginning."<br />"Why, there it is, you see!" said Mr. Henry. "And you are to<br />remember that I knew her once a very decent lass. Besides which,<br />although I speak little of my family, I think much of its repute."<br />And with that he broke up the talk, which was the first we had<br />together in such confidence. But the same afternoon I had the<br />proof that his father was perfectly acquainted with the business,<br />and that it was only from his wife that Mr. Henry kept it secret.<br />"I fear you had a painful errand to-day," says my lord to me, "for<br />which, as it enters in no way among your duties, I wish to thank<br />you, and to remind you at the same time (in case Mr. Henry should<br />have neglected) how very desirable it is that no word of it should<br />reach my daughter. Reflections on the dead, Mr. Mackellar, are<br />doubly painful."<br />Anger glowed in my heart; and I could have told my lord to his face<br />how little he had to do, bolstering up the image of the dead in<br />Mrs. Henry's heart, and how much better he were employed to shatter<br />that false idol; for by this time I saw very well how the land lay<br />between my patron and his wife.<br />My pen is clear enough to tell a plain tale; but to render the<br />effect of an infinity of small things, not one great enough in<br />itself to be narrated; and to translate the story of looks, and the<br />message of voices when they are saying no great matter; and to put<br />in half a page the essence of near eighteen months - this is what I<br />despair to accomplish. The fault, to be very blunt, lay all in<br />Mrs. Henry. She felt it a merit to have consented to the marriage,<br />and she took it like a martyrdom; in which my old lord, whether he<br />knew it or not, fomented her. She made a merit, besides, of her<br />constancy to the dead, though its name, to a nicer conscience,<br />should have seemed rather disloyalty to the living; and here also<br />my lord gave her his countenance. I suppose he was glad to talk of<br />his loss, and ashamed to dwell on it with Mr. Henry. Certainly, at<br />least, he made a little coterie apart in that family of three, and<br />it was the husband who was shut out. It seems it was an old custom<br />when the family were alone in Durrisdeer, that my lord should take<br />his wine to the chimney-side, and Miss Alison, instead of<br />withdrawing, should bring a stool to his knee, and chatter to him<br />privately; and after she had become my patron's wife the same<br />manner of doing was continued. It should have been pleasant to<br />behold this ancient gentleman so loving with his daughter, but I<br />was too much a partisan of Mr. Henry's to be anything but wroth at<br />his exclusion. Many's the time I have seen him make an obvious<br />resolve, quit the table, and go and join himself to his wife and my<br />Lord Durrisdeer; and on their part, they were never backward to<br />make him welcome, turned to him smilingly as to an intruding child,<br />and took him into their talk with an effort so ill-concealed that<br />he was soon back again beside me at the table, whence (so great is<br />the hall of Durrisdeer) we could but hear the murmur of voices at<br />the chimney. There he would sit and watch, and I along with him;<br />and sometimes by my lord's head sorrowfully shaken, or his hand<br />laid on Mrs. Henry's head, or hers upon his knee as if in<br />consolation, or sometimes by an exchange of tearful looks, we would<br />draw our conclusion that the talk had gone to the old subject and<br />the shadow of the dead was in the hall.<br />I have hours when I blame Mr. Henry for taking all too patiently;<br />yet we are to remember he was married in pity, and accepted his<br />wife upon that term. And, indeed, he had small encouragement to<br />make a stand. Once, I remember, he announced he had found a man to<br />replace the pane of the stained window, which, as it was he that<br />managed all the business, was a thing clearly within his<br />attributions. But to the Master's fancies, that pane was like a<br />relic; and on the first word of any change, the blood flew to Mrs.<br />Henry's face.<br />"I wonder at you!" she cried.<br />"I wonder at myself," says Mr. Henry, with more of bitterness than<br />I had ever heard him to express.<br />Thereupon my old lord stepped in with his smooth talk, so that<br />before the meal was at an end all seemed forgotten; only that,<br />after dinner, when the pair had withdrawn as usual to the chimneyside,<br />we could see her weeping with her head upon his knee. Mr.<br />Henry kept up the talk with me upon some topic of the estates - he<br />could speak of little else but business, and was never the best of<br />company; but he kept it up that day with more continuity, his eye<br />straying ever and again to the chimney, and his voice changing to<br />another key, but without check of delivery. The pane, however, was<br />not replaced; and I believe he counted it a great defeat.<br />Whether he was stout enough or no, God knows he was kind enough.<br />Mrs. Henry had a manner of condescension with him, such as (in a<br />wife) would have pricked my vanity into an ulcer; he took it like a<br />favour. She held him at the staff's end; forgot and then<br />remembered and unbent to him, as we do to children; burthened him<br />with cold kindness; reproved him with a change of colour and a<br />bitten lip, like one shamed by his disgrace: ordered him with a<br />look of the eye, when she was off her guard; when she was on the<br />watch, pleaded with him for the most natural attentions, as though<br />they were unheard-of favours. And to all this he replied with the<br />most unwearied service, loving, as folk say, the very ground she<br />trod on, and carrying that love in his eyes as bright as a lamp.<br />When Miss Katharine was to be born, nothing would serve but he must<br />stay in the room behind the head of the bed. There he sat, as<br />white (they tell me) as a sheet, and the sweat dropping from his<br />brow; and the handkerchief he had in his hand was crushed into a<br />little ball no bigger than a musket-bullet. Nor could he bear the<br />sight of Miss Katharine for many a day; indeed, I doubt if he was<br />ever what he should have been to my young lady; for the which want<br />of natural feeling he was loudly blamed.<br />Such was the state of this family down to the 7th April, 1749, when<br />there befell the first of that series of events which were to break<br />so many hearts and lose so many lives.<br />On that day I was sitting in my room a little before supper, when<br />John Paul burst open the door with no civility of knocking, and<br />told me there was one below that wished to speak with the steward;<br />sneering at the name of my office.<br />I asked what manner of man, and what his name was; and this<br />disclosed the cause of John's ill-humour; for it appeared the<br />visitor refused to name himself except to me, a sore affront to the<br />major-domo's consequence.<br />"Well," said I, smiling a little, "I will see what he wants."<br />I found in the entrance hall a big man, very plainly habited, and<br />wrapped in a sea-cloak, like one new landed, as indeed he was.<br />Not, far off Macconochie was standing, with his tongue out of his<br />mouth and his hand upon his chin, like a dull fellow thinking hard;<br />and the stranger, who had brought his cloak about his face,<br />appeared uneasy. He had no sooner seen me coming than he went to<br />meet me with an effusive manner.<br />"My dear man," said he, "a thousand apologies for disturbing you,<br />but I'm in the most awkward position. And there's a son of a<br />ramrod there that I should know the looks of, and more betoken I<br />believe that he knows mine. Being in this family, sir, and in a<br />place of some responsibility (which was the cause I took the<br />liberty to send for you), you are doubtless of the honest party?"<br />"You may be sure at least," says I, "that all of that party are<br />quite safe in Durrisdeer."<br />"My dear man, it is my very thought," says he. "You see, I have<br />just been set on shore here by a very honest man, whose name I<br />cannot remember, and who is to stand off and on for me till<br />morning, at some danger to himself; and, to be clear with you, I am<br />a little concerned lest it should be at some to me. I have saved<br />my life so often, Mr. -, I forget your name, which is a very good<br />one - that, faith, I would be very loath to lose it after all. And<br />the son of a ramrod, whom I believe I saw before Carlisle . . . "<br />"Oh, sir," said I, "you can trust Macconochie until to-morrow."<br />"Well, and it's a delight to hear you say so," says the stranger.<br />"The truth is that my name is not a very suitable one in this<br />country of Scotland. With a gentleman like you, my dear man, I<br />would have no concealments of course; and by your leave I'll just<br />breathe it in your ear. They call me Francis Burke - Colonel<br />Francis Burke; and I am here, at a most damnable risk to myself, to<br />see your masters - if you'll excuse me, my good man, for giving<br />them the name, for I'm sure it's a circumstance I would never have<br />guessed from your appearance. And if you would just be so very<br />obliging as to take my name to them, you might say that I come<br />bearing letters which I am sure they will be very rejoiced to have<br />the reading of."<br />Colonel Francis Burke was one of the Prince's Irishmen, that did<br />his cause such an infinity of hurt, and were so much distasted of<br />the Scots at the time of the rebellion; and it came at once into my<br />mind, how the Master of Ballantrae had astonished all men by going<br />with that party. In the same moment a strong foreboding of the<br />truth possessed my soul.<br />"If you will step in here," said I, opening a chamber door, "I will<br />let my lord know."<br />"And I am sure it's very good of you, Mr. What-is-your-name," says<br />the Colonel.<br />Up to the hall I went, slow-footed. There they were, all three -<br />my old lord in his place, Mrs. Henry at work by the window, Mr.<br />Henry (as was much his custom) pacing the low end. In the midst<br />was the table laid for supper. I told them briefly what I had to<br />say. My old lord lay back in his seat. Mrs. Henry sprang up<br />standing with a mechanical motion, and she and her husband stared<br />at each other's eyes across the room; it was the strangest,<br />challenging look these two exchanged, and as they looked, the<br />colour faded in their faces. Then Mr. Henry turned to me; not to<br />speak, only to sign with his finger; but that was enough, and I<br />went down again for the Colonel.<br />When we returned, these three were in much the same position I same<br />left them in; I believe no word had passed.<br />"My Lord Durrisdeer, no doubt?" says the Colonel, bowing, and my<br />lord bowed in answer. "And this," continues the Colonel, "should<br />be the Master of Ballantrae?"<br />"I have never taken that name," said Mr. Henry; "but I am Henry<br />Durie, at your service."<br />Then the Colonel turns to Mrs. Henry, bowing with his hat upon his<br />heart and the most killing airs of gallantry. "There can be no<br />mistake about so fine a figure of a lady," says he. "I address the<br />seductive Miss Alison, of whom I have so often heard?"<br />Once more husband and wife exchanged a look.<br />"I am Mrs. Henry Durie," said she; "but before my marriage my name<br />was Alison Graeme."<br />Then my lord spoke up. "I am an old man, Colonel Burke," said he,<br />"and a frail one. It will be mercy on your part to be expeditious.<br />Do you bring me news of - " he hesitated, and then the words broke<br />from him with a singular change of voice - "my son?"<br />"My dear lord, I will be round with you like a soldier," said the<br />Colonel. "I do."<br />My lord held out a wavering hand; he seemed to wave a signal, but<br />whether it was to give him time or to speak on, was more than we<br />could guess. At length he got out the one word, "Good?"<br />"Why, the very best in the creation!" cries the Colonel. "For my<br />good friend and admired comrade is at this hour in the fine city of<br />Paris, and as like as not, if I know anything of his habits, he<br />will be drawing in his chair to a piece of dinner. - Bedad, I<br />believe the lady's fainting."<br />Mrs. Henry was indeed the colour of death, and drooped against the<br />window-frame. But when Mr. Henry made a movement as if to run to<br />her, she straightened with a sort of shiver. "I am well," she<br />said, with her white lips.<br />Mr. Henry stopped, and his face had a strong twitch of anger. The<br />next moment he had turned to the Colonel. "You must not blame<br />yourself," says he, "for this effect on Mrs. Durie. It is only<br />natural; we were all brought up like brother and sister."<br />Mrs. Henry looked at her husband with something like relief or even<br />gratitude. In my way of thinking, that speech was the first step<br />he made in her good graces.<br />"You must try to forgive me, Mrs. Durie, for indeed and I am just<br />an Irish savage," said the Colonel; "and I deserve to be shot for<br />not breaking the matter more artistically to a lady. But here are<br />the Master's own letters; one for each of the three of you; and to<br />be sure (if I know anything of my friend's genius) he will tell his<br />own story with a better grace."<br />He brought the three letters forth as he spoke, arranged them by<br />their superscriptions, presented the first to my lord, who took it<br />greedily, and advanced towards Mrs. Henry holding out the second.<br />But the lady waved it back. "To my husband," says she, with a<br />choked voice.<br />The Colonel was a quick man, but at this he was somewhat<br />nonplussed. "To be sure!" says he; "how very dull of me! To be<br />sure!" But he still held the letter.<br />At last Mr. Henry reached forth his hand, and there was nothing to<br />be done but give it up. Mr. Henry took the letters (both hers and<br />his own), and looked upon their outside, with his brows knit hard,<br />as if he were thinking. He had surprised me all through by his<br />excellent behaviour; but he was to excel himself now.<br />"Let me give you a hand to your room," said he to his wife. "This<br />has come something of the suddenest; and, at any rate, you will<br />wish to read your letter by yourself."<br />Again she looked upon him with the same thought of wonder; but he<br />gave her no time, coming straight to where she stood. "It will be<br />better so, believe me," said he; "and Colonel Burke is too<br />considerate not to excuse you." And with that he took her hand by<br />the fingers, and led her from the hall.<br />Mrs. Henry returned no more that night; and when Mr. Henry went to<br />visit her next morning, as I heard long afterwards, she gave him<br />the letter again, still unopened.<br />"Oh, read it and be done!" he had cried.<br />"Spare me that," said she.<br />And by these two speeches, to my way of thinking, each undid a<br />great part of what they had previously done well. But the letter,<br />sure enough, came into my hands, and by me was burned, unopened.<br />To be very exact as to the adventures of the Master after Culloden,<br />I wrote not long ago to Colonel Burke, now a Chevalier of the Order<br />of St. Louis, begging him for some notes in writing, since I could<br />scarce depend upon my memory at so great an interval. To confess<br />the truth, I have been somewhat embarrassed by his response; for he<br />sent me the complete memoirs of his life, touching only in places<br />on the Master; running to a much greater length than my whole<br />story, and not everywhere (as it seems to me) designed for<br />edification. He begged in his letter, dated from Ettenheim, that I<br />would find a publisher for the whole, after I had made what use of<br />it I required; and I think I shall best answer my own purpose and<br />fulfil his wishes by printing certain parts of it in full. In this<br />way my readers will have a detailed, and, I believe, a very genuine<br />account of some essential matters; and if any publisher should take<br />a fancy to the Chevalier's manner of narration, he knows where to<br />apply for the rest, of which there is plenty at his service. I put<br />in my first extract here, so that it may stand in the place of what<br />the Chevalier told us over our wine in the hall of Durrisdeer; but<br />you are to suppose it was not the brutal fact, but a very varnished<br />version that he offered to my lord.<br />CHAPTER III. - THE MASTER'S WANDERINGS.<br />FROM THE MEMOIRS OF THE CHEVALIER DE BURKE.<br />. . . I left Ruthven (it's hardly necessary to remark) with much<br />greater satisfaction than I had come to it; but whether I missed my<br />way in the deserts, or whether my companions failed me, I soon<br />found myself alone. This was a predicament very disagreeable; for<br />I never understood this horrid country or savage people, and the<br />last stroke of the Prince's withdrawal had made us of the Irish<br />more unpopular than ever. I was reflecting on my poor chances,<br />when I saw another horseman on the hill, whom I supposed at first<br />to have been a phantom, the news of his death in the very front at<br />Culloden being current in the army generally. This was the Master<br />of Ballantrae, my Lord Durrisdeer's son, a young nobleman of the<br />rarest gallantry and parts, and equally designed by nature to adorn<br />a Court and to reap laurels in the field. Our meeting was the more<br />welcome to both, as he was one of the few Scots who had used the<br />Irish with consideration, and as he might now be of very high<br />utility in aiding my escape. Yet what founded our particular<br />friendship was a circumstance, by itself as romantic as any fable<br />of King Arthur.<br />This was on the second day of our flight, after we had slept one<br />night in the rain upon the inclination of a mountain. There was an<br />Appin man, Alan Black Stewart (or some such name, (2) but I have<br />seen him since in France) who chanced to be passing the same way,<br />and had a jealousy of my companion. Very uncivil expressions were<br />exchanged; and Stewart calls upon the Master to alight and have it<br />out.<br />"Why, Mr. Stewart," says the Master, "I think at the present time I<br />would prefer to run a race with you." And with the word claps<br />spurs to his horse.<br />Stewart ran after us, a childish thing to do, for more than a mile;<br />and I could not help laughing, as I looked back at last and saw him<br />on a hill, holding his hand to his side, and nearly burst with<br />running.<br />"But, all the same," I could not help saying to my companion, "I<br />would let no man run after me for any such proper purpose, and not<br />give him his desire. It was a good jest, but it smells a trifle<br />cowardly."<br />He bent his brows at me. "I do pretty well," says he, "when I<br />saddle myself with the most unpopular man in Scotland, and let that<br />suffice for courage."<br />"O, bedad," says I, "I could show you a more unpopular with the<br />naked eye. And if you like not my company, you can 'saddle'<br />yourself on some one else."<br />"Colonel Burke," says he, "do not let us quarrel; and, to that<br />effect, let me assure you I am the least patient man in the world."<br />"I am as little patient as yourself," said I. "I care not who<br />knows that."<br />"At this rate," says he, reining in, "we shall not go very far.<br />And I propose we do one of two things upon the instant: either<br />quarrel and be done; or make a sure bargain to bear everything at<br />each other's hands."<br />"Like a pair of brothers?" said I.<br />"I said no such foolishness," he replied. "I have a brother of my<br />own, and I think no more of him than of a colewort. But if we are<br />to have our noses rubbed together in this course of flight, let us<br />each dare to be ourselves like savages, and each swear that he will<br />neither resent nor deprecate the other. I am a pretty bad fellow<br />at bottom, and I find the pretence of virtues very irksome."<br />"O, I am as bad as yourself," said I. "There is no skim milk in<br />Francis Burke. But which is it to be? Fight or make friends?"<br />"Why," says be, "I think it will be the best manner to spin a coin<br />for it."<br />This proposition was too highly chivalrous not to take my fancy;<br />and, strange as it may seem of two well-born gentlemen of to-day,<br />we span a half-crown (like a pair of ancient paladins) whether we<br />were to cut each other's throats or be sworn friends. A more<br />romantic circumstance can rarely have occurred; and it is one of<br />those points in my memoirs, by which we may see the old tales of<br />Homer and the poets are equally true to-day - at least, of the<br />noble and genteel. The coin fell for peace, and we shook hands<br />upon our bargain. And then it was that my companion explained to<br />me his thought in running away from Mr. Stewart, which was<br />certainly worthy of his political intellect. The report of his<br />death, he said, was a great guard to him; Mr. Stewart having<br />recognised him, had become a danger; and he had taken the briefest<br />road to that gentleman's silence. "For," says he, "Alan Black is<br />too vain a man to narrate any such story of himself."<br />Towards afternoon we came down to the shores of that loch for which<br />we were heading; and there was the ship, but newly come to anchor.<br />She was the SAINTE-MARIE-DES-ANGES, out of the port of Havre-de-<br />Grace. The Master, after we had signalled for a boat, asked me if<br />I knew the captain. I told him he was a countryman of mine, of the<br />most unblemished integrity, but, I was afraid, a rather timorous<br />man.<br />"No matter," says he. "For all that, he should certainly hear the<br />truth."<br />I asked him if he meant about the battle? for if the captain once<br />knew the standard was down, he would certainly put to sea again at<br />once.<br />"And even then!" said he; "the arms are now of no sort of utility."<br />"My dear man," said I, "who thinks of the arms? But, to be sure,<br />we must remember our friends. They will be close upon our heels,<br />perhaps the Prince himself, and if the ship be gone, a great number<br />of valuable lives may be imperilled."<br />"The captain and the crew have lives also, if you come to that,"<br />says Ballantrae.<br />This I declared was but a quibble, and that I would not hear of the<br />captain being told; and then it was that Ballantrae made me a witty<br />answer, for the sake of which (and also because I have been blamed<br />myself in this business of the SAINTE-MARIE-DES-ANGES) I have<br />related the whole conversation as it passed.<br />"Frank," says he, "remember our bargain. I must not object to your<br />holding your tongue, which I hereby even encourage you to do; but,<br />by the same terms, you are not to resent my telling."<br />I could not help laughing at this; though I still forewarned him<br />what would come of it.<br />"The devil may come of it for what I care," says the reckless<br />fellow. "I have always done exactly as I felt inclined."<br />As is well known, my prediction came true. The captain had no<br />sooner heard the news than he cut his cable and to sea again; and<br />before morning broke, we were in the Great Minch.<br />The ship was very old; and the skipper, although the most honest of<br />men (and Irish too), was one of the least capable. The wind blew<br />very boisterous, and the sea raged extremely. All that day we had<br />little heart whether to eat or drink; went early to rest in some<br />concern of mind; and (as if to give us a lesson) in the night the<br />wind chopped suddenly into the north-east, and blew a hurricane.<br />We were awaked by the dreadful thunder of the tempest and the<br />stamping of the mariners on deck; so that I supposed our last hour<br />was certainly come; and the terror of my mind was increased out of<br />all measure by Ballantrae, who mocked at my devotions. It is in<br />hours like these that a man of any piety appears in his true light,<br />and we find (what we are taught as babes) the small trust that can<br />be set in worldly friends. I would be unworthy of my religion if I<br />let this pass without particular remark. For three days we lay in<br />the dark in the cabin, and had but a biscuit to nibble. On the<br />fourth the wind fell, leaving the ship dismasted and heaving on<br />vast billows. The captain had not a guess of whither we were<br />blown; he was stark ignorant of his trade, and could do naught but<br />bless the Holy Virgin; a very good thing, too, but scarce the whole<br />of seamanship. It seemed, our one hope was to be picked up by<br />another vessel; and if that should prove to be an English ship, it<br />might be no great blessing to the Master and myself.<br />The fifth and sixth days we tossed there helpless. The seventh<br />some sail was got on her, but she was an unwieldy vessel at the<br />best, and we made little but leeway. All the time, indeed, we had<br />been drifting to the south and west, and during the tempest must<br />have driven in that direction with unheard-of violence. The ninth<br />dawn was cold and black, with a great sea running, and every mark<br />of foul weather. In this situation we were overjoyed to sight a<br />small ship on the horizon, and to perceive her go about and head<br />for the SAINTE-MARIE. But our gratification did not very long<br />endure; for when she had laid to and lowered a boat, it was<br />immediately filled with disorderly fellows, who sang and shouted as<br />they pulled across to us, and swarmed in on our deck with bare<br />cutlasses, cursing loudly. Their leader was a horrible villain,<br />with his face blacked and his whiskers curled in ringlets; Teach,<br />his name; a most notorious pirate. He stamped about the deck,<br />raving and crying out that his name was Satan, and his ship was<br />called Hell. There was something about him like a wicked child or<br />a half-witted person, that daunted me beyond expression. I<br />whispered in the ear of Ballantrae that I would not be the last to<br />volunteer, and only prayed God they might be short of hands; he<br />approved my purpose with a nod.<br />"Bedad," said I to Master Teach, "if you are Satan, here is a devil<br />for ye."<br />The word pleased him; and (not to dwell upon these shocking<br />incidents) Ballantrae and I and two others were taken for recruits,<br />while the skipper and all the rest were cast into the sea by the<br />method of walking the plank. It was the first time I had seen this<br />done; my heart died within me at the spectacle; and Master Teach or<br />one of his acolytes (for my head was too much lost to be precise)<br />remarked upon my pale face in a very alarming manner. I had the<br />strength to cut a step or two of a jig, and cry out some ribaldry,<br />which saved me for that time; but my legs were like water when I<br />must get down into the skiff among these miscreants; and what with<br />my horror of my company and fear of the monstrous billows, it was<br />all I could do to keep an Irish tongue and break a jest or two as<br />we were pulled aboard. By the blessing of God, there was a fiddle<br />in the pirate ship, which I had no sooner seen than I fell upon;<br />and in my quality of crowder I had the heavenly good luck to get<br />favour in their eyes. CROWDING PAT was the name they dubbed me<br />with; and it was little I cared for a name so long as my skin was<br />whole.<br />What kind of a pandemonium that vessel was, I cannot describe, but<br />she was commanded by a lunatic, and might be called a floating<br />Bedlam. Drinking, roaring, singing, quarrelling, dancing, they<br />were never all sober at one time; and there were days together<br />when, if a squall had supervened, it must have sent us to the<br />bottom; or if a king's ship had come along, it would have found us<br />quite helpless for defence. Once or twice we sighted a sail, and,<br />if we were sober enough, overhauled it, God forgive us! and if we<br />were all too drunk, she got away, and I would bless the saints<br />under my breath. Teach ruled, if you can call that rule which<br />brought no order, by the terror he created; and I observed the man<br />was very vain of his position. I have known marshals of France -<br />ay, and even Highland chieftains - that were less openly puffed up;<br />which throws a singular light on the pursuit of honour and glory.<br />Indeed, the longer we live, the more we perceive the sagacity of<br />Aristotle and the other old philosophers; and though I have all my<br />life been eager for legitimate distinctions, I can lay my hand upon<br />my heart, at the end of my career, and declare there is not one -<br />no, nor yet life itself - which is worth acquiring or preserving at<br />the slightest cost of dignity.<br />It was long before I got private speech of Ballantrae; but at<br />length one night we crept out upon the boltsprit, when the rest<br />were better employed, and commiserated our position.<br />"None can deliver us but the saints," said I.<br />"My mind is very different," said Ballantrae; "for I am going to<br />deliver myself. This Teach is the poorest creature possible; we<br />make no profit of him, and lie continually open to capture; and,"<br />says he, "I am not going to be a tarry pirate for nothing, nor yet<br />to hang in chains if I can help it." And he told me what was in<br />his mind to better the state of the ship in the way of discipline,<br />which would give us safety for the present, and a sooner hope of<br />deliverance when they should have gained enough and should break up<br />their company.<br />I confessed to him ingenuously that my nerve was quite shook amid<br />these horrible surroundings, and I durst scarce tell him to count<br />upon me.<br />"I am not very easy frightened," said he, "nor very easy beat."<br />A few days after, there befell an accident which had nearly hanged<br />us all; and offers the most extraordinary picture of the folly that<br />ruled in our concerns. We were all pretty drunk: and some<br />bedlamite spying a sail, Teach put the ship about in chase without<br />a glance, and we began to bustle up the arms and boast of the<br />horrors that should follow. I observed Ballantrae stood quiet in<br />the bows, looking under the shade of his hand; but for my part,<br />true to my policy among these savages, I was at work with the<br />busiest and passing Irish jests for their diversion.<br />"Run up the colours," cries Teach. "Show the -s the Jolly Roger!"<br />It was the merest drunken braggadocio at such a stage, and might<br />have lost us a valuable prize; but I thought it no part of mine to<br />reason, and I ran up the black flag with my own hand.<br />Ballantrae steps presently aft with a smile upon his face.<br />"You may perhaps like to know, you drunken dog," says he, "that you<br />are chasing a king's ship."<br />Teach roared him the lie; but he ran at the same time to the<br />bulwarks, and so did they all. I have never seen so many drunken<br />men struck suddenly sober. The cruiser had gone about, upon our<br />impudent display of colours; she was just then filling on the new<br />tack; her ensign blew out quite plain to see; and even as we<br />stared, there came a puff of smoke, and then a report, and a shot<br />plunged in the waves a good way short of us. Some ran to the<br />ropes, and got the SARAH round with an incredible swiftness. One<br />fellow fell on the rum barrel, which stood broached upon the deck,<br />and rolled it promptly overboard. On my part, I made for the Jolly<br />Roger, struck it, tossed it in the sea; and could have flung myself<br />after, so vexed was I with our mismanagement. As for Teach, he<br />grew as pale as death, and incontinently went down to his cabin.<br />Only twice he came on deck that afternoon; went to the taffrail;<br />took a long look at the king's ship, which was still on the horizon<br />heading after us; and then, without speech, back to his cabin. You<br />may say he deserted us; and if it had not been for one very capable<br />sailor we had on board, and for the lightness of the airs that blew<br />all day, we must certainly have gone to the yard-arm.<br />It is to be supposed Teach was humiliated, and perhaps alarmed for<br />his position with the crew; and the way in which he set about<br />regaining what he had lost, was highly characteristic of the man.<br />Early next day we smelled him burning sulphur in his cabin and<br />crying out of "Hell, hell!" which was well understood among the<br />crew, and filled their minds with apprehension. Presently he comes<br />on deck, a perfect figure of fun, his face blacked, his hair and<br />whiskers curled, his belt stuck full of pistols; chewing bits of<br />glass so that the blood ran down his chin, and brandishing a dirk.<br />I do not know if he had taken these manners from the Indians of<br />America, where he was a native; but such was his way, and he would<br />always thus announce that he was wound up to horrid deeds. The<br />first that came near him was the fellow who had sent the rum<br />overboard the day before; him he stabbed to the heart, damning him<br />for a mutineer; and then capered about the body, raving and<br />swearing and daring us to come on. It was the silliest exhibition;<br />and yet dangerous too, for the cowardly fellow was plainly working<br />himself up to another murder.<br />All of a sudden Ballantrae stepped forth. "Have done with this<br />play-acting," says he. "Do you think to frighten us with making<br />faces? We saw nothing of you yesterday, when you were wanted; and<br />we did well without you, let me tell you that."<br />There was a murmur and a movement in the crew, of pleasure and<br />alarm, I thought, in nearly equal parts. As for Teach, he gave a<br />barbarous howl, and swung his dirk to fling it, an art in which<br />(like many seamen) he was very expert.<br />"Knock that out of his hand!" says Ballantrae, so sudden and sharp<br />that my arm obeyed him before my mind had understood.<br />Teach stood like one stupid, never thinking on his pistols.<br />"Go down to your cabin," cries Ballantrae, "and come on deck again<br />when you are sober. Do you think we are going to hang for you, you<br />black-faced, half-witted, drunken brute and butcher? Go down!"<br />And he stamped his foot at him with such a sudden smartness that<br />Teach fairly ran for it to the companion.<br />"And now, mates," says Ballantrae, "a word with you. I don't know<br />if you are gentlemen of fortune for the fun of the thing, but I am<br />not. I want to make money, and get ashore again, and spend it like<br />a man. And on one thing my mind is made up: I will not hang if I<br />can help it. Come: give me a hint; I'm only a beginner! Is there<br />no way to get a little discipline and common sense about this<br />business?"<br />One of the men spoke up: he said by rights they should have a<br />quartermaster; and no sooner was the word out of his mouth than<br />they were all of that opinion. The thing went by acclamation,<br />Ballantrae was made quartermaster, the rum was put in his charge,<br />laws were passed in imitation of those of a pirate by the name of<br />Roberts, and the last proposal was to make an end of Teach. But<br />Ballantrae was afraid of a more efficient captain, who might be a<br />counterweight to himself, and he opposed this stoutly. Teach, he<br />said, was good enough to board ships and frighten fools with his<br />blacked face and swearing; we could scarce get a better man than<br />Teach for that; and besides, as the man was now disconsidered and<br />as good as deposed, we might reduce his proportion of the plunder.<br />This carried it; Teach's share was cut down to a mere derision,<br />being actually less than mine; and there remained only two points:<br />whether he would consent, and who was to announce to him this<br />resolution.<br />"Do not let that stick you," says Ballantrae, "I will do that."<br />And he stepped to the companion and down alone into the cabin to<br />face that drunken savage.<br />"This is the man for us," cries one of the hands. "Three cheers<br />for the quartermaster!" which were given with a will, my own voice<br />among the loudest, and I dare say these plaudits had their effect<br />on Master Teach in the cabin, as we have seen of late days how<br />shouting in the streets may trouble even the minds of legislators.<br />What passed precisely was never known, though some of the heads of<br />it came to the surface later on; and we were all amazed, as well as<br />gratified, when Ballantrae came on deck with Teach upon his arm,<br />and announced that all had been consented.<br />I pass swiftly over those twelve or fifteen months in which we<br />continued to keep the sea in the North Atlantic, getting our food<br />and water from the ships we over-hauled, and doing on the whole a<br />pretty fortunate business. Sure, no one could wish to read<br />anything so ungenteel as the memoirs of a pirate, even an unwilling<br />one like me! Things went extremely better with our designs, and<br />Ballantrae kept his lead, to my admiration, from that day forth. I<br />would be tempted to suppose that a gentleman must everywhere be<br />first, even aboard a rover: but my birth is every whit as good as<br />any Scottish lord's, and I am not ashamed to confess that I stayed<br />Crowding Pat until the end, and was not much better than the crew's<br />buffoon. Indeed, it was no scene to bring out my merits. My<br />health suffered from a variety of reasons; I was more at home to<br />the last on a horse's back than a ship's deck; and, to be<br />ingenuous, the fear of the sea was constantly in my mind, battling<br />with the fear of my companions. I need not cry myself up for<br />courage; I have done well on many fields under the eyes of famous<br />generals, and earned my late advancement by an act of the most<br />distinguished valour before many witnesses. But when we must<br />proceed on one of our abordages, the heart of Francis Burke was in<br />his boots; the little eggshell skiff in which we must set forth,<br />the horrible heaving of the vast billows, the height of the ship<br />that we must scale, the thought of how many might be there in<br />garrison upon their legitimate defence, the scowling heavens which<br />(in that climate) so often looked darkly down upon our exploits,<br />and the mere crying of the wind in my ears, were all considerations<br />most unpalatable to my valour. Besides which, as I was always a<br />creature of the nicest sensibility, the scenes that must follow on<br />our success tempted me as little as the chances of defeat. Twice<br />we found women on board; and though I have seen towns sacked, and<br />of late days in France some very horrid public tumults, there was<br />something in the smallness of the numbers engaged, and the bleak<br />dangerous sea-surroundings, that made these acts of piracy far the<br />most revolting. I confess ingenuously I could never proceed unless<br />I was three parts drunk; it was the same even with the crew; Teach<br />himself was fit for no enterprise till he was full of rum; and it<br />was one of the most difficult parts of Ballantrae's performance, to<br />serve us with liquor in the proper quantities. Even this he did to<br />admiration; being upon the whole the most capable man I ever met<br />with, and the one of the most natural genius. He did not even<br />scrape favour with the crew, as I did, by continual buffoonery made<br />upon a very anxious heart; but preserved on most occasions a great<br />deal of gravity and distance; so that he was like a parent among a<br />family of young children, or a schoolmaster with his boys. What<br />made his part the harder to perform, the men were most inveterate<br />grumblers; Ballantrae's discipline, little as it was, was yet<br />irksome to their love of licence; and what was worse, being kept<br />sober they had time to think. Some of them accordingly would fall<br />to repenting their abominable crimes; one in particular, who was a<br />good Catholic, and with whom I would sometimes steal apart for<br />prayer; above all in bad weather, fogs, lashing rain and the like,<br />when we would be the less observed; and I am sure no two criminals<br />in the cart have ever performed their devotions with more anxious<br />sincerity. But the rest, having no such grounds of hope, fell to<br />another pastime, that of computation. All day long they would he<br />telling up their shares or grooming over the result. I have said<br />we were pretty fortunate. But an observation fails to be made:<br />that in this world, in no business that I have tried, do the<br />profits rise to a man's expectations. We found many ships and took<br />many; yet few of them contained much money, their goods were<br />usually nothing to our purpose - what did we want with a cargo of<br />ploughs, or even of tobacco? - and it is quite a painful reflection<br />how many whole crews we have made to walk the plank for no more<br />than a stock of biscuit or an anker or two of spirit.<br />In the meanwhile our ship was growing very foul, and it was high<br />time we should make for our PORT DE CARRENAGE, which was in the<br />estuary of a river among swamps. It was openly understood that we<br />should then break up and go and squander our proportions of the<br />spoil; and this made every man greedy of a little more, so that our<br />decision was delayed from day to day. What finally decided<br />matters, was a trifling accident, such as an ignorant person might<br />suppose incidental to our way of life. But here I must explain:<br />on only one of all the ships we boarded, the first on which we<br />found women, did we meet with any genuine resistance. On that<br />occasion we had two men killed and several injured, and if it had<br />not been for the gallantry of Ballantrae we had surely been beat<br />back at last. Everywhere else the defence (where there was any at<br />all) was what the worst troops in Europe would have laughed at; so<br />that the most dangerous part of our employment was to clamber up<br />the side of the ship; and I have even known the poor souls on board<br />to cast us a line, so eager were they to volunteer instead of<br />walking the plank. This constant immunity had made our fellows<br />very soft, so that I understood how Teach had made so deep a mark<br />upon their minds; for indeed the company of that lunatic was the<br />chief danger in our way of life. The accident to which I have<br />referred was this:- We had sighted a little full-rigged ship very<br />close under our board in a haze; she sailed near as well as we did<br />- I should be nearer truth if I said, near as ill; and we cleared<br />the bow-chaser to see if we could bring a spar or two about their<br />ears. The swell was exceeding great; the motion of the ship beyond<br />description; it was little wonder if our gunners should fire thrice<br />and be still quite broad of what they aimed at. But in the<br />meanwhile the chase had cleared a stern gun, the thickness of the<br />air concealing them; and being better marksmen, their first shot<br />struck us in the bows, knocked our two gunners into mince-meat, so<br />that we were all sprinkled with the blood, and plunged through the<br />deck into the forecastle, where we slept. Ballantrae would have<br />held on; indeed, there was nothing in this CONTRETEMPS to affect<br />the mind of any soldier; but he had a quick perception of the men's<br />wishes, and it was plain this lucky shot had given them a sickener<br />of their trade. In a moment they were all of one mind: the chase<br />was drawing away from us, it was needless to hold on, the SARAH was<br />too foul to overhaul a bottle, it was mere foolery to keep the sea<br />with her; and on these pretended grounds her head was incontinently<br />put about and the course laid for the river. It was strange to see<br />what merriment fell on that ship's company, and how they stamped<br />about the deck jesting, and each computing what increase had come<br />to his share by the death of the two gunners.<br />We were nine days making our port, so light were the airs we had to<br />sail on, so foul the ship's bottom; but early on the tenth, before<br />dawn, and in a light lifting haze, we passed the head. A little<br />after, the haze lifted, and fell again, showing us a cruiser very<br />close. This was a sore blow, happening so near our refuge. There<br />was a great debate of whether she had seen us, and if so whether it<br />was likely they had recognised the SARAH. We were very careful, by<br />destroying every member of those crews we overhauled, to leave no<br />evidence as to our own persons; but the appearance of the SARAH<br />herself we could not keep so private; and above all of late, since<br />she had been foul, and we had pursued many ships without success,<br />it was plain that her description had been often published. I<br />supposed this alert would have made us separate upon the instant.<br />But here again that original genius of Ballantrae's had a surprise<br />in store for me. He and Teach (and it was the most remarkable step<br />of his success) had gone hand in hand since the first day of his<br />appointment. I often questioned him upon the fact, and never got<br />an answer but once, when he told me he and Teach had an<br />understanding "which would very much surprise the crew if they<br />should hear of it, and would surprise himself a good deal if it was<br />carried out." Well, here again he and Teach were of a mind; and by<br />their joint procurement the anchor was no sooner down than the<br />whole crew went off upon a scene of drunkenness indescribable. By<br />afternoon we were a mere shipful of lunatical persons, throwing of<br />things overboard, howling of different songs at the same time,<br />quarrelling and falling together, and then forgetting our quarrels<br />to embrace. Ballantrae had bidden me drink nothing, and feign<br />drunkenness, as I valued my life; and I have never passed a day so<br />wearisomely, lying the best part of the time upon the forecastle<br />and watching the swamps and thickets by which our little basin was<br />entirely surrounded for the eye. A little after dusk Ballantrae<br />stumbled up to my side, feigned to fall, with a drunken laugh, and<br />before he got his feet again, whispered me to "reel down into the<br />cabin and seem to fall asleep upon a locker, for there would be<br />need of me soon." I did as I was told, and coming into the cabin,<br />where it was quite dark, let myself fall on the first locker.<br />There was a man there already; by the way he stirred and threw me<br />off, I could not think he was much in liquor; and yet when I had<br />found another place, he seemed to continue to sleep on. My heart<br />now beat very hard, for I saw some desperate matter was in act.<br />Presently down came Ballantrae, lit the lamp, looked about the<br />cabin, nodded as if pleased, and on deck again without a word. I<br />peered out from between my fingers, and saw there were three of us<br />slumbering, or feigning to slumber, on the lockers: myself, one<br />Dutton and one Grady, both resolute men. On deck the rest were got<br />to a pitch of revelry quite beyond the bounds of what is human; so<br />that no reasonable name can describe the sounds they were now<br />making. I have heard many a drunken bout in my time, many on board<br />that very SARAH, but never anything the least like this, which made<br />me early suppose the liquor had been tampered with. It was a long<br />while before these yells and howls died out into a sort of<br />miserable moaning, and then to silence; and it seemed a long while<br />after that before Ballantrae came down again, this time with Teach<br />upon his heels. The latter cursed at the sight of us three upon<br />the lockers.<br />"Tut," says Ballantrae, "you might fire a pistol at their ears.<br />You know what stuff they have been swallowing."<br />There was a hatch in the cabin floor, and under that the richest<br />part of the booty was stored against the day of division. It<br />fastened with a ring and three padlocks, the keys (for greater<br />security) being divided; one to Teach, one to Ballantrae, and one<br />to the mate, a man called Hammond. Yet I was amazed to see they<br />were now all in the one hand; and yet more amazed (still looking<br />through my fingers) to observe Ballantrae and Teach bring up<br />several packets, four of them in all, very carefully made up and<br />with a loop for carriage.<br />"And now," says Teach, "let us be going."<br />"One word," says Ballantrae. "I have discovered there is another<br />man besides yourself who knows a private path across the swamp; and<br />it seems it is shorter than yours."<br />Teach cried out, in that case, they were undone.<br />"I do not know for that," says Ballantrae. "For there are several<br />other circumstances with which I must acquaint you. First of all,<br />there is no bullet in your pistols, which (if you remember) I was<br />kind enough to load for both of us this morning. Secondly, as<br />there is someone else who knows a passage, you must think it highly<br />improbable I should saddle myself with a lunatic like you.<br />Thirdly, these gentlemen (who need no longer pretend to be asleep)<br />are those of my party, and will now proceed to gag and bind you to<br />the mast; and when your men awaken (if they ever do awake after the<br />drugs we have mingled in their liquor), I am sure they will be so<br />obliging as to deliver you, and you will have no difficulty, I<br />daresay, to explain the business of the keys."<br />Not a word said Teach, but looked at us like a frightened baby as<br />we gagged and bound him.<br />"Now you see, you moon-calf," says Ballantrae, "why we made four<br />packets. Heretofore you have been called Captain Teach, but I<br />think you are now rather Captain Learn."<br />That was our last word on board the SARAH. We four, with our four<br />packets, lowered ourselves softly into a skiff, and left that ship<br />behind us as silent as the grave, only for the moaning of some of<br />the drunkards. There was a fog about breast-high on the waters; so<br />that Dutton, who knew the passage, must stand on his feet to direct<br />our rowing; and this, as it forced us to row gently, was the means<br />of our deliverance. We were yet but a little way from the ship,<br />when it began to come grey, and the birds to fly abroad upon the<br />water. All of a sudden Dutton clapped down upon his hams, and<br />whispered us to be silent for our lives, and hearken. Sure enough,<br />we heard a little faint creak of oars upon one hand, and then<br />again, and further off, a creak of oars upon the other. It was<br />clear we had been sighted yesterday in the morning; here were the<br />cruiser's boats to cut us out; here were we defenceless in their<br />very midst. Sure, never were poor souls more perilously placed;<br />and as we lay there on our oars, praying God the mist might hold,<br />the sweat poured from my brow. Presently we heard one of the boats<br />where we might have thrown a biscuit in her. "Softly, men," we<br />heard an officer whisper; and I marvelled they could not hear the<br />drumming of my heart.<br />"Never mind the path," says Ballantrae; "we must get shelter<br />anyhow; let us pull straight ahead for the sides of the basin."<br />This we did with the most anxious precaution, rowing, as best we<br />could, upon our hands, and steering at a venture in the fog, which<br />was (for all that) our only safety. But Heaven guided us; we<br />touched ground at a thicket; scrambled ashore with our treasure;<br />and having no other way of concealment, and the mist beginning<br />already to lighten, hove down the skiff and let her sink. We were<br />still but new under cover when the sun rose; and at the same time,<br />from the midst of the basin, a great shouting of seamen sprang up,<br />and we knew the SARAH was being boarded. I heard afterwards the<br />officer that took her got great honour; and it's true the approach<br />was creditably managed, but I think he had an easy capture when he<br />came to board. (3)<br />I was still blessing the saints for my escape, when I became aware<br />we were in trouble of another kind. We were here landed at random<br />in a vast and dangerous swamp; and how to come at the path was a<br />concern of doubt, fatigue, and peril. Dutton, indeed, was of<br />opinion we should wait until the ship was gone, and fish up the<br />skiff; for any delay would be more wise than to go blindly ahead in<br />that morass. One went back accordingly to the basin-side and<br />(peering through the thicket) saw the fog already quite drunk up,<br />and English colours flying on the SARAH, but no movement made to<br />get her under way. Our situation was now very doubtful. The swamp<br />was an unhealthful place to linger in; we had been so greedy to<br />bring treasures that we had brought but little food; it was highly<br />desirable, besides, that we should get clear of the neighbourhood<br />and into the settlements before the news of the capture went<br />abroad; and against all these considerations, there was only the<br />peril of the passage on the other side. I think it not wonderful<br />we decided on the active part.<br />It was already blistering hot when we set forth to pass the marsh,<br />or rather to strike the path, by compass. Dutton took the compass,<br />and one or other of us three carried his proportion of the<br />treasure. I promise you he kept a sharp eye to his rear, for it<br />was like the man's soul that he must trust us with. The thicket<br />was as close as a bush; the ground very treacherous, so that we<br />often sank in the most terrifying manner, and must go round about;<br />the heat, besides, was stifling, the air singularly heavy, and the<br />stinging insects abounded in such myriads that each of us walked<br />under his own cloud. It has often been commented on, how much<br />better gentlemen of birth endure fatigue than persons of the<br />rabble; so that walking officers who must tramp in the dirt beside<br />their men, shame them by their constancy. This was well to be<br />observed in the present instance; for here were Ballantrae and I,<br />two gentlemen of the highest breeding, on the one hand; and on the<br />other, Grady, a common mariner, and a man nearly a giant in<br />physical strength. The case of Dutton is not in point, for I<br />confess he did as well as any of us. (4) But as for Grady, he<br />began early to lament his case, tailed in the rear, refused to<br />carry Dutton's packet when it came his turn, clamoured continually<br />for rum (of which we had too little), and at last even threatened<br />us from behind with a cooked pistol, unless we should allow him<br />rest. Ballantrae would have fought it out, I believe; but I<br />prevailed with him the other way; and we made a stop and ate a<br />meal. It seemed to benefit Grady little; he was in the rear again<br />at once, growling and bemoaning his lot; and at last, by some<br />carelessness, not having followed properly in our tracks, stumbled<br />into a deep part of the slough where it was mostly water, gave some<br />very dreadful screams, and before we could come to his aid had sunk<br />along with his booty. His fate, and above all these screams of<br />his, appalled us to the soul; yet it was on the whole a fortunate<br />circumstance and the means of our deliverance, for it moved Dutton<br />to mount into a tree, whence he was able to perceive and to show<br />me, who had climbed after him, a high piece of the wood, which was<br />a landmark for the path. He went forward the more carelessly, I<br />must suppose; for presently we saw him sink a little down, draw up<br />his feet and sink again, and so twice. Then he turned his face to<br />us, pretty white.<br />"Lend a hand," said he, "I am in a bad place."<br />"I don't know about that," says Ballantrae, standing still.<br />Dutton broke out into the most violent oaths, sinking a little<br />lower as he did, so that the mud was nearly to his waist, and<br />plucking a pistol from his belt, "Help me," he cries, "or die and<br />be damned to you!"<br />"Nay," says Ballantrae, "I did but jest. I am coming." And he set<br />down his own packet and Dutton's, which he was then carrying. "Do<br />not venture near till we see if you are needed," said he to me, and<br />went forward alone to where the man was bogged. He was quiet now,<br />though he still held the pistol; and the marks of terror in his<br />countenance were very moving to behold.<br />"For the Lord's sake," says he, "look sharp."<br />Ballantrae was now got close up. "Keep still," says he, and seemed<br />to consider; and then, "Reach out both your hands!"<br />Dutton laid down his pistol, and so watery was the top surface that<br />it went clear out of sight; with an oath he stooped to snatch it;<br />and as he did so, Ballantrae leaned forth and stabbed him between<br />the shoulders. Up went his hands over his head - I know not<br />whether with the pain or to ward himself; and the next moment he<br />doubled forward in the mud.<br />Ballantrae was already over the ankles; but he plucked himself out,<br />and came back to me, where I stood with my knees smiting one<br />another. "The devil take you, Francis!" says he. "I believe you<br />are a half-hearted fellow, after all. I have only done justice on<br />a pirate. And here we are quite clear of the SARAH! Who shall now<br />say that we have dipped our hands in any irregularities?"<br />I assured him he did me injustice; but my sense of humanity was so<br />much affected by the horridness of the fact that I could scarce<br />find breath to answer with.<br />"Come," said he, "you must be more resolved. The need for this<br />fellow ceased when he had shown you where the path ran; and you<br />cannot deny I would have been daft to let slip so fair an<br />opportunity."<br />I could not deny but he was right in principle; nor yet could I<br />refrain from shedding tears, of which I think no man of valour need<br />have been ashamed; and it was not until I had a share of the rum<br />that I was able to proceed. I repeat, I am far from ashamed of my<br />generous emotion; mercy is honourable in the warrior; and yet I<br />cannot altogether censure Ballantrae, whose step was really<br />fortunate, as we struck the path without further misadventure, and<br />the same night, about sundown, came to the edge of the morass.<br />We were too weary to seek far; on some dry sands, still warm with<br />the day's sun, and close under a wood of pines, we lay down and<br />were instantly plunged in sleep.<br />We awaked the next morning very early, and began with a sullen<br />spirit a conversation that came near to end in blows. We were now<br />cast on shore in the southern provinces, thousands of miles from<br />any French settlement; a dreadful journey and a thousand perils lay<br />in front of us; and sure, if there was ever need for amity, it was<br />in such an hour. I must suppose that Ballantrae had suffered in<br />his sense of what is truly polite; indeed, and there is nothing<br />strange in the idea, after the sea-wolves we had consorted with so<br />long; and as for myself, he fubbed me off unhandsomely, and any<br />gentleman would have resented his behaviour.<br />I told him in what light I saw his conduct; he walked a little off,<br />I following to upbraid him; and at last he stopped me with his<br />hand.<br />"Frank," says he, "you know what we swore; and yet there is no oath<br />invented would induce me to swallow such expressions, if I did not<br />regard you with sincere affection. It is impossible you should<br />doubt me there: I have given proofs. Dutton I had to take,<br />because he knew the pass, and Grady because Dutton would not move<br />without him; but what call was there to carry you along? You are a<br />perpetual danger to me with your cursed Irish tongue. By rights<br />you should now be in irons in the cruiser. And you quarrel with me<br />like a baby for some trinkets!"<br />I considered this one of the most unhandsome speeches ever made;<br />and indeed to this day I can scarce reconcile it to my notion of a<br />gentleman that was my friend. I retorted upon him with his Scotch<br />accent, of which he had not so much as some, but enough to be very<br />barbarous and disgusting, as I told him plainly; and the affair<br />would have gone to a great length, but for an alarming<br />intervention.<br />We had got some way off upon the sand. The place where we had<br />slept, with the packets lying undone and the money scattered<br />openly, was now between us and the pines; and it was out of these<br />the stranger must have come. There he was at least, a great<br />hulking fellow of the country, with a broad axe on his shoulder,<br />looking open-mouthed, now at the treasure, which was just at his<br />feet, and now at our disputation, in which we had gone far enough<br />to have weapons in our hands. We had no sooner observed him than<br />he found his legs and made off again among the pines.<br />This was no scene to put our minds at rest: a couple of armed men<br />in sea-clothes found quarrelling over a treasure, not many miles<br />from where a pirate had been captured - here was enough to bring<br />the whole country about our ears. The quarrel was not even made<br />up; it was blotted from our minds; and we got our packets together<br />in the twinkling of an eye, and made off, running with the best<br />will in the world. But the trouble was, we did not know in what<br />direction, and must continually return upon our steps. Ballantrae<br />had indeed collected what he could from Dutton; but it's hard to<br />travel upon hearsay; and the estuary, which spreads into a vast<br />irregular harbour, turned us off upon every side with a new stretch<br />of water.<br />We were near beside ourselves, and already quite spent with<br />running, when, coming to the top of a dune, we saw we were again<br />cut off by another ramification of the bay. This was a creek,<br />however, very different from those that had arrested us before;<br />being set in rocks, and so precipitously deep that a small vessel<br />was able to lie alongside, made fast with a hawser; and her crew<br />had laid a plank to the shore. Here they had lighted a fire, and<br />were sitting at their meal. As for the vessel herself, she was one<br />of those they build in the Bermudas.<br />The love of gold and the great hatred that everybody has to pirates<br />were motives of the most influential, and would certainly raise the<br />country in our pursuit. Besides, it was now plain we were on some<br />sort of straggling peninsula, like the fingers of a hand; and the<br />wrist, or passage to the mainland, which we should have taken at<br />the first, was by this time not improbably secured. These<br />considerations put us on a bolder counsel. For as long as we<br />dared, looking every moment to hear sounds of the chase, we lay<br />among some bushes on the top of the dune; and having by this means<br />secured a little breath and recomposed our appearance, we strolled<br />down at last, with a great affectation of carelessness, to the<br />party by the fire.<br />It was a trader and his negroes, belonging to Albany, in the<br />province of New York, and now on the way home from the Indies with<br />a cargo; his name I cannot recall. We were amazed to learn he had<br />put in here from terror of the SARAH; for we had no thought our<br />exploits had been so notorious. As soon as the Albanian heard she<br />had been taken the day before, he jumped to his feet, gave us a cup<br />of spirits for our good news, and sent big negroes to get sail on<br />the Bermudan. On our side, we profited by the dram to become more<br />confidential, and at last offered ourselves as passengers. He<br />looked askance at our tarry clothes and pistols, and replied<br />civilly enough that he had scarce accommodation for himself; nor<br />could either our prayers or our offers of money, in which we<br />advanced pretty far, avail to shake him.<br />"I see, you think ill of us," says Ballantrae, "but I will show you<br />how well we think of you by telling you the truth. We are Jacobite<br />fugitives, and there is a price upon our heads."<br />At this, the Albanian was plainly moved a little. He asked us many<br />questions as to the Scotch war, which Ballantrae very patiently<br />answered. And then, with a wink, in a vulgar manner, "I guess you<br />and your Prince Charlie got more than you cared about," said he.<br />"Bedad, and that we did," said I. "And, my dear man, I wish you<br />would set a new example and give us just that much."<br />This I said in the Irish way, about which there is allowed to be<br />something very engaging. It's a remarkable thing, and a testimony<br />to the love with which our nation is regarded, that this address<br />scarce ever fails in a handsome fellow. I cannot tell how often I<br />have seen a private soldier escape the horse, or a beggar wheedle<br />out a good alms by a touch of the brogue. And, indeed, as soon as<br />the Albanian had laughed at me I was pretty much at rest. Even<br />then, however, he made many conditions, and - for one thing - took<br />away our arms, before he suffered us aboard; which was the signal<br />to cast off; so that in a moment after, we were gliding down the<br />bay with a good breeze, and blessing the name of God for our<br />deliverance. Almost in the mouth of the estuary, we passed the<br />cruiser, and a little after the poor SARAH with her prize crew; and<br />these were both sights to make us tremble. The Bermudan seemed a<br />very safe place to be in, and our bold stroke to have been<br />fortunately played, when we were thus reminded of the case of our<br />companions. For all that, we had only exchanged traps, jumped out<br />of the frying-pan into the fire, ran from the yard-arm to the<br />block, and escaped the open hostility of the man-of-war to lie at<br />the mercy of the doubtful faith of our Albanian merchant.<br />From many circumstances, it chanced we were safer than we could<br />have dared to hope. The town of Albany was at that time much<br />concerned in contraband trade across the desert with the Indians<br />and the French. This, as it was highly illegal, relaxed their<br />loyalty, and as it brought them in relation with the politest<br />people on the earth, divided even their sympathies. In short, they<br />were like all the smugglers in the world, spies and agents readymade<br />for either party. Our Albanian, besides, was a very honest<br />man indeed, and very greedy; and, to crown our luck, he conceived a<br />great delight in our society. Before we had reached the town of<br />New York we had come to a full agreement, that he should carry us<br />as far as Albany upon his ship, and thence put us on a way to pass<br />the boundaries and join the French. For all this we were to pay at<br />a high rate; but beggars cannot be choosers, nor outlaws<br />bargainers.<br />We sailed, then, up the Hudson River, which, I protest, is a very<br />fine stream, and put up at the "King's Arms" in Albany. The town<br />was full of the militia of the province, breathing slaughter<br />against the French. Governor Clinton was there himself, a very<br />busy man, and, by what I could learn, very near distracted by the<br />factiousness of his Assembly. The Indians on both sides were on<br />the war-path; we saw parties of them bringing in prisoners and<br />(what was much worse) scalps, both male and female, for which they<br />were paid at a fixed rate; and I assure you the sight was not<br />encouraging. Altogether, we could scarce have come at a period<br />more unsuitable for our designs; our position in the chief inn was<br />dreadfully conspicuous; our Albanian fubbed us off with a thousand<br />delays, and seemed upon the point of a retreat from his<br />engagements; nothing but peril appeared to environ the poor<br />fugitives, and for some time we drowned our concern in a very<br />irregular course of living.<br />This, too, proved to be fortunate; and it's one of the remarks that<br />fall to be made upon our escape, how providentially our steps were<br />conducted to the very end. What a humiliation to the dignity of<br />man! My philosophy, the extraordinary genius of Ballantrae, our<br />valour, in which I grant that we were equal - all these might have<br />proved insufficient without the Divine blessing on our efforts.<br />And how true it is, as the Church tells us, that the Truths of<br />Religion are, after all, quite applicable even to daily affairs!<br />At least, it was in the course of our revelry that we made the<br />acquaintance of a spirited youth by the name of Chew. He was one<br />of the most daring of the Indian traders, very well acquainted with<br />the secret paths of the wilderness, needy, dissolute, and, by a<br />last good fortune, in some disgrace with his family. Him we<br />persuaded to come to our relief; he privately provided what was<br />needful for our flight, and one day we slipped out of Albany,<br />without a word to our former friend, and embarked, a little above,<br />in a canoe.<br />To the toils and perils of this journey, it would require a pen<br />more elegant than mine to do full justice. The reader must<br />conceive for himself the dreadful wilderness which we had now to<br />thread; its thickets, swamps, precipitous rocks, impetuous rivers,<br />and amazing waterfalls. Among these barbarous scenes we must toil<br />all day, now paddling, now carrying our canoe upon our shoulders;<br />and at night we slept about a fire, surrounded by the howling of<br />wolves and other savage animals. It was our design to mount the<br />headwaters of the Hudson, to the neighbourhood of Crown Point,<br />where the French had a strong place in the woods, upon Lake<br />Champlain. But to have done this directly were too perilous; and<br />it was accordingly gone upon by such a labyrinth of rivers, lakes,<br />and portages as makes my head giddy to remember. These paths were<br />in ordinary times entirely desert; but the country was now up, the<br />tribes on the war-path, the woods full of Indian scouts. Again and<br />again we came upon these parties when we least expected, them; and<br />one day, in particular, I shall never forget, how, as dawn was<br />coming in, we were suddenly surrounded by five or six of these<br />painted devils, uttering a very dreary sort of cry, and brandishing<br />their hatchets. It passed off harmlessly, indeed, as did the rest<br />of our encounters; for Chew was well known and highly valued among<br />the different tribes. Indeed, he was a very gallant, respectable<br />young man; but even with the advantage of his companionship, you<br />must not think these meetings were without sensible peril. To<br />prove friendship on our part, it was needful to draw upon our stock<br />of rum - indeed, under whatever disguise, that is the true business<br />of the Indian trader, to keep a travelling public-house in the<br />forest; and when once the braves had got their bottle of SCAURA (as<br />they call this beastly liquor), it behoved us to set forth and<br />paddle for our scalps. Once they were a little drunk, goodbye to<br />any sense or decency; they had but the one thought, to get more<br />SCAURA. They might easily take it in their heads to give us chase,<br />and had we been overtaken, I had never written these memoirs.<br />We were come to the most critical portion of our course, where we<br />might equally expect to fall into the hands of French or English,<br />when a terrible calamity befell us. Chew was taken suddenly sick<br />with symptoms like those of poison, and in the course of a few<br />hours expired in the bottom of the canoe. We thus lost at once our<br />guide, our interpreter, our boatman, and our passport, for he was<br />all these in one; and found ourselves reduced, at a blow, to the<br />most desperate and irremediable distress. Chew, who took a great<br />pride in his knowledge, had indeed often lectured us on the<br />geography; and Ballantrae, I believe, would listen. But for my<br />part I have always found such information highly tedious; and<br />beyond the fact that we were now in the country of the Adirondack<br />Indians, and not so distant from our destination, could we but have<br />found the way, I was entirely ignorant. The wisdom of my course<br />was soon the more apparent; for with all his pains, Ballantrae was<br />no further advanced than myself. He knew we must continue to go up<br />one stream; then, by way of a portage, down another; and then up a<br />third. But you are to consider, in a mountain country, how many<br />streams come rolling in from every hand. And how is a gentleman,<br />who is a perfect stranger in that part of the world, to tell any<br />one of them from any other? Nor was this our only trouble. We<br />were great novices, besides, in handling a canoe; the portages were<br />almost beyond our strength, so that I have seen us sit down in<br />despair for half an hour at a time without one word; and the<br />appearance of a single Indian, since we had now no means of<br />speaking to them, would have been in all probability the means of<br />our destruction. There is altogether some excuse if Ballantrae<br />showed something of a grooming disposition; his habit of imputing<br />blame to others, quite as capable as himself, was less tolerable,<br />and his language it was not always easy to accept. Indeed, he had<br />contracted on board the pirate ship a manner of address which was<br />in a high degree unusual between gentlemen; and now, when you might<br />say he was in a fever, it increased upon him hugely.<br />The third day of these wanderings, as we were carrying the canoe<br />upon a rocky portage, she fell, and was entirely bilged. The<br />portage was between two lakes, both pretty extensive; the track,<br />such as it was, opened at both ends upon the water, and on both<br />hands was enclosed by the unbroken woods; and the sides of the<br />lakes were quite impassable with bog: so that we beheld ourselves<br />not only condemned to go without our boat and the greater part of<br />our provisions, but to plunge at once into impenetrable thickets<br />and to desert what little guidance we still had - the course of the<br />river. Each stuck his pistols in his belt, shouldered an axe, made<br />a pack of his treasure and as much food as he could stagger under;<br />and deserting the rest of our possessions, even to our swords,<br />which would have much embarrassed us among the woods, we set forth<br />on this deplorable adventure. The labours of Hercules, so finely<br />described by Homer, were a trifle to what we now underwent. Some<br />parts of the forest were perfectly dense down to the ground, so<br />that we must cut our way like mites in a cheese. In some the<br />bottom was full of deep swamp, and the whole wood entirely rotten.<br />I have leaped on a great fallen log and sunk to the knees in<br />touchwood; I have sought to stay myself, in falling, against what<br />looked to be a solid trunk, and the whole thing has whiffed away at<br />my touch like a sheet of paper. Stumbling, falling, bogging to the<br />knees, hewing our way, our eyes almost put out with twigs and<br />branches, our clothes plucked from our bodies, we laboured all day,<br />and it is doubtful if we made two miles. What was worse, as we<br />could rarely get a view of the country, and were perpetually<br />justled from our path by obstacles, it was impossible even to have<br />a guess in what direction we were moving.<br />A little before sundown, in an open place with a stream, and set<br />about with barbarous mountains, Ballantrae threw down his pack. "I<br />will go no further," said he, and bade me light the fire, damning<br />my blood in terms not proper for a chairman.<br />I told him to try to forget he had ever been a pirate, and to<br />remember he had been a gentleman.<br />"Are you mad?" he cried. "Don't cross me here! And then, shaking<br />his fist at the hills, "To think," cries he, "that I must leave my<br />bones in this miserable wilderness! Would God I had died upon the<br />scaffold like a gentleman!" This he said ranting like an actor;<br />and then sat biting his fingers and staring on the ground, a most<br />unchristian object.<br />I took a certain horror of the man, for I thought a soldier and a<br />gentleman should confront his end with more philosophy. I made him<br />no reply, therefore, in words; and presently the evening fell so<br />chill that I was glad, for my own sake, to kindle a fire. And yet<br />God knows, in such an open spot, and the country alive with<br />savages, the act was little short of lunacy. Ballantrae seemed<br />never to observe me; but at last, as I was about parching a little<br />corn, he looked up.<br />"Have you ever a brother?" said be.<br />"By the blessing of Heaven," said I, "not less than five."<br />"I have the one," said he, with a strange voice; and then<br />presently, "He shall pay me for all this," he added. And when I<br />asked him what was his brother's part in our distress, "What!" he<br />cried, "he sits in my place, he bears my name, he courts my wife;<br />and I am here alone with a damned Irishman in this tooth-chattering<br />desert! Oh, I have been a common gull!" he cried.<br />The explosion was in all ways so foreign to my friend's nature that<br />I was daunted out of all my just susceptibility. Sure, an<br />offensive expression, however vivacious, appears a wonderfully<br />small affair in circumstances so extreme! But here there is a<br />strange thing to be noted. He had only once before referred to the<br />lady with whom he was contracted. That was when we came in view of<br />the town of New York, when he had told me, if all had their rights,<br />he was now in sight of his own property, for Miss Graeme enjoyed a<br />large estate in the province. And this was certainly a natural<br />occasion; but now here she was named a second time; and what is<br />surely fit to be observed, in this very month, which was November,<br />'47, and I BELIEVE UPON THAT VERY DAY AS WE SAT AMONG THESE<br />BARBAROUS MOUNTAINS, his brother and Miss Graeme were married. I<br />am the least superstitious of men; but the hand of Providence is<br />here displayed too openly not to be remarked. (5)<br />The next day, and the next, were passed in similar labours;<br />Ballantrae often deciding on our course by the spinning of a coin;<br />and once, when I expostulated on this childishness, he had an odd<br />remark that I have never forgotten. "I know no better way," said<br />he, "to express my scorn of human reason." I think it was the<br />third day that we found the body of a Christian, scalped and most<br />abominably mangled, and lying in a pudder of his blood; the birds<br />of the desert screaming over him, as thick as flies. I cannot<br />describe how dreadfully this sight affected us; but it robbed me of<br />all strength and all hope for this world. The same day, and only a<br />little after, we were scrambling over a part of the forest that had<br />been burned, when Ballantrae, who was a little ahead, ducked<br />suddenly behind a fallen trunk. I joined him in this shelter,<br />whence we could look abroad without being seen ourselves; and in<br />the bottom of the next vale, beheld a large war party of the<br />savages going by across our line. There might be the value of a<br />weak battalion present; all naked to the waist, blacked with grease<br />and soot, and painted with white lead and vermilion, according to<br />their beastly habits. They went one behind another like a string<br />of geese, and at a quickish trot; so that they took but a little<br />while to rattle by, and disappear again among the woods. Yet I<br />suppose we endured a greater agony of hesitation and suspense in<br />these few minutes than goes usually to a man's whole life. Whether<br />they were French or English Indians, whether they desired scalps or<br />prisoners, whether we should declare ourselves upon the chance, or<br />lie quiet and continue the heart-breaking business of our journey:<br />sure, I think these were questions to have puzzled the brains of<br />Aristotle himself. Ballantrae turned to me with a face all<br />wrinkled up and his teeth showing in his mouth, like what I have<br />read of people starving; he said no word, but his whole appearance<br />was a kind of dreadful question.<br />"They may be of the English side," I whispered; "and think! the<br />best we could then hope, is to begin this over again."<br />"I know - I know," he said. "Yet it must come to a plunge at<br />last." And he suddenly plucked out his coin, shook it in his<br />closed hands, looked at it, and then lay down with his face in the<br />dust.<br />ADDITION BY MR. MACKELLAR. - I drop the Chevalier's narration at<br />this point because the couple quarrelled and separated the same<br />day; and the Chevalier's account of the quarrel seems to me (I must<br />confess) quite incompatible with the nature of either of the men.<br />Henceforth they wandered alone, undergoing extraordinary<br />sufferings; until first one and then the other was picked up by a<br />party from Fort St. Frederick. Only two things are to be noted.<br />And first (as most important for my purpose) that the Master, in<br />the course of his miseries buried his treasure, at a point never<br />since discovered, but of which he took a drawing in his own blood<br />on the lining of his hat. And second, that on his coming thus<br />penniless to the Fort, he was welcomed like a brother by the<br />Chevalier, who thence paid his way to France. The simplicity of<br />Mr. Burke's character leads him at this point to praise the Master<br />exceedingly; to an eye more worldly wise, it would seem it was the<br />Chevalier alone that was to be commended. I have the more pleasure<br />in pointing to this really very noble trait of my esteemed<br />correspondent, as I fear I may have wounded him immediately before.<br />I have refrained from comments on any of his extraordinary and (in<br />my eyes) immoral opinions, for I know him to be jealous of respect.<br />But his version of the quarrel is really more than I can reproduce;<br />for I knew the Master myself, and a man more insusceptible of fear<br />is not conceivable. I regret this oversight of the Chevalier's,<br />and all the more because the tenor of his narrative (set aside a<br />few flourishes) strikes me as highly ingenuous.<br />CHAPTER IV. - PERSECUTIONS ENDURED BY MR. HENRY.<br />You can guess on what part of his adventures the Colonel<br />principally dwelled. Indeed, if we had heard it all, it is to be<br />thought the current of this business had been wholly altered; but<br />the pirate ship was very gently touched upon. Nor did I hear the<br />Colonel to an end even of that which he was willing to disclose;<br />for Mr. Henry, having for some while been plunged in a brown study,<br />rose at last from his seat and (reminding the Colonel there were<br />matters that he must attend to) bade me follow him immediately to<br />the office.<br />Once there, he sought no longer to dissemble his concern, walking<br />to and fro in the room with a contorted face, and passing his hand<br />repeatedly upon his brow.<br />"We have some business," he began at last; and there broke off,<br />declared we must have wine, and sent for a magnum of the best.<br />This was extremely foreign to his habitudes; and what was still<br />more so, when the wine had come, he gulped down one glass upon<br />another like a man careless of appearances. But the drink steadied<br />him.<br />"You will scarce be surprised, Mackellar," says he, "when I tell<br />you that my brother - whose safety we are all rejoiced to learn -<br />stands in some need of money."<br />I told him I had misdoubted as much; but the time was not very<br />fortunate, as the stock was low.<br />"Not mine," said he. "There is the money for the mortgage."<br />I reminded him it was Mrs. Henry's.<br />"I will be answerable to my wife," he cried violently.<br />"And then," said I, "there is the mortgage."<br />"I know," said he; "it is on that I would consult you."<br />I showed him how unfortunate a time it was to divert this money<br />from its destination; and how, by so doing, we must lose the profit<br />of our past economies, and plunge back the estate into the mire. I<br />even took the liberty to plead with him; and when he still opposed<br />me with a shake of the head and a bitter dogged smile, my zeal<br />quite carried me beyond my place. "This is midsummer madness,"<br />cried I; "and I for one will be no party to it."<br />"You speak as though I did it for my pleasure," says he. "But I<br />have a child now; and, besides, I love order; and to say the honest<br />truth, Mackellar, I had begun to take a pride in the estates." He<br />gloomed for a moment. "But what would you have?" he went on.<br />"Nothing is mine, nothing. This day's news has knocked the bottom<br />out of my life. I have only the name and the shadow of things -<br />only the shadow; there is no substance in my rights."<br />"They will prove substantial enough before a court," said I.<br />He looked at me with a burning eye, and seemed to repress the word<br />upon his lips; and I repented what I had said, for I saw that while<br />he spoke of the estate he had still a side-thought to his marriage.<br />And then, of a sudden, he twitched the letter from his pocket,<br />where it lay all crumpled, smoothed it violently on the table, and<br />read these words to me with a trembling tongue: "'My dear Jacob' -<br />This is how he begins!" cries he - "'My dear Jacob, I once called<br />you so, you may remember; and you have now done the business, and<br />flung my heels as high as Criffel.' What do you think of that,<br />Mackellar," says he, "from an only brother? I declare to God I<br />liked him very well; I was always staunch to him; and this is how<br />he writes! But I will not sit down under the imputation" - walking<br />to and fro - "I am as good as he; I am a better man than he, I call<br />on God to prove it! I cannot give him all the monstrous sum he<br />asks; he knows the estate to be incompetent; but I will give him<br />what I have, and it in more than he expects. I have borne all this<br />too long. See what he writes further on; read it for yourself: 'I<br />know you are a niggardly dog.' A niggardly dog! I niggardly? Is<br />that true, Mackellar? You think it is?" I really thought he would<br />have struck me at that. "Oh, you all think so! Well, you shall<br />see, and he shall see, and God shall see. If I ruin the estate and<br />go barefoot, I shall stuff this bloodsucker. Let him ask all -<br />all, and he shall have it! It is all his by rights. Ah!" he<br />cried, "and I foresaw all this, and worse, when he would not let me<br />go." He poured out another glass of wine, and was about to carry<br />it to his lips, when I made so bold as to lay a finger on his arm.<br />He stopped a moment. "You are right," said he, and flung glass and<br />all in the fireplace. "Come, let us count the money."<br />I durst no longer oppose him; indeed, I was very much affected by<br />the sight of so much disorder in a man usually so controlled; and<br />we sat down together, counted the money, and made it up in packets<br />for the greater ease of Colonel Burke, who was to be the bearer.<br />This done, Mr. Henry returned to the hall, where he and my old lord<br />sat all night through with their guest.<br />A little before dawn I was called and set out with the Colonel. He<br />would scarce have liked a less responsible convoy, for he was a man<br />who valued himself; nor could we afford him one more dignified, for<br />Mr. Henry must not appear with the freetraders. It was a very<br />bitter morning of wind, and as we went down through the long<br />shrubbery the Colonel held himself muffled in his cloak.<br />"Sir," said I, "this is a great sum of money that your friend<br />requires. I must suppose his necessities to be very great."<br />"We must suppose so," says he, I thought drily; but perhaps it was<br />the cloak about his mouth.<br />"I am only a servant of the family," said I. "You may deal openly<br />with me. I think we are likely to get little good by him?"<br />"My dear man," said the Colonel, "Ballantrae is a gentleman of the<br />most eminent natural abilities, and a man that I admire, and that I<br />revere, to the very ground he treads on." And then he seemed to me<br />to pause like one in a difficulty.<br />"But for all that," said I, "we are likely to get little good by<br />him?"<br />"Sure, and you can have it your own way, my dear man," says the<br />Colonel.<br />By this time we had come to the side of the creek, where the boat<br />awaited him. "Well," said be, "I am sure I am very much your<br />debtor for all your civility, Mr. Whatever-your-name-is; and just<br />as a last word, and since you show so much intelligent interest, I<br />will mention a small circumstance that may be of use to the family.<br />For I believe my friend omitted to mention that he has the largest<br />pension on the Scots Fund of any refugee in Paris; and it's the<br />more disgraceful, sir," cries the Colonel, warming, "because<br />there's not one dirty penny for myself."<br />He cocked his hat at me, as if I had been to blame for this<br />partiality; then changed again into his usual swaggering civility,<br />shook me by the hand, and set off down to the boat, with the money<br />under his arms, and whistling as he went the pathetic air of SHULE<br />AROON. It was the first time I had heard that tune; I was to hear<br />it again, words and all, as you shall learn, but I remember how<br />that little stave of it ran in my head after the freetraders had<br />bade him "Wheesht, in the deil's name," and the grating of the oars<br />had taken its place, and I stood and watched the dawn creeping on<br />the sea, and the boat drawing away, and the lugger lying with her<br />foresail backed awaiting it.<br />The gap made in our money was a sore embarrassment, and, among<br />other consequences, it had this: that I must ride to Edinburgh,<br />and there raise a new loan on very questionable terms to keep the<br />old afloat; and was thus, for close upon three weeks, absent from<br />the house of Durrisdeer.<br />What passed in the interval I had none to tell me, but I found Mrs.<br />Henry, upon my return, much changed in her demeanour. The old<br />talks with my lord for the most part pretermitted; a certain<br />deprecation visible towards her husband, to whom I thought she<br />addressed herself more often; and, for one thing, she was now<br />greatly wrapped up in Miss Katharine. You would think the change<br />was agreeable to Mr. Henry; no such matter! To the contrary, every<br />circumstance of alteration was a stab to him; he read in each the<br />avowal of her truant fancies. That constancy to the Master of<br />which she was proud while she supposed him dead, she had to blush<br />for now she knew he was alive, and these blushes were the hated<br />spring of her new conduct. I am to conceal no truth; and I will<br />here say plainly, I think this was the period in which Mr. Henry<br />showed the worst. He contained himself, indeed, in public; but<br />there was a deep-seated irritation visible underneath. With me,<br />from whom he had less concealment, he was often grossly unjust, and<br />even for his wife he would sometimes have a sharp retort: perhaps<br />when she had ruffled him with some unwonted kindness; perhaps upon<br />no tangible occasion, the mere habitual tenor of the man's<br />annoyance bursting spontaneously forth. When he would thus forget<br />himself (a thing so strangely out of keeping with the terms of<br />their relation), there went a shook through the whole company, and<br />the pair would look upon each other in a kind of pained amazement.<br />All the time, too, while he was injuring himself by this defect of<br />temper, he was hurting his position by a silence, of which I scarce<br />know whether to say it was the child of generosity or pride. The<br />freetraders came again and again, bringing messengers from the<br />Master, and none departed empty-handed. I never durst reason with<br />Mr. Henry; he gave what was asked of him in a kind of noble rage.<br />Perhaps because he knew he was by nature inclining to the<br />parsimonious, he took a backforemost pleasure in the recklessness<br />with which he supplied his brother's exigence. Perhaps the falsity<br />of the position would have spurred a humbler man into the same<br />excess. But the estate (if I may say so) groaned under it; our<br />daily expenses were shorn lower and lower; the stables were<br />emptied, all but four roadsters; servants were discharged, which<br />raised a dreadful murmuring in the country, and heated up the old<br />disfavour upon Mr. Henry; and at last the yearly visit to Edinburgh<br />must be discontinued.<br />This was in 1756. You are to suppose that for seven years this<br />bloodsucker had been drawing the life's blood from Durrisdeer, and<br />that all this time my patron had held his peace. It was an effect<br />of devilish malice in the Master that he addressed Mr. Henry alone<br />upon the matter of his demands, and there was never a word to my<br />lord. The family had looked on, wondering at our economies. They<br />had lamented, I have no doubt, that my patron had become so great a<br />miser - a fault always despicable, but in the young abhorrent, and<br />Mr. Henry was not yet thirty years of age. Still, he had managed<br />the business of Durrisdeer almost from a boy; and they bore with<br />these changes in a silence as proud and bitter as his own, until<br />the coping-stone of the Edinburgh visit.<br />At this time I believe my patron and his wife were rarely together,<br />save at meals. Immediately on the back of Colonel Burke's<br />announcement Mrs. Henry made palpable advances; you might say she<br />had laid a sort of timid court to her husband, different, indeed,<br />from her former manner of unconcern and distance. I never had the<br />heart to blame Mr. Henry because he recoiled from these advances;<br />nor yet to censure the wife, when she was cut to the quick by their<br />rejection. But the result was an entire estrangement, so that (as<br />I say) they rarely spoke, except at meals. Even the matter of the<br />Edinburgh visit was first broached at table, and it chanced that<br />Mrs. Henry was that day ailing and querulous. She had no sooner<br />understood her husband's meaning than the red flew in her face.<br />"At last," she cried, "this is too much! Heaven knows what<br />pleasure I have in my life, that I should be denied my only<br />consolation. These shameful proclivities must be trod down; we are<br />already a mark and an eyesore in the neighbourhood. I will not<br />endure this fresh insanity."<br />"I cannot afford it," says Mr. Henry.<br />"Afford?" she cried. "For shame! But I have money of my own."<br />"That is all mine, madam, by marriage," he snarled, and instantly<br />left the room.<br />My old lord threw up his hands to Heaven, and he and his daughter,<br />withdrawing to the chimney, gave me a broad hint to be gone. I<br />found Mr. Henry in his usual retreat, the steward's room, perched<br />on the end of the table, and plunging his penknife in it with a<br />very ugly countenance.<br />"Mr. Henry," said I, "you do yourself too much injustice, and it is<br />time this should cease."<br />"Oh!" cries he, "nobody minds here. They think it only natural. I<br />have shameful proclivities. I am a niggardly dog," and he drove<br />his knife up to the hilt. "But I will show that fellow," he cried<br />with an oath, "I will show him which is the more generous."<br />"This is no generosity," said I; "this is only pride."<br />"Do you think I want morality?" he asked.<br />I thought he wanted help, and I should give it him, willy-nilly;<br />and no sooner was Mrs. Henry gone to her room than I presented<br />myself at her door and sought admittance.<br />She openly showed her wonder. "What do you want with me, Mr.<br />Mackellar?" said she.<br />"The Lord knows, madam," says I, "I have never troubled you before<br />with any freedoms; but this thing lies too hard upon my conscience,<br />and it will out. Is it possible that two people can be so blind as<br />you and my lord? and have lived all these years with a noble<br />gentleman like Mr. Henry, and understand so little of his nature?"<br />"What does this mean?" she cried.<br />"Do you not know where his money goes to? his - and yours - and the<br />money for the very wine he does not drink at table?" I went on.<br />"To Paris - to that man! Eight thousand pounds has he had of us in<br />seven years, and my patron fool enough to keep it secret!"<br />"Eight thousand pounds!" she repeated. "It in impossible; the<br />estate is not sufficient."<br />"God knows how we have sweated farthings to produce it," said I.<br />"But eight thousand and sixty is the sum, beside odd shillings.<br />And if you can think my patron miserly after that, this shall be my<br />last interference."<br />"You need say no more, Mr. Mackellar," said she. "You have done<br />most properly in what you too modestly call your interference. I<br />am much to blame; you must think me indeed a very unobservant wife"<br />(looking upon me with a strange smile), "but I shall put this right<br />at once. The Master was always of a very thoughtless nature; but<br />his heart is excellent; he is the soul of generosity. I shall<br />write to him myself. You cannot think how you have pained me by<br />this communication."<br />"Indeed, madam, I had hoped to have pleased you," said I, for I<br />raged to see her still thinking of the Master.<br />"And pleased," said she, "and pleased me of course."<br />That same day (I will not say but what I watched) I had the<br />satisfaction to see Mr. Henry come from his wife's room in a state<br />most unlike himself; for his face was all bloated with weeping, and<br />yet he seemed to me to walk upon the air. By this, I was sure his<br />wife had made him full amends for once. "Ah," thought I to myself,<br />"I have done a brave stroke this day."<br />On the morrow, as I was seated at my books, Mr. Henry came in<br />softly behind me, took me by the shoulders, and shook me in a<br />manner of playfulness. "I find you are a faithless fellow after<br />all," says he, which was his only reference to my part; but the<br />tone he spoke in was more to me than any eloquence of protestation.<br />Nor was this all I had effected; for when the next messenger came<br />(as he did not long afterwards) from the Master, he got nothing<br />away with him but a letter. For some while back it had been I<br />myself who had conducted these affairs; Mr. Henry not setting pen<br />to paper, and I only in the dryest and most formal terms. But this<br />letter I did not even see; it would scarce be pleasant reading, for<br />Mr. Henry felt he had his wife behind him for once, and I observed,<br />on the day it was despatched, he had a very gratified expression.<br />Things went better now in the family, though it could scarce be<br />pretended they went well. There was now at least no misconception;<br />there was kindness upon all sides; and I believe my patron and his<br />wife might again have drawn together if he could but have pocketed<br />his pride, and she forgot (what was the ground of all) her brooding<br />on another man. It is wonderful how a private thought leaks out;<br />it is wonderful to me now how we should all have followed the<br />current of her sentiments; and though she bore herself quietly, and<br />had a very even disposition, yet we should have known whenever her<br />fancy ran to Paris. And would not any one have thought that my<br />disclosure must have rooted up that idol? I think there is the<br />devil in women: all these years passed, never a sight of the man,<br />little enough kindness to remember (by all accounts) even while she<br />had him, the notion of his death intervening, his heartless<br />rapacity laid bare to her; that all should not do, and she must<br />still keep the best place in her heart for this accursed fellow, is<br />a thing to make a plain man rage. I had never much natural<br />sympathy for the passion of love; but this unreason in my patron's<br />wife disgusted me outright with the whole matter. I remember<br />checking a maid because she sang some bairnly kickshaw while my<br />mind was thus engaged; and my asperity brought about my ears the<br />enmity of all the petticoats about the house; of which I reeked<br />very little, but it amused Mr. Henry, who rallied me much upon our<br />joint unpopularity. It is strange enough (for my own mother was<br />certainly one of the salt of the earth, and my Aunt Dickson, who<br />paid my fees at the University, a very notable woman), but I have<br />never had much toleration for the female sex, possibly not much<br />understanding; and being far from a bold man, I have ever shunned<br />their company. Not only do I see no cause to regret this<br />diffidence in myself, but have invariably remarked the most unhappy<br />consequences follow those who were less wise. So much I thought<br />proper to set down, lest I show myself unjust to Mrs. Henry. And,<br />besides, the remark arose naturally, on a re-perusal of the letter<br />which was the next step in these affairs, and reached me, to my<br />sincere astonishment, by a private hand, some week or so after the<br />departure of the last messenger.<br />Letter from Colonel BURKE (afterwards Chevalier) to MR. MACKELLAR.<br />TROYES IN CHAMPAGNE,<br />July 12, 1756<br />My Dear Sir, - You will doubtless be surprised to receive a<br />communication from one so little known to you; but on the occasion<br />I had the good fortune to rencounter you at Durrisdeer, I remarked<br />you for a young man of a solid gravity of character: a<br />qualification which I profess I admire and revere next to natural<br />genius or the bold chivalrous spirit of the soldier. I was,<br />besides, interested in the noble family which you have the honour<br />to serve, or (to speak more by the book) to be the humble and<br />respected friend of; and a conversation I had the pleasure to have<br />with you very early in the morning has remained much upon my mind.<br />Being the other day in Paris, on a visit from this famous city,<br />where I am in garrison, I took occasion to inquire your name (which<br />I profess I had forgot) at my friend, the Master of B.; and a fair<br />opportunity occurring, I write to inform you of what's new.<br />The Master of B. (when we had last some talk of him together) was<br />in receipt, as I think I then told you, of a highly advantageous<br />pension on the Scots Fund. He next received a company, and was<br />soon after advanced to a regiment of his own. My dear sir, I do<br />not offer to explain this circumstance; any more than why I myself,<br />who have rid at the right hand of Princes, should be fubbed off<br />with a pair of colours and sent to rot in a hole at the bottom of<br />the province. Accustomed as I am to Courts, I cannot but feel it<br />is no atmosphere for a plain soldier; and I could never hope to<br />advance by similar means, even could I stoop to the endeavour. But<br />our friend has a particular aptitude to succeed by the means of<br />ladies; and if all be true that I have heard, he enjoyed a<br />remarkable protection. It is like this turned against him; for<br />when I had the honour to shake him by the hand, he was but newly<br />released from the Bastille, where he had been cast on a sealed<br />letter; and, though now released, has both lost his regiment and<br />his pension. My dear sir, the loyalty of a plain Irishman will<br />ultimately succeed in the place of craft; as I am sure a gentleman<br />of your probity will agree.<br />Now, sir, the Master is a man whose genius I admire beyond<br />expression, and, besides, he is my friend; but I thought a little<br />word of this revolution in his fortunes would not come amiss, for,<br />in my opinion, the man's desperate. He spoke, when I saw him, of a<br />trip to India (whither I am myself in some hope of accompanying my<br />illustrious countryman, Mr. Lally); but for this he would require<br />(as I understood) more money than was readily at his command. You<br />may have heard a military proverb: that it is a good thing to make<br />a bridge of gold to a flying enemy? I trust you will take my<br />meaning and I subscribe myself, with proper respects to my Lord<br />Durrisdeer, to his son, and to the beauteous Mrs. Durie,<br />My dear Sir,<br />Your obedient humble servant,<br />FRANCIS BURKE.<br />This missive I carried at once to Mr. Henry; and I think there was<br />but the one thought between the two of us: that it had come a week<br />too late. I made haste to send an answer to Colonel Burke, in<br />which I begged him, if he should see the Master, to assure him his<br />next messenger would be attended to. But with all my haste I was<br />not in time to avert what was impending; the arrow had been drawn,<br />it must now fly. I could almost doubt the power of Providence (and<br />certainly His will) to stay the issue of events; and it is a<br />strange thought, how many of us had been storing up the elements of<br />this catastrophe, for how long a time, and with how blind an<br />ignorance of what we did.<br />From the coming of the Colonel's letter, I had a spyglass in my<br />room, began to drop questions to the tenant folk, and as there was<br />no great secrecy observed, and the freetrade (in our part) went by<br />force as much as stealth, I had soon got together a knowledge of<br />the signals in use, and knew pretty well to an hour when any<br />messenger might be expected. I say, I questioned the tenants; for<br />with the traders themselves, desperate blades that went habitually<br />armed, I could never bring myself to meddle willingly. Indeed, by<br />what proved in the sequel an unhappy chance, I was an object of<br />scorn to some of these braggadocios; who had not only gratified me<br />with a nickname, but catching me one night upon a by-path, and<br />being all (as they would have said) somewhat merry, had caused me<br />to dance for their diversion. The method employed was that of<br />cruelly chipping at my toes with naked cutlasses, shouting at the<br />same time "Square-Toes"; and though they did me no bodily mischief,<br />I was none the less deplorably affected, and was indeed for several<br />days confined to my bed: a scandal on the state of Scotland on<br />which no comment is required.<br />It happened on the afternoon of November 7th, in this same<br />unfortunate year, that I espied, during my walk, the smoke of a<br />beacon fire upon the Muckleross. It was drawing near time for my<br />return; but the uneasiness upon my spirits was that day so great<br />that I must burst through the thickets to the edge of what they<br />call the Craig Head. The sun was already down, but there was still<br />a broad light in the west, which showed me some of the smugglers<br />treading out their signal fire upon the Ross, and in the bay the<br />lugger lying with her sails brailed up. She was plainly but new<br />come to anchor, and yet the skiff was already lowered and pulling<br />for the landing-place at the end of the long shrubbery. And this I<br />knew could signify but one thing, the coming of a messenger for<br />Durrisdeer.<br />I laid aside the remainder of my terrors, clambered down the brae -<br />a place I had never ventured through before, and was hid among the<br />shore-side thickets in time to see the boat touch. Captain Crail<br />himself was steering, a thing not usual; by his side there sat a<br />passenger; and the men gave way with difficulty, being hampered<br />with near upon half a dozen portmanteaus, great and small. But the<br />business of landing was briskly carried through; and presently the<br />baggage was all tumbled on shore, the boat on its return voyage to<br />the lugger, and the passenger standing alone upon the point of<br />rock, a tall slender figure of a gentleman, habited in black, with<br />a sword by his side and a walking-cane upon his wrist. As he so<br />stood, he waved the cane to Captain Crail by way of salutation,<br />with something both of grace and mockery that wrote the gesture<br />deeply on my mind.<br />No sooner was the boat away with my sworn enemies than I took a<br />sort of half courage, came forth to the margin of the thicket, and<br />there halted again, my mind being greatly pulled about between<br />natural diffidence and a dark foreboding of the truth. Indeed, I<br />might have stood there swithering all night, had not the stranger<br />turned, spied me through the mists, which were beginning to fall,<br />and waved and cried on me to draw near. I did so with a heart like<br />lead.<br />"Here, my good man," said he, in the English accent, "there are<br />some things for Durrisdeer."<br />I was now near enough to see him, a very handsome figure and<br />countenance, swarthy, lean, long, with a quick, alert, black look,<br />as of one who was a fighter, and accustomed to command; upon one<br />cheek he had a mole, not unbecoming; a large diamond sparkled on<br />his hand; his clothes, although of the one hue, were of a French<br />and foppish design; his ruffles, which he wore longer than common,<br />of exquisite lace; and I wondered the more to see him in such a<br />guise when he was but newly landed from a dirty smuggling lugger.<br />At the same time he had a better look at me, toised me a second<br />time sharply, and then smiled.<br />"I wager, my friend," says he, "that I know both your name and your<br />nickname. I divined these very clothes upon your hand of writing,<br />Mr. Mackellar."<br />At these words I fell to shaking.<br />"Oh,"' says he, "you need not be afraid of me. I bear no malice<br />for your tedious letters; and it is my purpose to employ you a good<br />deal. You may call me Mr. Bally: it is the name I have assumed;<br />or rather (since I am addressing so great a precision) it is so I<br />have curtailed my own. Come now, pick up that and that" -<br />indicating two of the portmanteaus. "That will be as much as you<br />are fit to bear, and the rest can very well wait. Come, lose no<br />more time, if you please."<br />His tone was so cutting that I managed to do as he bid by a sort of<br />instinct, my mind being all the time quite lost. No sooner had I<br />picked up the portmanteaus than he turned his back and marched off<br />through the long shrubbery, where it began already to be dusk, for<br />the wood is thick and evergreen. I followed behind, loaded almost<br />to the dust, though I profess I was not conscious of the burthen;<br />being swallowed up in the monstrosity of this return, and my mind<br />flying like a weaver's shuttle.<br />On a sudden I set the portmanteaus to the ground and halted. He<br />turned and looked back at me.<br />"Well?" said he.<br />"You are the Master of Ballantrae?"<br />"You will do me the justice to observe," says he, "I have made no<br />secret with the astute Mackellar."<br />"And in the name of God," cries I, "what brings you here? Go back,<br />while it is yet time."<br />"I thank you," said he. "Your master has chosen this way, and not<br />I; but since he has made the choice, he (and you also) must abide<br />by the result. And now pick up these things of mine, which you<br />have set down in a very boggy place, and attend to that which I<br />have made your business."<br />But I had no thought now of obedience; I came straight up to him.<br />"If nothing will move you to go back," said I; "though, sure, under<br />all the circumstances, any Christian or even any gentleman would<br />scruple to go forward . . . "<br />"These are gratifying expressions," he threw in.<br />"If nothing will move you to go back," I continued, "there are<br />still some decencies to be observed. Wait here with your baggage,<br />and I will go forward and prepare your family. Your father is an<br />old man; and . . . " I stumbled . . . "there are decencies to be<br />observed."<br />"Truly," said he, "this Mackellar improves upon acquaintance. But<br />look you here, my man, and understand it once for all - you waste<br />your breath upon me, and I go my own way with inevitable motion."<br />"Ah!" says I. "Is that so? We shall see then!"<br />And I turned and took to my heels for Durrisdeer. He clutched at<br />me and cried out angrily, and then I believe I heard him laugh, and<br />then I am certain he pursued me for a step or two, and (I suppose)<br />desisted. One thing at least is sure, that I came but a few<br />minutes later to the door of the great house, nearly strangled for<br />the lack of breath, but quite alone. Straight up the stair I ran,<br />and burst into the hall, and stopped before the family without the<br />power of speech; but I must have carried my story in my looks, for<br />they rose out of their places and stared on me like changelings.<br />"He has come," I panted out at last.<br />"He?" said Mr. Henry.<br />"Himself," said I.<br />"My son?" cried my lord. "Imprudent, imprudent boy! Oh, could he<br />not stay where he was safe!"<br />Never a word says Mrs. Henry; nor did I look at her, I scarce knew<br />why.<br />"Well," said Mr. Henry, with a very deep breath, "and where is he?"<br />"I left him in the long shrubbery," said I.<br />"Take me to him," said he.<br />So we went out together, he and I, without another word from any<br />one; and in the midst of the gravelled plot encountered the Master<br />strolling up, whistling as he came, and beating the air with his<br />cane. There was still light enough overhead to recognise, though<br />not to read, a countenance.<br />"Ah! Jacob," says the Master. "So here is Esau back."<br />"James," says Mr. Henry, "for God's sake, call me by my name. I<br />will not pretend that I am glad to see you; but I would fain make<br />you as welcome as I can in the house of our fathers."<br />"Or in MY house? or YOURS?" says the Master. "Which were you about<br />to say? But this is an old sore, and we need not rub it. If you<br />would not share with me in Paris, I hope you will yet scarce deny<br />your elder brother a corner of the fire at Durrisdeer?"<br />"That is very idle speech," replied Mr. Henry. "And you understand<br />the power of your position excellently well."<br />"Why, I believe I do," said the other with a little laugh. And<br />this, though they had never touched hands, was (as we may say) the<br />end of the brothers' meeting; for at this the Master turned to me<br />and bade me fetch his baggage.<br />I, on my side, turned to Mr. Henry for a confirmation; perhaps with<br />some defiance.<br />"As long as the Master is here, Mr. Mackellar, you will very much<br />oblige me by regarding his wishes as you would my own," says Mr.<br />Henry. "We are constantly troubling you: will you be so good as<br />send one of the servants?" - with an accent on the word.<br />If this speech were anything at all, it was surely a well-deserved<br />reproof upon the stranger; and yet, so devilish was his impudence,<br />he twisted it the other way.<br />"And shall we be common enough to say 'Sneck up'?" inquires he<br />softly, looking upon me sideways.<br />Had a kingdom depended on the act, I could not have trusted myself<br />in words; even to call a servant was beyond me; I had rather serve<br />the man myself than speak; and I turned away in silence and went<br />into the long shrubbery, with a heart full of anger and despair.<br />It was dark under the trees, and I walked before me and forgot what<br />business I was come upon, till I near broke my shin on the<br />portmanteaus. Then it was that I remarked a strange particular;<br />for whereas I had before carried both and scarce observed it, it<br />was now as much as I could do to manage one. And this, as it<br />forced me to make two journeys, kept me the longer from the hall.<br />When I got there, the business of welcome was over long ago; the<br />company was already at supper; and by an oversight that cut me to<br />the quick, my place had been forgotten. I had seen one side of the<br />Master's return; now I was to see the other. It was he who first<br />remarked my coming in and standing back (as I did) in some<br />annoyance. He jumped from his seat.<br />"And if I have not got the good Mackellar's place!" cries he.<br />"John, lay another for Mr. Bally; I protest he will disturb no one,<br />and your table is big enough for all."<br />I could scarce credit my ears, nor yet my senses, when he took me<br />by the shoulders and thrust me, laughing, into my own place - such<br />an affectionate playfulness was in his voice. And while John laid<br />the fresh place for him (a thing on which he still insisted), he<br />went and leaned on his father's chair and looked down upon him, and<br />the old man turned about and looked upwards on his son, with such a<br />pleasant mutual tenderness that I could have carried my hand to my<br />head in mere amazement.<br />Yet all was of a piece. Never a harsh word fell from him, never a<br />sneer showed upon his lip. He had laid aside even his cutting<br />English accent, and spoke with the kindly Scots' tongue, that set a<br />value on affectionate words; and though his manners had a graceful<br />elegance mighty foreign to our ways in Durrisdeer, it was still a<br />homely courtliness, that did not shame but flattered us. All that,<br />he did throughout the meal, indeed, drinking wine with me with a<br />notable respect, turning about for a pleasant word with John,<br />fondling his father's hand, breaking into little merry tales of his<br />adventures, calling up the past with happy reference - all he did<br />was so becoming, and himself so handsome, that I could scarce<br />wonder if my lord and Mrs. Henry sat about the board with radiant<br />faces, or if John waited behind with dropping tears.<br />As soon as supper was over, Mrs. Henry rose to withdraw.<br />"This was never your way, Alison," said he.<br />"It is my way now," she replied: which was notoriously false, "and<br />I will give you a good-night, James, and a welcome - from the<br />dead," said she, and her voice dropped and trembled.<br />Poor Mr. Henry, who had made rather a heavy figure through the<br />meal, was more concerned than ever; pleased to see his wife<br />withdraw, and yet half displeased, as he thought upon the cause of<br />it; and the next moment altogether dashed by the fervour of her<br />speech.<br />On my part, I thought I was now one too many; and was stealing<br />after Mrs. Henry, when the Master saw me.<br />"Now, Mr. Mackellar," says he, "I take this near on an<br />unfriendliness. I cannot have you go: this is to make a stranger<br />of the prodigal son; and let me remind you where - in his own<br />father's house! Come, sit ye down, and drink another glass with<br />Mr. Bally."<br />"Ay, ay, Mr. Mackellar," says my lord, "we must not make a stranger<br />either of him or you. I have been telling my son," he added, his<br />voice brightening as usual on the word, "how much we valued all<br />your friendly service."<br />So I sat there, silent, till my usual hour; and might have been<br />almost deceived in the man's nature but for one passage, in which<br />his perfidy appeared too plain. Here was the passage; of which,<br />after what he knows of the brothers' meeting, the reader shall<br />consider for himself. Mr. Henry sitting somewhat dully, in spite<br />of his best endeavours to carry things before my lord, up jumps the<br />Master, passes about the board, and claps his brother on the<br />shoulder.<br />"Come, come, HAIRRY LAD," says he, with a broad accent such as they<br />must have used together when they were boys, "you must not be<br />downcast because your brother has come home. All's yours, that's<br />sure enough, and little I grudge it you. Neither must you grudge<br />me my place beside my father's fire."<br />"And that is too true, Henry," says my old lord with a little<br />frown, a thing rare with him. "You have been the elder brother of<br />the parable in the good sense; you must be careful of the other."<br />"I am easily put in the wrong," said Mr. Henry.<br />"Who puts you in the wrong?" cried my lord, I thought very tartly<br />for so mild a man. "You have earned my gratitude and your<br />brother's many thousand times: you may count on its endurance; and<br />let that suffice."<br />"Ay, Harry, that you may," said the Master; and I thought Mr. Henry<br />looked at him with a kind of wildness in his eye.<br />On all the miserable business that now followed, I have four<br />questions that I asked myself often at the time and ask myself<br />still:- Was the man moved by a particular sentiment against Mr.<br />Henry? or by what he thought to be his interest? or by a mere<br />delight in cruelty such as cats display and theologians tell us of<br />the devil? or by what he would have called love? My common opinion<br />halts among the three first; but perhaps there lay at the spring of<br />his behaviour an element of all. As thus:- Animosity to Mr. Henry<br />would explain his hateful usage of him when they were alone; the<br />interests he came to serve would explain his very different<br />attitude before my lord; that and some spice of a design of<br />gallantry, his care to stand well with Mrs. Henry; and the pleasure<br />of malice for itself, the pains he was continually at to mingle and<br />oppose these lines of conduct.<br />Partly because I was a very open friend to my patron, partly<br />because in my letters to Paris I had often given myself some<br />freedom of remonstrance, I was included in his diabolical<br />amusement. When I was alone with him, he pursued me with sneers;<br />before the family he used me with the extreme of friendly<br />condescension. This was not only painful in itself; not only did<br />it put me continually in the wrong; but there was in it an element<br />of insult indescribable. That he should thus leave me out in his<br />dissimulation, as though even my testimony were too despicable to<br />be considered, galled me to the blood. But what it was to me is<br />not worth notice. I make but memorandum of it here; and chiefly<br />for this reason, that it had one good result, and gave me the<br />quicker sense of Mr. Henry's martyrdom.<br />It was on him the burthen fell. How was he to respond to the<br />public advances of one who never lost a chance of gibing him in<br />private? How was he to smile back on the deceiver and the<br />insulter? He was condemned to seem ungracious. He was condemned<br />to silence. Had he been less proud, had he spoken, who would have<br />credited the truth? The acted calumny had done its work; my lord<br />and Mrs. Henry were the daily witnesses of what went on; they could<br />have sworn in court that the Master was a model of long-suffering<br />good-nature, and Mr. Henry a pattern of jealousy and thanklessness.<br />And ugly enough as these must have appeared in any one, they seemed<br />tenfold uglier in Mr. Henry; for who could forget that the Master<br />lay in peril of his life, and that he had already lost his<br />mistress, his title, and his fortune?<br />"Henry, will you ride with me?" asks the Master one day.<br />And Mr. Henry, who had been goaded by the man all morning, raps<br />out: "I will not."<br />"I sometimes wish you would be kinder, Henry," says the other,<br />wistfully.<br />I give this for a specimen; but such scenes befell continually.<br />Small wonder if Mr. Henry was blamed; small wonder if I fretted<br />myself into something near upon a bilious fever; nay, and at the<br />mere recollection feel a bitterness in my blood.<br />Sure, never in this world was a more diabolical contrivance: so<br />perfidious, so simple, so impossible to combat. And yet I think<br />again, and I think always, Mrs. Henry might have road between the<br />lines; she might have had more knowledge of her husband's nature;<br />after all these years of marriage she might have commanded or<br />captured his confidence. And my old lord, too - that very watchful<br />gentleman - where was all his observation? But, for one thing, the<br />deceit was practised by a master hand, and might have gulled an<br />angel. For another (in the case of Mrs. Henry), I have observed<br />there are no persons so far away as those who are both married and<br />estranged, so that they seem out of ear-shot or to have no common<br />tongue. For a third (in the case of both of these spectators),<br />they were blinded by old ingrained predilection. And for a fourth,<br />the risk the Master was supposed to stand in (supposed, I say - you<br />will soon hear why) made it seem the more ungenerous to criticise;<br />and, keeping them in a perpetual tender solicitude about his life,<br />blinded them the more effectually to his faults.<br />It was during this time that I perceived most clearly the effect of<br />manner, and was led to lament most deeply the plainness of my own.<br />Mr. Henry had the essence of a gentleman; when he was moved, when<br />there was any call of circumstance, he could play his part with<br />dignity and spirit; but in the day's commerce (it is idle to deny<br />it) he fell short of the ornamental. The Master (on the other<br />hand) had never a movement but it commanded him. So it befell that<br />when the one appeared gracious and the other ungracious, every<br />trick of their bodies seemed to call out confirmation. Not that<br />alone: but the more deeply Mr. Henry floundered in his brother's<br />toils, the more clownish he grew; and the more the Master enjoyed<br />his spiteful entertainment, the more engagingly, the more<br />smilingly, he went! So that the plot, by its own scope and<br />progress, furthered and confirmed itself.<br />It was one of the man's arts to use the peril in which (as I say)<br />he was supposed to stand. He spoke of it to those who loved him<br />with a gentle pleasantry, which made it the more touching. To Mr.<br />Henry he used it as a cruel weapon of offence. I remember his<br />laying his finger on the clean lozenge of the painted window one<br />day when we three were alone together in the hall. "Here went your<br />lucky guinea, Jacob," said he. And when Mr. Henry only looked upon<br />him darkly, "Oh!" he added, "you need not look such impotent<br />malice, my good fly. You can be rid of your spider when you<br />please. How long, O Lord? When are you to be wrought to the point<br />of a denunciation, scrupulous brother? It is one of my interests<br />in this dreary hole. I ever loved experiment." Still Mr. Henry<br />only stared upon him with a grooming brow, and a changed colour;<br />and at last the Master broke out in a laugh and clapped him on the<br />shoulder, calling him a sulky dog. At this my patron leaped back<br />with a gesture I thought very dangerous; and I must suppose the<br />Master thought so too, for he looked the least in the world<br />discountenance, and I do not remember him again to have laid hands<br />on Mr. Henry.<br />But though he had his peril always on his lips in the one way or<br />the other, I thought his conduct strangely incautious, and began to<br />fancy the Government - who had set a price upon his head - was gone<br />sound asleep. I will not deny I was tempted with the wish to<br />denounce him; but two thoughts withheld me: one, that if he were<br />thus to end his life upon an honourable scaffold, the man would be<br />canonised for good in the minds of his father and my patron's wife;<br />the other, that if I was anyway mingled in the matter, Mr. Henry<br />himself would scarce escape some glancings of suspicion. And in<br />the meanwhile our enemy went in and out more than I could have<br />thought possible, the fact that he was home again was buzzed about<br />all the country-side, and yet he was never stirred. Of all these<br />so-many and so-different persons who were acquainted with his<br />presence, none had the least greed - as I used to say in my<br />annoyance - or the least loyalty; and the man rode here and there -<br />fully more welcome, considering the lees of old unpopularity, than<br />Mr. Henry - and considering the freetraders, far safer than myself.<br />Not but what he had a trouble of his own; and this, as it brought<br />about the gravest consequences, I must now relate. The reader will<br />scarce have forgotten Jessie Broun; her way of life was much among<br />the smuggling party; Captain Crail himself was of her intimates;<br />and she had early word of Mr. Bally's presence at the house. In my<br />opinion, she had long ceased to care two straws for the Master's<br />person; but it was become her habit to connect herself continually<br />with the Master's name; that was the ground of all her play-acting;<br />and so now, when he was back, she thought she owed it to herself to<br />grow a haunter of the neighbourhood of Durrisdeer. The Master<br />could scarce go abroad but she was there in wait for him; a<br />scandalous figure of a woman, not often sober; hailing him wildly<br />as "her bonny laddie," quoting pedlar's poetry, and, as I receive<br />the story, even seeking to weep upon his neck. I own I rubbed my<br />hands over this persecution; but the Master, who laid so much upon<br />others, was himself the least patient of men. There were strange<br />scenes enacted in the policies. Some say he took his cane to her,<br />and Jessie fell back upon her former weapons - stones. It is<br />certain at least that he made a motion to Captain Crail to have the<br />woman trepanned, and that the Captain refused the proposition with<br />uncommon vehemence. And the end of the matter was victory for<br />Jessie. Money was got together; an interview took place, in which<br />my proud gentleman must consent to be kissed and wept upon; and the<br />woman was set up in a public of her own, somewhere on Solway side<br />(but I forget where), and, by the only news I ever had of it,<br />extremely ill-frequented.<br />This is to look forward. After Jessie had been but a little while<br />upon his heels, the Master comes to me one day in the steward's<br />office, and with more civility than usual, "Mackellar," says he,<br />"there is a damned crazy wench comes about here. I cannot well<br />move in the matter myself, which brings me to you. Be so good as<br />to see to it: the men must have a strict injunction to drive the<br />wench away."<br />"Sir," said I, trembling a little, "you can do your own dirty<br />errands for yourself."<br />He said not a word to that, and left the room.<br />Presently came Mr. Henry. "Here is news!" cried he. "It seems all<br />is not enough, and you must add to my wretchedness. It seems you<br />have insulted Mr. Bally."<br />"Under your kind favour, Mr. Henry," said I, "it was he that<br />insulted me, and, as I think, grossly. But I may have been<br />careless of your position when I spoke; and if you think so when<br />you know all, my dear patron, you have but to say the word. For<br />you I would obey in any point whatever, even to sin, God pardon<br />me!" And thereupon I told him what had passed.<br />Mr. Henry smiled to himself; a grimmer smile I never witnessed.<br />"You did exactly well," said he. "He shall drink his Jessie Broun<br />to the dregs." And then, spying the Master outside, he opened the<br />window, and crying to him by the name of Mr. Bally, asked him to<br />step up and have a word.<br />"James," said he, when our persecutor had come in and closed the<br />door behind him, looking at me with a smile, as if he thought I was<br />to be humbled, "you brought me a complaint against Mr. Mackellar,<br />into which I have inquired. I need not tell you I would always<br />take his word against yours; for we are alone, and I am going to<br />use something of your own freedom. Mr. Mackellar is a gentleman I<br />value; and you must contrive, so long as you are under this roof,<br />to bring yourself into no more collisions with one whom I will<br />support at any possible cost to me or mine. As for the errand upon<br />which you came to him, you must deliver yourself from the<br />consequences of your own cruelty, and, none of my servants shall be<br />at all employed in such a case."<br />"My father's servants, I believe," says the Master.<br />"Go to him with this tale," said Mr. Henry.<br />The Master grew very white. He pointed at me with his finger. "I<br />want that man discharged," he said.<br />"He shall not be," said Mr. Henry.<br />"You shall pay pretty dear for this," says the Master.<br />"I have paid so dear already for a wicked brother," said Mr. Henry,<br />"that I am bankrupt even of fears. You have no place left where<br />you can strike me."<br />"I will show you about that," says the Master, and went softly<br />away.<br />"What will he do next, Mackellar?" cries Mr. Henry.<br />"Let me go away," said I. "My dear patron, let me go away; I am<br />but the beginning of fresh sorrows."<br />"Would you leave me quite alone?" said he.<br />We were not long in suspense as to the nature of the new assault.<br />Up to that hour the Master had played a very close game with Mrs.<br />Henry; avoiding pointedly to be alone with her, which I took at the<br />time for an effect of decency, but now think to be a most insidious<br />art; meeting her, you may say, at meal-time only; and behaving,<br />when he did so, like an affectionate brother. Up to that hour, you<br />may say he had scarce directly interfered between Mr. Henry and his<br />wife; except in so far as he had manoeuvred the one quite forth<br />from the good graces of the other. Now all that was to be changed;<br />but whether really in revenge, or because he was wearying of<br />Durrisdeer and looked about for some diversion, who but the devil<br />shall decide?<br />From that hour, at least, began the siege of Mrs. Henry; a thing so<br />deftly carried on that I scarce know if she was aware of it<br />herself, and that her husband must look on in silence. The first<br />parallel was opened (as was made to appear) by accident. The talk<br />fell, as it did often, on the exiles in France; so it glided to the<br />matter of their songs.<br />"There is one," says the Master, "if you are curious in these<br />matters, that has always seemed to me very moving. The poetry is<br />harsh; and yet, perhaps because of my situation, it has always<br />found the way to my heart. It is supposed to be sung, I should<br />tell you, by an exile's sweetheart; and represents perhaps, not so<br />much the truth of what she is thinking, as the truth of what he<br />hopes of her, poor soul! in these far lands." And here the Master<br />sighed, "I protest it is a pathetic sight when a score of rough<br />Irish, all common sentinels, get to this song; and you may see, by<br />their falling tears, how it strikes home to them. It goes thus,<br />father," says he, very adroitly taking my lord for his listener,<br />"and if I cannot get to the end of it, you must think it is a<br />common case with us exiles." And thereupon he struck up the same<br />air as I had heard the Colonel whistle; but now to words, rustic<br />indeed, yet most pathetically setting forth a poor girl's<br />aspirations for an exiled lover; of which one verse indeed (or<br />something like it) still sticks by me:-<br />O, I will dye my petticoat red,<br />With my dear boy I'll beg my bread,<br />Though all my friends should wish me dead,<br />For Willie among the rushes, O!<br />He sang it well, even as a song; but he did better yet a performer.<br />I have heard famous actors, when there was not a dry eye in the<br />Edinburgh theatre; a great wonder to behold; but no more wonderful<br />than how the Master played upon that little ballad, and on those<br />who heard him, like an instrument, and seemed now upon the point of<br />failing, and now to conquer his distress, so that words and music<br />seemed to pour out of his own heart and his own past, and to be<br />aimed directly at Mrs. Henry. And his art went further yet; for<br />all was so delicately touched, it seemed impossible to suspect him<br />of the least design; and so far from making a parade of emotion,<br />you would have sworn he was striving to be calm. When it came to<br />an end, we all sat silent for a time; he had chosen the dusk of the<br />afternoon, so that none could see his neighbour's face; but it<br />seemed as if we held our breathing; only my old lord cleared his<br />throat. The first to move was the singer, who got to his feet<br />suddenly and softly, and went and walked softly to and fro in the<br />low end of the hall, Mr. Henry's customary place. We were to<br />suppose that he there struggled down the last of his emotion; for<br />he presently returned and launched into a disquisition on the<br />nature of the Irish (always so much miscalled, and whom he<br />defended) in his natural voice; so that, before the lights were<br />brought, we were in the usual course of talk. But even then,<br />methought Mrs. Henry's face was a shade pale; and, for another<br />thing, she withdrew almost at once.<br />The next sign was a friendship this insidious devil struck up with<br />innocent Miss Katharine; so that they were always together, hand in<br />hand, or she climbing on his knee, like a pair of children. Like<br />all his diabolical acts, this cut in several ways. It was the last<br />stroke to Mr. Henry, to see his own babe debauched against him; it<br />made him harsh with the poor innocent, which brought him still a<br />peg lower in his wife's esteem; and (to conclude) it was a bond of<br />union between the lady and the Master. Under this influence, their<br />old reserve melted by daily stages. Presently there came walks in<br />the long shrubbery, talks in the Belvedere, and I know not what<br />tender familiarity. I am sure Mrs. Henry was like many a good<br />woman; she had a whole conscience but perhaps by the means of a<br />little winking. For even to so dull an observer as myself, it was<br />plain her kindness was of a more moving nature than the sisterly.<br />The tones of her voice appeared more numerous; she had a light and<br />softness in her eye; she was more gentle with all of us, even with<br />Mr. Henry, even with myself; methought she breathed of some quiet<br />melancholy happiness.<br />To look on at this, what a torment it was for Mr. Henry! And yet<br />it brought our ultimate deliverance, as I am soon to tell.<br />The purport of the Master's stay was no more noble (gild it as they<br />might) than to wring money out. He had some design of a fortune in<br />the French Indies, as the Chevalier wrote me; and it was the sum<br />required for this that he came seeking. For the rest of the family<br />it spelled ruin; but my lord, in his incredible partiality, pushed<br />ever for the granting. The family was now so narrowed down<br />(indeed, there were no more of them than just the father and the<br />two sons) that it was possible to break the entail and alienate a<br />piece of land. And to this, at first by hints, and then by open<br />pressure, Mr. Henry was brought to consent. He never would have<br />done so, I am very well assured, but for the weight of the distress<br />under which he laboured. But for his passionate eagerness to see<br />his brother gone, he would not thus have broken with his own<br />sentiment and the traditions of his house. And even so, he sold<br />them his consent at a dear rate, speaking for once openly, and<br />holding the business up in its own shameful colours.<br />"You will observe," he said, "this is an injustice to my son, if<br />ever I have one."<br />"But that you are not likely to have," said my lord.<br />"God knows!" says Mr. Henry. "And considering the cruel falseness<br />of the position in which I stand to my brother, and that you, my<br />lord, are my father, and have the right to command me, I set my<br />hand to this paper. But one thing I will say first: I have been<br />ungenerously pushed, and when next, my lord, you are tempted to<br />compare your sons, I call on you to remember what I have done and<br />what he has done. Acts are the fair test."<br />My lord was the most uneasy man I ever saw; even in his old face<br />the blood came up. "I think this is not a very wisely chosen<br />moment, Henry, for complaints," said he. "This takes away from the<br />merit of your generosity."<br />"Do not deceive yourself, my lord," said Mr. Henry. "This<br />injustice is not done from generosity to him, but in obedience to<br />yourself."<br />"Before strangers . . . " begins my lord, still more unhappily<br />affected.<br />"There is no one but Mackellar here," said Mr. Henry; "he is my<br />friend. And, my lord, as you make him no stranger to your frequent<br />blame, it were hard if I must keep him one to a thing so rare as my<br />defence."<br />Almost I believe my lord would have rescinded his decision; but the<br />Master was on the watch.<br />"Ah! Henry, Henry," says he, "you are the best of us still.<br />Rugged and true! Ah! man, I wish I was as good."<br />And at that instance of his favourite's generosity my lord desisted<br />from his hesitation, and the deed was signed.<br />As soon as it could he brought about, the land of Ochterhall was<br />sold for much below its value, and the money paid over to our leech<br />and sent by some private carriage into France. Or so he said;<br />though I have suspected since it did not go so far. And now here<br />was all the man's business brought to a successful head, and his<br />pockets once more bulging with our gold; and yet the point for<br />which we had consented to this sacrifice was still denied us, and<br />the visitor still lingered on at Durrisdeer. Whether in malice, or<br />because the time was not yet come for his adventure to the Indies,<br />or because he had hopes of his design on Mrs. Henry, or from the<br />orders of the Government, who shall say? but linger he did, and<br />that for weeks.<br />You will observe I say: from the orders of Government; for about<br />this time the man's disreputable secret trickled out.<br />The first hint I had was from a tenant, who commented on the<br />Master's stay, and yet more on his security; for this tenant was a<br />Jacobitish sympathiser, and had lost a son at Culloden, which gave<br />him the more critical eye. "There is one thing," said he, "that I<br />cannot but think strange; and that is how he got to Cockermouth."<br />"To Cockermouth?" said I, with a sudden memory of my first wonder<br />on beholding the man disembark so point-de-vice after so long a<br />voyage.<br />"Why, yes," says the tenant, "it was there he was picked up by<br />Captain Crail. You thought he had come from France by sea? And so<br />we all did."<br />I turned this news a little in my head, and then carried it to Mr.<br />Henry. "Here is an odd circumstance," said I, and told him.<br />"What matters how he came, Mackellar, so long as he is here?"<br />groans Mr. Henry.<br />"No, sir," said I, "but think again! Does not this smack a little<br />of some Government connivance? You know how much we have wondered<br />already at the man's security."<br />"Stop," said Mr. Henry. "Let me think of this." And as he<br />thought, there came that grim smile upon his face that was a little<br />like the Master's. "Give me paper," said he. And he sat without<br />another word and wrote to a gentleman of his acquaintance - I will<br />name no unnecessary names, but he was one in a high place. This<br />letter I despatched by the only hand I could depend upon in such a<br />case - Macconochie's; and the old man rode hard, for he was back<br />with the reply before even my eagerness had ventured to expect him.<br />Again, as he read it, Mr. Henry had the same grim smile.<br />"This is the best you have done for me yet, Mackellar," says he.<br />"With this in my hand I will give him a shog. Watch for us at<br />dinner."<br />At dinner accordingly Mr. Henry proposed some very public<br />appearance for the Master; and my lord, as he had hoped, objected<br />to the danger of the course.<br />"Oh!" says Mr. Henry, very easily, "you need no longer keep this up<br />with me. I am as much in the secret as yourself."<br />"In the secret?" says my lord. "What do you mean, Henry? I give<br />you my word, I am in no secret from which you are excluded."<br />The Master had changed countenance, and I saw he was struck in a<br />joint of his harness.<br />"How?" says Mr. Henry, turning to him with a huge appearance of<br />surprise. "I see you serve your masters very faithfully; but I had<br />thought you would have been humane enough to set your father's mind<br />at rest."<br />"What are you talking of? I refuse to have my business publicly<br />discussed. I order this to cease," cries the Master very foolishly<br />and passionately, and indeed more like a child than a man.<br />"So much discretion was not looked for at your hands, I can assure<br />you," continued Mr. Henry. "For see what my correspondent writes"<br />- unfolding the paper - "'It is, of course, in the interests both<br />of the Government and the gentleman whom we may perhaps best<br />continue to call Mr. Bally, to keep this understanding secret; but<br />it was never meant his own family should continue to endure the<br />suspense you paint so feelingly; and I am pleased mine should be<br />the hand to set these fears at rest. Mr. Bally is as safe in Great<br />Britain as yourself.'"<br />"Is this possible?" cries my lord, looking at his son, with a great<br />deal of wonder and still more of suspicion in his face.<br />"My dear father," says the Master, already much recovered. "I am<br />overjoyed that this may be disclosed. My own instructions, direct<br />from London, bore a very contrary sense, and I was charged to keep<br />the indulgence secret from every one, yourself not excepted, and<br />indeed yourself expressly named - as I can show in black and white<br />unless I have destroyed the letter. They must have changed their<br />mind very swiftly, for the whole matter is still quite fresh; or<br />rather, Henry's correspondent must have misconceived that part, as<br />he seems to have misconceived the rest. To tell you the truth,<br />sir," he continued, getting visibly more easy, "I had supposed this<br />unexplained favour to a rebel was the effect of some application<br />from yourself; and the injunction to secrecy among my family the<br />result of a desire on your part to conceal your kindness. Hence I<br />was the more careful to obey orders. It remains now to guess by<br />what other channel indulgence can have flowed on so notorious an<br />offender as myself; for I do not think your son need defend himself<br />from what seems hinted at in Henry's letter. I have never yet<br />heard of a Durrisdeer who was a turncoat or a spy," says he,<br />proudly.<br />And so it seemed he had swum out of this danger unharmed; but this<br />was to reckon without a blunder he had made, and without the<br />pertinacity of Mr. Henry, who was now to show he had something of<br />his brother's spirit.<br />"You say the matter is still fresh," says Mr. Henry.<br />"It is recent," says the Master, with a fair show of stoutness and<br />yet not without a quaver.<br />"Is it so recent as that?" asks Mr. Henry, like a man a little<br />puzzled, and spreading his letter forth again.<br />In all the letter there was no word as to the date; but how was the<br />Master to know that?<br />"It seemed to come late enough for me," says he, with a laugh. And<br />at the sound of that laugh, which rang false, like a cracked bell,<br />my lord looked at him again across the table, and I saw his old<br />lips draw together close.<br />"No," said Mr. Henry, still glancing on his letter, "but I remember<br />your expression. You said it was very fresh."<br />And here we had a proof of our victory, and the strongest instance<br />yet of my lord's incredible indulgence; for what must he do but<br />interfere to save his favourite from exposure!<br />"I think, Henry," says he, with a kind of pitiful eagerness, "I<br />think we need dispute no more. We are all rejoiced at last to find<br />your brother safe; we are all at one on that; and, as grateful<br />subjects, we can do no less than drink to the king's health and<br />bounty."<br />Thus was the Master extricated; but at least he had been put to his<br />defence, he had come lamely out, and the attraction of his personal<br />danger was now publicly plucked away from him. My lord, in his<br />heart of hearts, now knew his favourite to be a Government spy; and<br />Mrs. Henry (however she explained the tale) was notably cold in her<br />behaviour to the discredited hero of romance. Thus in the best<br />fabric of duplicity, there is some weak point, if you can strike<br />it, which will loosen all; and if, by this fortunate stroke, we had<br />not shaken the idol, who can say how it might have gone with us at<br />the catastrophe?<br />And yet at the time we seemed to have accomplished nothing. Before<br />a day or two he had wiped off the ill-results of his discomfiture,<br />and, to all appearance, stood as high as ever. As for my Lord<br />Durrisdeer, he was sunk in parental partiality; it was not so much<br />love, which should be an active quality, as an apathy and torpor of<br />his other powers; and forgiveness (so to mis-apply a noble word)<br />flowed from him in sheer weakness, like the tears of senility.<br />Mrs. Henry's was a different case; and Heaven alone knows what he<br />found to say to her, or how he persuaded her from her contempt. It<br />is one of the worst things of sentiment, that the voice grows to be<br />more important than the words, and the speaker than that which is<br />spoken. But some excuse the Master must have found, or perhaps he<br />had even struck upon some art to wrest this exposure to his own<br />advantage; for after a time of coldness, it seemed as if things<br />went worse than ever between him and Mrs. Henry. They were then<br />constantly together. I would not be thought to cut one shadow of<br />blame, beyond what is due to a half-wilful blindness, on that<br />unfortunate lady; but I do think, in these last days, she was<br />playing very near the fire; and whether I be wrong or not in that,<br />one thing is sure and quite sufficient: Mr. Henry thought so. The<br />poor gentleman sat for days in my room, so great a picture of<br />distress that I could never venture to address him; yet it is to be<br />thought he found some comfort even in my presence and the knowledge<br />of my sympathy. There were times, too, when we talked, and a<br />strange manner of talk it was; there was never a person named, nor<br />an individual circumstance referred to; yet we had the same matter<br />in our minds, and we were each aware of it. It is a strange art<br />that can thus be practised; to talk for hours of a thing, and never<br />name nor yet so much as hint at it. And I remember I wondered if<br />it was by some such natural skill that the Master made love to Mrs.<br />Henry all day long (as he manifestly did), yet never startled her<br />into reserve.<br />To show how far affairs had gone with Mr. Henry, I will give some<br />words of his, uttered (as I have cause not to forget) upon the 26th<br />of February, 1757. It was unseasonable weather, a cast back into<br />Winter: windless, bitter cold, the world all white with rime, the<br />sky low and gray . the sea black and silent like a quarry-hole.<br />Mr. Henry sat close by the fire, and debated (as was now common<br />with him) whether "a man" should "do things," whether "interference<br />was wise," and the like general propositions, which each of us<br />particularly applied. I was by the window, looking out, when there<br />passed below me the Master, Mrs. Henry, and Miss Katharine, that<br />now constant trio. The child was running to and fro, delighted<br />with the frost; the Master spoke close in the lady's ear with what<br />seemed (even from so far) a devilish grace of insinuation; and she<br />on her part looked on the ground like a person lost in listening.<br />I broke out of my reserve.<br />"If I were you, Mr. Henry," said I, "I would deal openly with my<br />lord."<br />"Mackellar, Mackellar," said he, "you do not see the weakness of my<br />ground. I can carry no such base thoughts to any one - to my<br />father least of all; that would be to fall into the bottom of his<br />scorn. The weakness of my ground," he continued, "lies in myself,<br />that I am not one who engages love. I have their gratitude, they<br />all tell me that; I have a rich estate of it! But I am not present<br />in their minds; they are moved neither to think with me nor to<br />think for me. There is my loss!" He got to his feet, and trod<br />down the fire. "But some method must be found, Mackellar," said<br />he, looking at me suddenly over his shoulder; "some way must be<br />found. I am a man of a great deal of patience - far too much - far<br />too much. I begin to despise myself. And yet, sure, never was a<br />man involved in such a toil!" He fell back to his brooding.<br />"Cheer up," said I. "It will burst of itself."<br />"I am far past anger now," says he, which had so little coherency<br />with my own observation that I let both fall.<br />CHAPTER V. - ACCOUNT OF ALL THAT PASSED ON THE NIGHT ON<br />FEBRUARY<br />27TH, 1757.<br />On the evening of the interview referred to, the Master went<br />abroad; he was abroad a great deal of the next day also, that fatal<br />27th; but where he went, or what he did, we never concerned<br />ourselves to ask until next day. If we had done so, and by any<br />chance found out, it might have changed all. But as all we did was<br />done in ignorance, and should be so judged, I shall so narrate<br />these passages as they appeared to us in the moment of their birth,<br />and reserve all that I since discovered for the time of its<br />discovery. For I have now come to one of the dark parts of my<br />narrative, and must engage the reader's indulgence for my patron.<br />All the 27th that rigorous weather endured: a stifling cold; the<br />folk passing about like smoking chimneys; the wide hearth in the<br />hall piled high with fuel; some of the spring birds that had<br />already blundered north into our neighbourhood, besieging the<br />windows of the house or trotting on the frozen turf like things<br />distracted. About noon there came a blink of sunshine, showing a<br />very pretty, wintry, frosty landscape of white hills and woods,<br />with Crail's lugger waiting for a wind under the Craig Head, and<br />the smoke mounting straight into the air from every farm and<br />cottage. With the coming of night, the haze closed in overhead; it<br />fell dark and still and starless, and exceeding cold: a night the<br />most unseasonable, fit for strange events.<br />Mrs. Henry withdrew, as was now her custom, very early. We had set<br />ourselves of late to pass the evening with a game of cards; another<br />mark that our visitor was wearying mightily of the life at<br />Durrisdeer; and we had not been long at this when my old lord<br />slipped from his place beside the fire, and was off without a word<br />to seek the warmth of bed. The three thus left together had<br />neither love nor courtesy to share; not one of us would have sat up<br />one instant to oblige another; yet from the influence of custom,<br />and as the cards had just been dealt, we continued the form of<br />playing out the round. I should say we were late sitters; and<br />though my lord had departed earlier than was his custom, twelve was<br />already gone some time upon the clock, and the servants long ago in<br />bed. Another thing I should say, that although I never saw the<br />Master anyway affected with liquor, he had been drinking freely,<br />and was perhaps (although he showed it not) a trifle heated.<br />Anyway, he now practised one of his transitions; and so soon as the<br />door closed behind my lord, and without the smallest change of<br />voice, shifted from ordinary civil talk into a stream of insult.<br />"My dear Henry, it is yours to play," he had been saying, and now<br />continued: "It is a very strange thing how, even in so small a<br />matter as a game of cards, you display your rusticity. You play,<br />Jacob, like a bonnet laird, or a sailor in a tavern. The same<br />dulness, the same petty greed, CETTE LENTEUR D'HEBETE QUI ME FAIT<br />RAGER; it is strange I should have such a brother. Even Squaretoes<br />has a certain vivacity when his stake is imperilled; but the<br />dreariness of a game with you I positively lack language to<br />depict."<br />Mr. Henry continued to look at his cards, as though very maturely<br />considering some play; but his mind was elsewhere.<br />"Dear God, will this never be done?" cries the Master. "QUEL<br />LOURDEAU! But why do I trouble you with French expressions, which<br />are lost on such an ignoramus? A LOURDEAU, my dear brother, is as<br />we might say a bumpkin, a clown, a clodpole: a fellow without<br />grace, lightness, quickness; any gift of pleasing, any natural<br />brilliancy: such a one as you shall see, when you desire, by<br />looking in the mirror. I tell you these things for your good, I<br />assure you; and besides, Square-toes" (looking at me and stifling a<br />yawn), "it is one of my diversions in this very dreary spot to<br />toast you and your master at the fire like chestnuts. I have great<br />pleasure in your case, for I observe the nickname (rustic as it is)<br />has always the power to make you writhe. But sometimes I have more<br />trouble with this dear fellow here, who seems to have gone to sleep<br />upon his cards. Do you not see the applicability of the epithet I<br />have just explained, dear Henry? Let me show you. For instance,<br />with all those solid qualities which I delight to recognise in you,<br />I never knew a woman who did not prefer me - nor, I think," he<br />continued, with the most silken deliberation, "I think - who did<br />not continue to prefer me."<br />Mr. Henry laid down his cards. He rose to his feet very softly,<br />and seemed all the while like a person in deep thought. "You<br />coward!" he said gently, as if to himself. And then, with neither<br />hurry nor any particular violence, he struck the Master in the<br />mouth.<br />The Master sprang to his feet like one transfigured; I had never<br />seen the man so beautiful. "A blow!" he cried. "I would not take<br />a blow from God Almighty!"<br />"Lower your voice," said Mr. Henry. "Do you wish my father to<br />interfere for you again?"<br />"Gentlemen, gentlemen," I cried, and sought to come between them.<br />The Master caught me by the shoulder, held me at arm's length, and<br />still addressing his brother: "Do you know what this means?" said<br />he.<br />"It was the most deliberate act of my life," says Mr. Henry.<br />"I must have blood, I must have blood for this," says the Master.<br />"Please God it shall be yours," said Mr. Henry; and he went to the<br />wall and took down a pair of swords that hung there with others,<br />naked. These he presented to the Master by the points. "Mackellar<br />shall see us play fair," said Mr. Henry. "I think it very<br />needful."<br />"You need insult me no more," said the Master, taking one of the<br />swords at random. "I have hated you all my life."<br />"My father is but newly gone to bed," said Mr. Henry. "We must go<br />somewhere forth of the house."<br />"There is an excellent place in the long shrubbery," said the<br />Master.<br />"Gentlemen," said I, "shame upon you both! Sons of the same<br />mother, would you turn against the life she gave you?"<br />"Even so, Mackellar," said Mr. Henry, with the same perfect<br />quietude of manner he had shown throughout.<br />"It is what I will prevent," said I.<br />And now here is a blot upon my life. At these words of mine the<br />Master turned his blade against my bosom; I saw the light run along<br />the steel; and I threw up my arms and fell to my knees before him<br />on the floor. "No, no," I cried, like a baby.<br />"We shall have no more trouble with him," said the Master. "It is<br />a good thing to have a coward in the house."<br />"We must have light," said Mr. Henry, as though there had been no<br />interruption.<br />"This trembler can bring a pair of candles," said the Master.<br />To my shame be it said, I was still so blinded with the flashing of<br />that bare sword that I volunteered to bring a lantern.<br />"We do not need a l-l-lantern," says the Master, mocking me.<br />"There is no breath of air. Come, get to your feet, take a pair of<br />lights, and go before. I am close behind with this - " making. the<br />blade glitter as he spoke.<br />I took up the candlesticks and went before them, steps that I would<br />give my hand to recall; but a coward is a slave at the best; and<br />even as I went, my teeth smote each other in my mouth. It was as<br />he had said: there was no breath stirring; a windless stricture of<br />frost had bound the air; and as we went forth in the shine of the<br />candles, the blackness was like a roof over our heads. Never a<br />word was said; there was never a sound but the creaking of our<br />steps along the frozen path. The cold of the night fell about me<br />like a bucket of water; I shook as I went with more than terror;<br />but my companions, bare-headed like myself, and fresh from the warm<br />ball, appeared not even conscious of the change.<br />"Here is the place," said the Master. "Set down the candles."<br />I did as he bid me, and presently the flames went up, as steady as<br />in a chamber, in the midst of the frosted trees, and I beheld these<br />two brothers take their places.<br />"The light is something in my eyes," said the Master.<br />"I will give you every advantage," replied Mr. Henry, shifting his<br />ground, "for I think you are about to die." He spoke rather sadly<br />than otherwise, yet there was a ring in his voice.<br />"Henry Durie," said the Master, "two words before I begin. You are<br />a fencer, you can hold a foil; you little know what a change it<br />makes to hold a sword! And by that I know you are to fall. But<br />see how strong is my situation! If you fall, I shift out of this<br />country to where my money is before me. If I fall, where are you?<br />My father, your wife - who is in love with me, as you very well<br />know - your child even, who prefers me to yourself:- how will these<br />avenge me! Had you thought of that, dear Henry?" He looked at his<br />brother with a smile; then made a fencing-room salute.<br />Never a word said Mr. Henry, but saluted too, and the swords rang<br />together.<br />I am no judge of the play; my head, besides, was gone with cold and<br />fear and horror; but it seems that Mr. Henry took and kept the<br />upper hand from the engagement, crowding in upon his foe with a<br />contained and glowing fury. Nearer and nearer he crept upon the<br />man, till of a sudden the Master leaped back with a little sobbing<br />oath; and I believe the movement brought the light once more<br />against his eyes. To it they went again, on the fresh ground; but<br />now methought closer, Mr. Henry pressing more outrageously, the<br />Master beyond doubt with shaken confidence. For it is beyond doubt<br />he now recognised himself for lost, and had some taste of the cold<br />agony of fear; or he had never attempted the foul stroke. I cannot<br />say I followed it, my untrained eye was never quick enough to seize<br />details, but it appears he caught his brother's blade with his left<br />hand, a practice not permitted. Certainly Mr. Henry only saved<br />himself by leaping on one side; as certainly the Master, lunging in<br />the air, stumbled on his knee, and before he could move the sword<br />was through his body.<br />I cried out with a stifled scream, and ran in; but the body was<br />already fallen to the ground, where it writhed a moment like a<br />trodden worm, and then lay motionless.<br />"Look at his left hand." said Mr. Henry.<br />"It is all bloody," said I.<br />"On the inside?" said he.<br />"It is cut on the inside," said I.<br />"I thought so," said he, and turned his back.<br />I opened the man's clothes; the heart was quite still, it gave not<br />a flutter.<br />"God forgive us, Mr. Henry!" said I. "He is dead."<br />"Dead?" he repeated, a little stupidly; and then with a rising<br />tone, "Dead? dead?" says he, and suddenly cast his bloody sword<br />upon the ground.<br />"What must we do?" said I. "Be yourself, sir. It is too late now:<br />you must be yourself."<br />He turned and stared at me. "Oh, Mackellar!" says he, and put his<br />face in his hands.<br />I plucked him by the coat. "For God's sake, for all our sakes, be<br />more courageous!" said I. "What must we do?"<br />He showed me his face with the same stupid stare.<br />"Do?" says he. And with that his eye fell on the body, and "Oh!"<br />he cries out, with his hand to his brow, as if he had never<br />remembered; and, turning from me, made off towards the house of<br />Durrisdeer at a strange stumbling run.<br />I stood a moment mused; then it seemed to me my duty lay most plain<br />on the side of the living; and I ran after him, leaving the candles<br />on the frosty ground and the body lying in their light under the<br />trees. But run as I pleased, he had the start of me, and was got<br />into the house, and up to the hall, where I found him standing<br />before the fire with his face once more in his hands, and as he so<br />stood he visibly shuddered.<br />"Mr. Henry, Mr. Henry," I said, "this will be the ruin of us all."<br />"What is this that I have done?" cries he, and then looking upon me<br />with a countenance that I shall never forget, "Who is to tell the<br />old man?" he said.<br />The word knocked at my heart; but it was no time for weakness. I<br />went and poured him out a glass of brandy. "Drink that," said I,<br />"drink it down." I forced him to swallow it like a child; and,<br />being still perished with the cold of the night, I followed his<br />example.<br />"It has to be told, Mackellar," said he. "It must be told." And<br />he fell suddenly in a seat - my old lord's seat by the chimney-side<br />- and was shaken with dry sobs.<br />Dismay came upon my soul; it was plain there was no help in Mr.<br />Henry. "Well," said I, "sit there, and leave all to me." And<br />taking a candle in my hand, I set forth out of the room in the dark<br />house. There was no movement; I must suppose that all had gone<br />unobserved; and I was now to consider how to smuggle through the<br />rest with the like secrecy. It was no hour for scruples; and I<br />opened my lady's door without so much as a knock, and passed boldly<br />in.<br />"There is some calamity happened," she cried, sitting up in bed.<br />"Madam," said I, "I will go forth again into the passage; and do<br />you get as quickly as you can into your clothes. There is much to<br />be done."<br />She troubled me with no questions, nor did she keep me waiting.<br />Ere I had time to prepare a word of that which I must say to her,<br />she was on the threshold signing me to enter.<br />"Madam," said I, "if you cannot be very brave, I must go elsewhere;<br />for if no one helps me to-night, there is an end of the house of<br />Durrisdeer."<br />"I am very courageous," said she; and she looked at me with a sort<br />of smile, very painful to see, but very brave too.<br />"It has come to a duel," said I.<br />"A duel?" she repeated. "A duel! Henry and - "<br />"And the Master," said I. "Things have been borne so long, things<br />of which you know nothing, which you would not believe if I should<br />tell. But to-night it went too far, and when he insulted you - "<br />"Stop," said she. "He? Who?"<br />"Oh! madam," cried I, my bitterness breaking forth, "do you ask me<br />such a question? Indeed, then, I may go elsewhere for help; there<br />is none here!"<br />"I do not know in what I have offended you," said she. "Forgive<br />me; put me out of this suspense."<br />But I dared not tell her yet; I felt not sure of her; and at the<br />doubt, and under the sense of impotence it brought with it, I<br />turned on the poor woman with something near to anger.<br />"Madam," said I, "we are speaking of two men: one of them insulted<br />you, and you ask me which. I will help you to the answer. With<br />one of these men you have spent all your hours: has the other<br />reproached you? To one you have been always kind; to the other, as<br />God sees me and judges between us two, I think not always: has his<br />love ever failed you? To-night one of these two men told the<br />other, in my hearing - the hearing of a hired stranger, - that you<br />were in love with him. Before I say one word, you shall answer<br />your own question: Which was it? Nay, madam, you shall answer me<br />another: If it has come to this dreadful end, whose fault is it?"<br />She stared at me like one dazzled. "Good God!" she said once, in a<br />kind of bursting exclamation; and then a second time in a whisper<br />to herself: "Great God! - In the name of mercy, Mackellar, what is<br />wrong?" she cried. "I am made up; I can hear all."<br />"You are not fit to hear," said I. "Whatever it was, you shall say<br />first it was your fault."<br />"Oh!" she cried, with a gesture of wringing her hands, "this man<br />will drive me mad! Can you not put me out of your thoughts?"<br />"I think not once of you," I cried. "I think of none but my dear<br />unhappy master."<br />"Ah!" she cried, with her hand to her heart, "is Henry dead?"<br />"Lower your voice," said I. "The other."<br />I saw her sway like something stricken by the wind; and I know not<br />whether in cowardice or misery, turned aside and looked upon the<br />floor. "These are dreadful tidings," said I at length, when her<br />silence began to put me in some fear; "and you and I behove to be<br />the more bold if the house is to be saved." Still she answered<br />nothing. "There is Miss Katharine, besides," I added: "unless we<br />bring this matter through, her inheritance is like to be of shame."<br />I do not know if it was the thought of her child or the naked word<br />shame, that gave her deliverance; at least, I had no sooner spoken<br />than a sound passed her lips, the like of it I never heard; it was<br />as though she had lain buried under a hill and sought to move that<br />burthen. And the next moment she had found a sort of voice.<br />"It was a fight," she whispered. "It was not - " and she paused<br />upon the word.<br />"It was a fair fight on my dear master's part," said I. "As for<br />the other, he was slain in the very act of a foul stroke."<br />"Not now!" she cried.<br />"Madam," said I, "hatred of that man glows in my bosom like a<br />burning fire; ay, even now he is dead. God knows, I would have<br />stopped the fighting, had I dared. It is my shame I did not. But<br />when I saw him fall, if I could have spared one thought from<br />pitying of my master, it had been to exult in that deliverance."<br />I do not know if she marked; but her next words were, "My lord?"<br />"That shall be my part," said I.<br />"You will not speak to him as you have to me?" she asked.<br />"Madam," said I, "have you not some one else to think of? Leave my<br />lord to me."<br />"Some one else?" she repeated.<br />"Your husband," said I. She looked at me with a countenance<br />illegible. "Are you going to turn your back on him?" I asked.<br />Still she looked at me; then her hand went to her heart again.<br />"No," said she.<br />"God bless you for that word!" I said. "Go to him now, where he<br />sits in the hall; speak to him - it matters not what you say; give<br />him your hand; say, 'I know all;' - if God gives you grace enough,<br />say, 'Forgive me.'"<br />"God strengthen you, and make you merciful," said she. "I will go<br />to my husband."<br />"Let me light you there," said I, taking up the candle.<br />"I will find my way in the dark," she said, with a shudder, and I<br />think the shudder was at me.<br />So we separated - she down stairs to where a little light glimmered<br />in the hall-door, I along the passage to my lord's room. It seems<br />hard to say why, but I could not burst in on the old man as I could<br />on the young woman; with whatever reluctance, I must knock. But<br />his old slumbers were light, or perhaps he slept not; and at the<br />first summons I was bidden enter.<br />He, too, sat up in bed; very aged and bloodless he looked; and<br />whereas he had a certain largeness of appearance when dressed for<br />daylight, he now seemed frail and little, and his face (the wig<br />being laid aside) not bigger than a child's. This daunted me; nor<br />less, the haggard surmise of misfortune in his eye. Yet his voice<br />was even peaceful as he inquired my errand. I set my candle down<br />upon a chair, leaned on the bed-foot, and looked at him.<br />"Lord Durrisdeer," said I, "it is very well known to you that I am<br />a partisan in your family."<br />"I hope we are none of us partisans," said he. "That you love my<br />son sincerely, I have always been glad to recognise."<br />"Oh! my lord, we are past the hour of these civilities," I replied.<br />"If we are to save anything out of the fire, we must look the fact<br />in its bare countenance. A partisan I am; partisans we have all<br />been; it is as a partisan that I am here in the middle of the night<br />to plead before you. Hear me; before I go, I will tell you why."<br />"I would always hear you, Mr. Mackellar," said he, "and that at any<br />hour, whether of the day or night, for I would be always sure you<br />had a reason. You spoke once before to very proper purpose; I have<br />not forgotten that."<br />"I am here to plead the cause of my master," I said. "I need not<br />tell you how he acts. You know how he is placed. You know with<br />what generosity, he has always met your other - met your wishes," I<br />corrected myself, stumbling at that name of son. "You know - you<br />must know - what he has suffered - what he has suffered about his<br />wife."<br />"Mr. Mackellar!" cried my lord, rising in bed like a bearded lion.<br />"You said you would hear me," I continued. "What you do not know,<br />what you should know, one of the things I am here to speak of, is<br />the persecution he must bear in private. Your back is not turned<br />before one whom I dare not name to you falls upon him with the most<br />unfeeling taunts; twits him - pardon me, my lord - twits him with<br />your partiality, calls him Jacob, calls him clown, pursues him with<br />ungenerous raillery, not to be borne by man. And let but one of<br />you appear, instantly he changes; and my master must smile and<br />courtesy to the man who has been feeding him with insults; I know,<br />for I have shared in some of it, and I tell you the life is<br />insupportable. All these months it has endured; it began with the<br />man's landing; it was by the name of Jacob that my master was<br />greeted the first night."<br />My lord made a movement as if to throw aside the clothes and rise.<br />"If there be any truth in this - " said he.<br />"Do I look like a man lying?" I interrupted, checking him with my<br />hand.<br />"You should have told me at first," he odd.<br />"Ah, my lord! indeed I should, and you may well hate the face of<br />this unfaithful servant!" I cried.<br />"I will take order," said he, "at once." And again made the<br />movement to rise.<br />Again I checked him. "I have not done," said I. "Would God I had!<br />All this my dear, unfortunate patron has endured without help or<br />countenance. Your own best word, my lord, was only gratitude. Oh,<br />but he was your son, too! He had no other father. He was hated in<br />the country, God knows how unjustly. He had a loveless marriage.<br />He stood on all hands without affection or support - dear,<br />generous, ill-fated, noble heart!"<br />"Your tears do you much honour and me much shame," says my lord,<br />with a palsied trembling. "But you do me some injustice. Henry<br />has been ever dear to me, very dear. James (I do not deny it, Mr.<br />Mackellar), James is perhaps dearer; you have not seen my James in<br />quite a favourable light; he has suffered under his misfortunes;<br />and we can only remember how great and how unmerited these were.<br />And even now his is the more affectionate nature. But I will not<br />speak of him. All that you say of Henry is most true; I do not<br />wonder, I know him to be very magnanimous; you will say I trade<br />upon the knowledge? It is possible; there are dangerous virtues:<br />virtues that tempt the encroacher. Mr. Mackellar, I will make it<br />up to him; I will take order with all this. I have been weak; and,<br />what is worse, I have been dull!"<br />"I must not hear you blame yourself, my lord, with that which I<br />have yet to tell upon my conscience," I replied. "You have not<br />been weak; you have been abused by a devilish dissembler. You saw<br />yourself how he had deceived you in the matter of his danger; he<br />has deceived you throughout in every step of his career. I wish to<br />pluck him from your heart; I wish to force your eyes upon your<br />other son; ah, you have a son there!"<br />"No, no" said he, "two sons - I have two sons."<br />I made some gesture of despair that struck him; he looked at me<br />with a changed face. "There is much worse behind?" he asked, his<br />voice dying as it rose upon the question.<br />"Much worse," I answered. "This night he said these words to Mr.<br />Henry: 'I have never known a woman who did not prefer me to you,<br />and I think who did not continue to prefer me.'"<br />"I will hear nothing against my daughter," he cried; and from his<br />readiness to stop me in this direction, I conclude his eyes were<br />not so dull as I had fancied, and he had looked not without anxiety<br />upon the siege of Mrs. Henry.<br />"I think not of blaming her," cried I. "It is not that. These<br />words were said in my hearing to Mr. Henry; and if you find them<br />not yet plain enough, these others but a little after: Your wife,<br />who is in love with me!'"<br />"They have quarrelled?" he said.<br />I nodded.<br />"I must fly to them," he said, beginning once again to leave his<br />bed.<br />"No, no!" I cried, holding forth my hands.<br />"You do not know," said he. "These are dangerous words."<br />"Will nothing make you understand, my lord?' said I.<br />His eyes besought me for the truth.<br />I flung myself on my knees by the bedside. "Oh, my lord," cried I,<br />"think on him you have left; think of this poor sinner whom you<br />begot, whom your wife bore to you, whom we have none of us<br />strengthened as we could; think of him, not of yourself; he is the<br />other sufferer - think of him! That is the door for sorrow -<br />Christ's door, God's door: oh! it stands open. Think of him, even<br />as he thought of you. 'WHO IS TO TELL THE OLD MAN?' - these were<br />his words. It was for that I came; that is why I am here pleading<br />at your feet."<br />"Let me get up," he cried, thrusting me aside, and was on his feet<br />before myself. His voice shook like a sail in the wind, yet he<br />spoke with a good loudness; his face was like the snow, but his<br />eyes were steady and dry.<br />"Here is too much speech," said he. "Where was it?"<br />"In the shrubbery," said I.<br />"And Mr. Henry?" he asked. And when I had told him he knotted his<br />old face in thought.<br />"And Mr. James?" says he.<br />"I have left him lying," said I, "beside the candles."<br />"Candles?" he cried. And with that he ran to the window, opened<br />it, and looked abroad. "It might be spied from the road."<br />"Where none goes by at such an hour," I objected.<br />"It makes no matter," he said. "One might. Hark!" cries he.<br />"What is that?"<br />It was the sound of men very guardedly rowing in the bay; and I<br />told him so.<br />"The freetraders," said my lord. "Run at once, Mackellar; put<br />these candles out. I will dress in the meanwhile; and when you<br />return we can debate on what is wisest."<br />I groped my way downstairs, and out at the door. From quite a far<br />way off a sheen was visible, making points of brightness in the<br />shrubbery; in so black a night it might have been remarked for<br />miles; and I blamed myself bitterly for my incaution. How much<br />more sharply when I reached the place! One of the candlesticks was<br />overthrown, and that taper quenched. The other burned steadily by<br />itself, and made a broad space of light upon the frosted ground.<br />All within that circle seemed, by the force of contrast and the<br />overhanging blackness, brighter than by day. And there was the<br />bloodstain in the midst; and a little farther off Mr. Henry's<br />sword, the pommel of which was of silver; but of the body, not a<br />trace. My heart thumped upon my ribs, the hair stirred upon my<br />scalp, as I stood there staring - so strange was the sight, so dire<br />the fears it wakened. I looked right and left; the ground was so<br />hard, it told no story. I stood and listened till my ears ached,<br />but the night was hollow about me like an empty church; not even a<br />ripple stirred upon the shore; it seemed you might have heard a pin<br />drop in the county.<br />I put the candle out, and the blackness fell about me groping dark;<br />it was like a crowd surrounding me; and I went back to the house of<br />Durrisdeer, with my chin upon my shoulder, startling, as I went,<br />with craven suppositions. In the door a figure moved to meet me,<br />and I had near screamed with terror ere I recognised Mrs. Henry.<br />"Have you told him?" says she.<br />"It was he who sent me," said I. "It is gone. But why are you<br />here?"<br />"It is gone!" she repeated. "What is gone?"<br />"The body," said I. "Why are you not with your husband?"<br />"Gone!" said she. "You cannot have looked. Come back."<br />"There is no light now," said I. "I dare not."<br />"I can see in the dark. I have been standing here so long - so<br />long," said she. "Come, give me your hand."<br />We returned to the shrubbery hand in hand, and to the fatal place.<br />"Take care of the blood," said I.<br />"Blood?" she cried, and started violently back.<br />"I suppose it will be," said I. "I am like a blind man."<br />"No!" said she, "nothing! Have you not dreamed?"<br />"Ah, would to God we had!" cried I.<br />She spied the sword, picked it up, and seeing the blood, let it<br />fall again with her hands thrown wide. "Ah!" she cried. And then,<br />with an instant courage, handled it the second time, and thrust it<br />to the hilt into the frozen ground. "I will take it back and clean<br />it properly," says she, and again looked about her on all sides.<br />"It cannot be that he was dead?" she added.<br />"There was no flutter of his heart," said I, and then remembering:<br />"Why are you not with your husband?"<br />"It is no use," said she; "he will not speak to me."<br />"Not speak to you?" I repeated. "Oh! you have not tried."<br />"You have a right to doubt me," she replied, with a gentle dignity.<br />At this, for the first time, I was seized with sorrow for her.<br />"God knows, madam," I cried, "God knows I am not so hard as I<br />appear; on this dreadful night who can veneer his words? But I am<br />a friend to all who are not Henry Durie's enemies."<br />"It is hard, then, you should hesitate about his wife," said she.<br />I saw all at once, like the rending of a veil, how nobly she had<br />borne this unnatural calamity, and how generously my reproaches.<br />"We must go back and tell this to my lord," said I.<br />"Him I cannot face," she cried.<br />"You will find him the least moved of all of us," said I.<br />"And yet I cannot face him," said she.<br />"Well," said I, "you can return to Mr. Henry; I will see my lord."<br />As we walked back, I bearing the candlesticks, she the sword - a<br />strange burthen for that woman - she had another thought. "Should<br />we tell Henry?" she asked.<br />"Let my lord decide," said I.<br />My lord was nearly dressed when I came to his chamber. He heard me<br />with a frown. "The freetraders," said he. "But whether dead or<br />alive?"<br />"I thought him - " said I, and paused, ashamed of the word.<br />"I know; but you may very well have been in error. Why should they<br />remove him if not living?" he asked. "Oh! here is a great door of<br />hope. It must be given out that he departed - as he came - without<br />any note of preparation. We must save all scandal."<br />I saw he had fallen, like the rest of us, to think mainly of the<br />house. Now that all the living members of the family were plunged<br />in irremediable sorrow, it was strange how we turned to that<br />conjoint abstraction of the family itself, and sought to bolster up<br />the airy nothing of its reputation: not the Duries only, but the<br />hired steward himself.<br />"Are we to tell Mr. Henry?" I asked him.<br />"I will see," said he. "I am going first to visit him; then I go<br />forth with you to view the shrubbery and consider."<br />We went downstairs into the hall. Mr. Henry sat by the table with<br />his head upon his hand, like a man of stone. His wife stood a<br />little back from him, her hand at her mouth; it was plain she could<br />not move him. My old lord walked very steadily to where his son<br />was sitting; he had a steady countenance, too, but methought a<br />little cold. When he was come quite up, he held out both his hands<br />and said, "My son!"<br />With a broken, strangled cry, Mr. Henry leaped up and fell on his<br />father's neck, crying and weeping, the most pitiful sight that ever<br />a man witnessed. "Oh! father," he cried, "you know I loved him;<br />you know I loved him in the beginning; I could have died for him -<br />you know that! I would have given my life for him and you. Oh!<br />say you know that. Oh! say you can forgive me. O father, father,<br />what have I done - what have I done? And we used to be bairns<br />together!" and wept and sobbed, and fondled the old man, and<br />clutched him about the neck, with the passion of a child in terror.<br />And then he caught sight of his wife (you would have thought for<br />the first time), where she stood weeping to hear him, and in a<br />moment had fallen at her knees. "And O my lass," he cried, "you<br />must forgive me, too! Not your husband - I have only been the ruin<br />of your life. But you knew me when I was a lad; there was no harm<br />in Henry Durie then; he meant aye to be a friend to you. It's him<br />- it's the old bairn that played with you - oh, can ye never, never<br />forgive him?"<br />Throughout all this my lord was like a cold, kind spectator with<br />his wits about him. At the first cry, which was indeed enough to<br />call the house about us, he had said to me over his shoulder,<br />"Close the door." And now he nodded to himself.<br />"We may leave him to his wife now,"' says he. "Bring a light, Mr.<br />Mackellar."<br />Upon my going forth again with my lord, I was aware of a strange<br />phenomenon; for though it was quite dark, and the night not yet<br />old, methought I smelt the morning. At the same time there went a<br />tossing through the branches of the evergreens, so that they<br />sounded like a quiet sea, and the air pulled at times against our<br />faces, and the flame of the candle shook. We made the more speed,<br />I believe, being surrounded by this bustle; visited the scene of<br />the duel, where my lord looked upon the blood with stoicism; and<br />passing farther on toward the landing-place, came at last upon some<br />evidences of the truth. For, first of all, where there was a pool<br />across the path, the ice had been trodden in, plainly by more than<br />one man's weight; next, and but a little farther, a young tree was<br />broken, and down by the landing-place, where the traders' boats<br />were usually beached, another stain of blood marked where the body<br />must have been infallibly set down to rest the bearers.<br />This stain we set ourselves to wash away with the sea-water,<br />carrying it in my lord's hat; and as we were thus engaged there<br />came up a sudden moaning gust and left us instantly benighted.<br />"It will come to snow," says my lord; "and the best thing that we<br />could hope. Let us go back now; we can do nothing in the dark."<br />As we went houseward, the wind being again subsided, we were aware<br />of a strong pattering noise about us in the night; and when we<br />issued from the shelter of the trees, we found it raining smartly.<br />Throughout the whole of this, my lord's clearness of mind, no less<br />than his activity of body, had not ceased to minister to my<br />amazement. He set the crown upon it in the council we held on our<br />return. The freetraders had certainly secured the Master, though<br />whether dead or alive we were still left to our conjectures; the<br />rain would, long before day, wipe out all marks of the transaction;<br />by this we must profit. The Master had unexpectedly come after the<br />fall of night; it must now he given out he had as suddenly departed<br />before the break of day; and, to make all this plausible, it now<br />only remained for me to mount into the man's chamber, and pack and<br />conceal his baggage. True, we still lay at the discretion of the<br />traders; but that was the incurable weakness of our guilt.<br />I heard him, as I said, with wonder, and hastened to obey. Mr. and<br />Mrs. Henry were gone from the hall; my lord, for warmth's sake,<br />hurried to his bed; there was still no sign of stir among the<br />servants, and as I went up the tower stair, and entered the dead<br />man's room, a horror of solitude weighed upon my mind. To my<br />extreme surprise, it was all in the disorder of departure. Of his<br />three portmanteaux, two were already locked; the third lay open and<br />near full. At once there flashed upon me some suspicion of the<br />truth. The man had been going, after all; he had but waited upon<br />Crail, as Crail waited upon the wind; early in the night the seamen<br />had perceived the weather changing; the boat had come to give<br />notice of the change and call the passenger aboard, and the boat's<br />crew had stumbled on him dying in his blood. Nay, and there was<br />more behind. This pre-arranged departure shed some light upon his<br />inconceivable insult of the night before; it was a parting shot,<br />hatred being no longer checked by policy. And, for another thing,<br />the nature of that insult, and the conduct of Mrs. Henry, pointed<br />to one conclusion, which I have never verified, and can now never<br />verify until the great assize - the conclusion that he had at last<br />forgotten himself, had gone too far in his advances, and had been<br />rebuffed. It can never be verified, as I say; but as I thought of<br />it that morning among his baggage, the thought was sweet to me like<br />honey.<br />Into the open portmanteau I dipped a little ere I closed it. The<br />most beautiful lace and linen, many suits of those fine plain<br />clothes in which he loved to appear; a book or two, and those of<br />the best, Caesar's "Commentaries," a volume of Mr. Hobbes, the<br />"Henriade" of M. de Voltaire, a book upon the Indies, one on the<br />mathematics, far beyond where I have studied: these were what I<br />observed with very mingled feelings. But in the open portmanteau,<br />no papers of any description. This set me musing. It was possible<br />the man was dead; but, since the traders had carried him away, not<br />likely. It was possible he might still die of his wound; but it<br />was also possible he might not. And in this latter case I was<br />determined to have the means of some defence.<br />One after another I carried his portmanteaux to a loft in the top<br />of the house which we kept locked; went to my own room for my keys,<br />and, returning to the loft, had the gratification to find two that<br />fitted pretty well. In one of the portmanteaux there was a<br />shagreen letter-case, which I cut open with my knife; and<br />thenceforth (so far as any credit went) the man was at my mercy.<br />Here was a vast deal of gallant correspondence, chiefly of his<br />Paris days; and, what was more to the purpose, here were the copies<br />of his own reports to the English Secretary, and the originals of<br />the Secretary's answers: a most damning series: such as to<br />publish would be to wreck the Master's honour and to set a price<br />upon his life. I chuckled to myself as I ran through the<br />documents; I rubbed my hands, I sang aloud in my glee. Day found<br />me at the pleasing task; nor did I then remit my diligence, except<br />in so far as I went to the window - looked out for a moment, to see<br />the frost quite gone, the world turned black again, and the rain<br />and the wind driving in the bay - and to assure myself that the<br />lugger was gone from its anchorage, and the Master (whether dead or<br />alive) now tumbling on the Irish Sea.<br />It is proper I should add in this place the very little I have<br />subsequently angled out upon the doings of that night. It took me<br />a long while to gather it; for we dared not openly ask, and the<br />freetraders regarded me with enmity, if not with scorn. It was<br />near six months before we even knew for certain that the man<br />survived; and it was years before I learned from one of Crail's<br />men, turned publican on his ill-gotten gain, some particulars which<br />smack to me of truth. It seems the traders found the Master<br />struggled on one elbow, and now staring round him, and now gazing<br />at the candle or at his hand which was all bloodied, like a man<br />stupid. Upon their coming, he would seem to have found his mind,<br />bade them carry him aboard, and hold their tongues; and on the<br />captain asking how he had come in such a pickle, replied with a<br />burst of passionate swearing, and incontinently fainted. They held<br />some debate, but they were momently looking for a wind, they were<br />highly paid to smuggle him to France, and did not care to delay.<br />Besides which, he was well enough liked by these abominable<br />wretches: they supposed him under capital sentence, knew not in<br />what mischief he might have got his wound, and judged it a piece of<br />good nature to remove him out of the way of danger. So he was<br />taken aboard, recovered on the passage over, and was set ashore a<br />convalescent at the Havre de Grace. What is truly notable: he<br />said not a word to anyone of the duel, and not a trader knows to<br />this day in what quarrel, or by the hand of what adversary, he<br />fell. With any other man I should have set this down to natural<br />decency; with him, to pride. He could not bear to avow, perhaps<br />even to himself, that he had been vanquished by one whom he had so<br />much insulted whom he so cruelly despised.<br />CHAPTER VI. - SUMMARY OF EVENTS DURING THE MASTER'S SECOND<br />ABSENCE.<br />Of the heavy sickness which declared itself next morning I can<br />think with equanimity, as of the last unmingled trouble that befell<br />my master; and even that was perhaps a mercy in disguise; for what<br />pains of the body could equal the miseries of his mind? Mrs. Henry<br />and I had the watching by the bed. My old lord called from time to<br />time to take the news, but would not usually pass the door. Once,<br />I remember, when hope was nigh gone, he stepped to the bedside,<br />looked awhile in his son's face, and turned away with a gesture of<br />the head and hand thrown up, that remains upon my mind as something<br />tragic; such grief and such a scorn of sublunary things were there<br />expressed. But the most of the time Mrs. Henry and I had the room<br />to ourselves, taking turns by night, and bearing each other company<br />by day, for it was dreary watching. Mr. Henry, his shaven head<br />bound in a napkin, tossed fro without remission, beating the bed<br />with his hands. His tongue never lay; his voice ran continuously<br />like a river, so that my heart was weary with the sound of it. It<br />was notable, and to me inexpressibly mortifying, that he spoke all<br />the while on matters of no import: comings and goings, horses -<br />which he was ever calling to have saddled, thinking perhaps (the<br />poor soul!) that he might ride away from his discomfort - matters<br />of the garden, the salmon nets, and (what I particularly raged to<br />hear) continually of his affairs, cyphering figures and holding<br />disputation with the tenantry. Never a word of his father or his<br />wife, nor of the Master, save only for a day or two, when his mind<br />dwelled entirely in the past, and he supposed himself a boy again<br />and upon some innocent child's play with his brother. What made<br />this the more affecting: it appeared the Master had then run some<br />peril of his life, for there was a cry - "Oh! Jamie will be<br />drowned - Oh, save Jamie!" which he came over and over with a great<br />deal of passion.<br />This, I say, was affecting, both to Mrs. Henry and myself; but the<br />balance of my master's wanderings did him little justice. It<br />seemed he had set out to justify his brother's calumnies; as though<br />he was bent to prove himself a man of a dry nature, immersed in<br />money-getting. Had I been there alone, I would not have troubled<br />my thumb; but all the while, as I listened, I was estimating the<br />effect on the man's wife, and telling myself that he fell lower<br />every day. I was the one person on the surface of the globe that<br />comprehended him, and I was bound there should be yet another.<br />Whether he was to die there and his virtues perish: or whether he<br />should save his days and come back to that inheritance of sorrows,<br />his right memory: I was bound he should be heartily lamented in<br />the one case, and unaffectedly welcomed in the other, by the person<br />he loved the most, his wife.<br />Finding no occasion of free speech, I bethought me at last of a<br />kind of documentary disclosure; and for some nights, when I was off<br />duty and should have been asleep, I gave my time to the preparation<br />of that which I may call my budget. But this I found to be the<br />easiest portion of my task, and that which remained - namely, the<br />presentation to my lady - almost more than I had fortitude to<br />overtake. Several days I went about with my papers under my arm,<br />spying for some juncture of talk to serve as introduction. I will<br />not deny but that some offered; only when they did my tongue clove<br />to the roof of my mouth; and I think I might have been carrying<br />about my packet till this day, had not a fortunate accident<br />delivered me from all my hesitations. This was at night, when I<br />was once more leaving the room, the thing not yet done, and myself<br />in despair at my own cowardice.<br />"What do you carry about with you, Mr. Mackellar?" she asked.<br />"These last days, I see you always coming in and out with the same<br />armful."<br />I returned upon my steps without a word, laid the papers before her<br />on the table, and left her to her reading. Of what that was, I am<br />now to give you some idea; and the best will be to reproduce a<br />letter of my own which came first in the budget and of which<br />(according to an excellent habitude) I have preserved the scroll.<br />It will show, too, the moderation of my part in these affairs, a<br />thing which some have called recklessly in question.<br />"Durrisdeer.<br />"1757.<br />"HONOURED MADAM,<br />"I trust I would not step out of my place without occasion; but I<br />see how much evil has flowed in the past to all of your noble house<br />from that unhappy and secretive fault of reticency, and the papers<br />on which I venture to call your attention are family papers, and<br />all highly worthy your acquaintance.<br />"I append a schedule with some necessary observations,<br />"And am,<br />"Honoured Madam,<br />"Your ladyship's obliged, obedient servant,<br />"EPHRAIM MACKELLAR.<br />"Schedule of Papers.<br />"A. Scroll of ten letters from Ephraim Mackellar to the Hon. James<br />Durie, Esq., by courtesy Master of Ballantrae during the latter's<br />residence in Paris: under dates . . . " (follow the dates) . . .<br />"Nota: to be read in connection with B. and C.<br />"B. Seven original letters from the said Mr of Ballantrae to the<br />said E. Mackellar, under dates . . . " (follow the dates.)<br />"C. Three original letters from the Mr of Ballantrae to the Hon.<br />Henry Durie, Esq., under dates . . . " (follow the dates) . . .<br />"Nota: given me by Mr. Henry to answer: copies of my answers A 4,<br />A 5, and A 9 of these productions. The purport of Mr. Henry's<br />communications, of which I can find no scroll, may be gathered from<br />those of his unnatural brother.<br />"D. A correspondence, original and scroll, extending over a period<br />of three years till January of the current year, between the said<br />Mr of Ballantrae and - -, Under Secretary of State; twenty-seven in<br />all. Nota: found among the Master's papers."<br />Weary as I was with watching and distress of mind, it was<br />impossible for me to sleep. All night long I walked in my chamber,<br />revolving what should be the issue, and sometimes repenting the<br />temerity of my immixture in affairs so private; and with the first<br />peep of the morning I was at the sick-room door. Mrs. Henry had<br />thrown open the shutters and even the window, for the temperature<br />was mild. She looked steadfastly before her; where was nothing to<br />see, or only the blue of the morning creeping among woods. Upon<br />the stir of my entrance she did not so much as turn about her face:<br />a circumstance from which I augured very ill.<br />"Madam," I began; and then again, "Madam;" but could make no more<br />of it. Nor yet did Mrs. Henry come to my assistance with a word.<br />In this pass I began gathering up the papers where they lay<br />scattered on the table; and the first thing that struck me, their<br />bulk appeared to have diminished. Once I ran them through, and<br />twice; but the correspondence with the Secretary of State, on which<br />I had reckoned so much against the future, was nowhere to be found.<br />I looked in the chimney; amid the smouldering embers, black ashes<br />of paper fluttered in the draught; and at that my timidity<br />vanished.<br />"Good God, madam," cried I, in a voice not fitting for a sick-room,<br />"Good God, madam, what have you done with my papers?"<br />"I have burned them," said Mrs. Henry, turning about. "It is<br />enough, it is too much, that you and I have seen them."<br />"This is a fine night's work that you have done!" cried I. "And<br />all to save the reputation of a man that ate bread by the shedding<br />of his comrades' blood, as I do by the shedding of ink."<br />"To save the reputation of that family in which you are a servant,<br />Mr. Mackellar," she returned, "and for which you have already done<br />so much."<br />"It is a family I will not serve much longer," I cried, "for I am<br />driven desperate. You have stricken the sword out of my hands; you<br />have left us all defenceless. I had always these letters I could<br />shake over his head; and now - What is to do? We are so falsely<br />situate we dare not show the man the door; the country would fly on<br />fire against us; and I had this one hold upon him - and now it is<br />gone - now he may come back to-morrow, and we must all sit down<br />with him to dinner, go for a stroll with him on the terrace, or<br />take a hand at cards, of all things, to divert his leisure! No,<br />madam! God forgive you, if He can find it in His heart; for I<br />cannot find it in mine."<br />"I wonder to find you so simple, Mr. Mackellar," said Mrs. Henry.<br />"What does this man value reputation? But he knows how high we<br />prize it; he knows we would rather die than make these letters<br />public; and do you suppose he would not trade upon the knowledge?<br />What you call your sword, Mr. Mackellar, and which had been one<br />indeed against a man of any remnant of propriety, would have been<br />but a sword of paper against him. He would smile in your face at<br />such a threat. He stands upon his degradation, he makes that his<br />strength; it is in vain to struggle with such characters." She<br />cried out this last a little desperately, and then with more quiet:<br />"No, Mr. Mackellar; I have thought upon this matter all night, and<br />there is no way out of it. Papers or no papers, the door of this<br />house stands open for him; he is the rightful heir, forsooth! If<br />we sought to exclude him, all would redound against poor Henry, and<br />I should see him stoned again upon the streets. Ah! if Henry dies,<br />it is a different matter! They have broke the entail for their own<br />good purposes; the estate goes to my daughter; and I shall see who<br />sets a foot upon it. But if Henry lives, my poor Mr. Mackellar,<br />and that man returns, we must suffer: only this time it will be<br />together."<br />On the whole I was well pleased with Mrs. Henry's attitude of mind;<br />nor could I even deny there was some cogency in that which she<br />advanced about the papers.<br />"Let us say no more about it," said I. "I can only be sorry I<br />trusted a lady with the originals, which was an unbusinesslike<br />proceeding at the best. As for what I said of leaving the service<br />of the family, it was spoken with the tongue only; and you may set<br />your mind at rest. I belong to Durrisdeer, Mrs. Henry, as if I had<br />been born there."<br />I must do her the justice to say she seemed perfectly relieved; so<br />that we began this morning, as we were to continue for so many<br />years, on a proper ground of mutual indulgence and respect.<br />The same day, which was certainly prededicate to joy, we observed<br />the first signal of recovery in Mr. Henry; and about three of the<br />following afternoon he found his mind again, recognising me by name<br />with the strongest evidences of affection. Mrs. Henry was also in<br />the room, at the bedfoot; but it did not appear that he observed<br />her. And indeed (the fever being gone) he was so weak that he made<br />but the one effort and sank again into lethargy. The course of his<br />restoration was now slow but equal; every day his appetite<br />improved; every week we were able to remark an increase both of<br />strength and flesh; and before the end of the month he was out of<br />bed and had even begun to be carried in his chair upon the terrace.<br />It was perhaps at this time that Mrs. Henry and I were the most<br />uneasy in mind. Apprehension for his days was at an end; and a<br />worse fear succeeded. Every day we drew consciously nearer to a<br />day of reckoning; and the days passed on, and still there was<br />nothing. Mr. Henry bettered in strength, he held long talks with<br />us on a great diversity of subjects, his father came and sat with<br />him and went again; and still there was no reference to the late<br />tragedy or to the former troubles which had brought it on. Did he<br />remember, and conceal his dreadful knowledge? or was the whole<br />blotted from his mind? This was the problem that kept us watching<br />and trembling all day when we were in his company and held us awake<br />at night when we were in our lonely beds. We knew not even which<br />alternative to hope for, both appearing so unnatural and pointing<br />so directly to an unsound brain. Once this fear offered, I<br />observed his conduct with sedulous particularity. Something of the<br />child he exhibited: a cheerfulness quite foreign to his previous<br />character, an interest readily aroused, and then very tenacious, in<br />small matters which he had heretofore despised. When he was<br />stricken down, I was his only confidant, and I may say his only<br />friend, and he was on terms of division with his wife; upon his<br />recovery, all was changed, the past forgotten, the wife first and<br />even single in his thoughts. He turned to her with all his<br />emotions, like a child to its mother, and seemed secure of<br />sympathy; called her in all his needs with something of that<br />querulous familiarity that marks a certainty of indulgence; and I<br />must say, in justice to the woman, he was never disappointed. To<br />her, indeed, this changed behaviour was inexpressibly affecting;<br />and I think she felt it secretly as a reproach; so that I have seen<br />her, in early days, escape out of the room that she might indulge<br />herself in weeping. But to me the change appeared not natural; and<br />viewing it along with all the rest, I began to wonder, with many<br />head-shakings, whether his reason were perfectly erect.<br />As this doubt stretched over many years, endured indeed until my<br />master's death, and clouded all our subsequent relations, I may<br />well consider of it more at large. When he was able to resume some<br />charge of his affairs, I had many opportunities to try him with<br />precision. There was no lack of understanding, nor yet of<br />authority; but the old continuous interest had quite departed; he<br />grew readily fatigued, and fell to yawning; and he carried into<br />money relations, where it is certainly out of place, a facility<br />that bordered upon slackness. True, since we had no longer the<br />exactions of the Master to contend against, there was the less<br />occasion to raise strictness into principle or do battle for a<br />farthing. True, again, there was nothing excessive in these<br />relaxations, or I would have been no party to them. But the whole<br />thing marked a change, very slight yet very perceptible; and though<br />no man could say my master had gone at all out of his mind, no man<br />could deny that he had drifted from his character. It was the same<br />to the end, with his manner and appearance. Some of the heat of<br />the fever lingered in his veins: his movements a little hurried,<br />his speech notably more voluble, yet neither truly amiss. His<br />whole mind stood open to happy impressions, welcoming these and<br />making much of them; but the smallest suggestion of trouble or<br />sorrow he received with visible impatience and dismissed again with<br />immediate relief. It was to this temper that he owed the felicity<br />of his later days; and yet here it was, if anywhere, that you could<br />call the man insane. A great part of this life consists in<br />contemplating what we cannot cure; but Mr. Henry, if he could not<br />dismiss solicitude by an effort of the mind, must instantly and at<br />whatever cost annihilate the cause of it; so that he played<br />alternately the ostrich and the bull. It is to this strenuous<br />cowardice of pain that I have to set down all the unfortunate and<br />excessive steps of his subsequent career. Certainly this was the<br />reason of his beating McManus, the groom, a thing so much out of<br />all his former practice, and which awakened so much comment at the<br />time. It is to this, again, that I must lay the total lose of near<br />upon two hundred pounds, more than the half of which I could have<br />saved if his impatience would have suffered me. But he preferred<br />loss or any desperate extreme to a continuance of mental suffering.<br />All this has led me far from our immediate trouble: whether he<br />remembered or had forgotten his late dreadful act; and if he<br />remembered, in what light he viewed it. The truth burst upon us<br />suddenly, and was indeed one of the chief surprises of my life. He<br />had been several times abroad, and was now beginning to walk a<br />little with an arm, when it chanced I should be left alone with him<br />upon the terrace. He turned to me with a singular furtive smile,<br />such as schoolboys use when in fault; and says he, in a private<br />whisper and without the least preface: "Where have you buried<br />him?"<br />I could not make one sound in answer.<br />"Where have you buried him?" he repeated. "I want to see his<br />grave."<br />I conceived I had best take the bull by the horns. "Mr. Henry,"<br />said I, "I have news to give that will rejoice you exceedingly. In<br />all human likelihood, your hands are clear of blood. I reason from<br />certain indices; and by these it should appear your brother was not<br />dead, but was carried in a swound on board the lugger. But now he<br />may be perfectly recovered."<br />What there was in his countenance I could not read. "James?" he<br />asked.<br />"Your brother James," I answered. "I would not raise a hope that<br />may be found deceptive, but in my heart I think it very probable he<br />is alive."<br />"Ah!" says Mr. Henry; and suddenly rising from his seat with more<br />alacrity than he had yet discovered, set one finger on my breast,<br />and cried at me in a kind of screaming whisper, "Mackellar" - these<br />were his words - "nothing can kill that man. He is not mortal. He<br />is bound upon my back to all eternity - to all eternity!" says he,<br />and, sitting down again, fell upon a stubborn silence.<br />A day or two after, with the same secret smile, and first looking<br />about as if to be sure we were alone, "Mackellar," said he, "when<br />you have any intelligence, be sure and let me know. We must keep<br />an eye upon him, or he will take us when we least expect."<br />"He will not show face here again," said I.<br />"Oh yes he will," said Mr. Henry. "Wherever I am, there will he<br />be." And again he looked all about him.<br />"You must not dwell upon this thought, Mr. Henry," said I.<br />"No," said he, "that is a very good advice. We will never think of<br />it, except when you have news. And we do not know yet," he added;<br />"he may be dead."<br />The manner of his saying this convinced me thoroughly of what I had<br />scarce ventured to suspect: that, so far from suffering any<br />penitence for the attempt, he did but lament his failure. This was<br />a discovery I kept to myself, fearing it might do him a prejudice<br />with his wife. But I might have saved myself the trouble; she had<br />divined it for herself, and found the sentiment quite natural.<br />Indeed, I could not but say that there were three of us, all of the<br />same mind; nor could any news have reached Durrisdeer more<br />generally welcome than tidings of the Master's death.<br />This brings me to speak of the exception, my old lord. As soon as<br />my anxiety for my own master began to be relaxed, I was aware of a<br />change in the old gentleman, his father, that seemed to threaten<br />mortal consequences.<br />His face was pale and swollen; as he sat in the chimney-side with<br />his Latin, he would drop off sleeping and the book roll in the<br />ashes; some days he would drag his foot, others stumble in<br />speaking. The amenity of his behaviour appeared more extreme; full<br />of excuses for the least trouble, very thoughtful for all; to<br />myself, of a most flattering civility. One day, that he had sent<br />for his lawyer and remained a long while private, he met me as he<br />was crossing the hall with painful footsteps, and took me kindly by<br />the hand. "Mr. Mackellar," said he, "I have had many occasions to<br />set a proper value on your services; and to-day, when I re-cast my<br />will, I have taken the freedom to name you for one of my executors.<br />I believe you bear love enough to our house to render me this<br />service." At that very time he passed the greater portion of his<br />days in clamber, from which it was often difficult to rouse him;<br />seemed to have losst all count of years, and had several times<br />(particularly on waking) called for his wife and for an old servant<br />whose very gravestone was now green with moss. If I had been put<br />to my oath, I must have declared he was incapable of testing; and<br />yet there was never a will drawn more sensible in every trait, or<br />showing a more excellent judgment both of persons and affairs.<br />His dissolution, though it took not very long, proceeded by<br />infinitesimal gradations. His faculties decayed together steadily;<br />the power of his limbs was almost gone, he was extremely deaf, his<br />speech had sunk into mere mumblings; and yet to the end he managed<br />to discover something of his former courtesy and kindness, pressing<br />the hand of any that helped him, presenting me with one of his<br />Latin books, in which he had laboriously traced my name, and in a<br />thousand ways reminding us of the greatness of that loss which it<br />might almost be said we had already suffered. To the end, the<br />power of articulation returned to him in flashes; it seemed he had<br />only forgotten the art of speech as a child forgets his lesson, and<br />at times he would call some part of it to mind. On the last night<br />of his life he suddenly broke silence with these words from Virgil:<br />"Gnatique pratisque, alma, precor, miserere," perfectly uttered,<br />and with a fitting accent. At the sudden clear sound of it we<br />started from our several occupations; but it was in vain we turned<br />to him; he sat there silent, and, to all appearance, fatuous. A<br />little later he was had to bed with more difficulty than ever<br />before; and some time in the night, without any more violence, his<br />spirit fled.<br />At a far later period I chanced to speak of these particulars with<br />a doctor of medicine, a man of so high a reputation that I scruple<br />to adduce his name. By his view of it father and son both suffered<br />from the affection: the father from the strain of his unnatural<br />sorrows - the son perhaps in the excitation of the fever; each had<br />ruptured a vessel on the brain, and there was probably (my doctor<br />added) some predisposition in the family to accidents of that<br />description. The father sank, the son recovered all the externals<br />of a healthy man; but it is like there was some destruction in<br />those delicate tissues where the soul resides and does her earthly<br />business; her heavenly, I would fain hope, cannot be thus<br />obstructed by material accidents. And yet, upon a more mature<br />opinion, it matters not one jot; for He who shall pass judgment on<br />the records of our life is the same that formed us in frailty.<br />The death of my old lord was the occasion of a fresh surprise to us<br />who watched the behaviour of his successor. To any considering<br />mind, the two sons had between them slain their father, and he who<br />took the sword might be even said to have slain him with his hand,<br />but no such thought appeared to trouble my new lord. He was<br />becomingly grave; I could scarce say sorrowful, or only with a<br />pleasant sorrow; talking of the dead with a regretful cheerfulness,<br />relating old examples of his character, smiling at them with a good<br />conscience; and when the day of the funeral came round, doing the<br />honours with exact propriety. I could perceive, besides, that he<br />found a solid gratification in his accession to the title; the<br />which he was punctilious in exacting.<br />And now there came upon the scene a new character, and one that<br />played his part, too, in the story; I mean the present lord,<br />Alexander, whose birth (17th July, 1757) filled the cup of my poor<br />master's happiness. There was nothing then left him to wish for;<br />nor yet leisure to wish for it. Indeed, there never was a parent<br />so fond and doting as he showed himself. He was continually uneasy<br />in his son's absence. Was the child abroad? the father would be<br />watching the clouds in case it rained. Was it night? he would rise<br />out of his bed to observe its slumbers. His conversation grew even<br />wearyful to strangers, since he talked of little but his son. In<br />matters relating to the estate, all was designed with a particular<br />eye to Alexander; and it would be:- "Let us put it in hand at once,<br />that the wood may be grown against Alexander's majority;" or, "This<br />will fall in again handsomely for Alexander's marriage." Every day<br />this absorption of the man's nature became more observable, with<br />many touching and some very blameworthy particulars. Soon the<br />child could walk abroad with him, at first on the terrace, hand in<br />hand, and afterward at large about the policies; and this grew to<br />be my lord's chief occupation. The sound of their two voices<br />(audible a great way off, for they spoke loud) became familiar in<br />the neighbourhood; and for my part I found it more agreeable than<br />the sound of birds. It was pretty to see the pair returning, full<br />of briars, and the father as flushed and sometimes as bemuddied as<br />the child, for they were equal sharers in all sorts of boyish<br />entertainment, digging in the beach, damming of streams, and what<br />not; and I have seen them gaze through a fence at cattle with the<br />same childish contemplation.<br />The mention of these rambles brings me to a strange scene of which<br />I was a witness. There was one walk I never followed myself<br />without emotion, so often had I gone there upon miserable errands,<br />so much had there befallen against the house of Durrisdeer. But<br />the path lay handy from all points beyond the Muckle Ross; and I<br />was driven, although much against my will, to take my use of it<br />perhaps once in the two months. It befell when Mr. Alexander was<br />of the age of seven or eight, I had some business on the far side<br />in the morning, and entered the shrubbery, on my homeward way,<br />about nine of a bright forenoon. It was that time of year when the<br />woods are all in their spring colours, the thorns all in flower,<br />and the birds in the high season of their singing. In contrast to<br />this merriment, the shrubbery was only the more sad, and I the more<br />oppressed by its associations. In this situation of spirit it<br />struck me disagreeably to hear voices a little way in front, and to<br />recognise the tones of my lord and Mr. Alexander. I pushed ahead,<br />and came presently into their view. They stood together in the<br />open space where the duel was, my lord with his hand on his son's<br />shoulder, and speaking with some gravity. At least, as he raised<br />his head upon my coming, I thought I could perceive his countenance<br />to lighten.<br />"Ah!" says he, "here comes the good Mackellar. I have just been<br />telling Sandie the story of this place, and how there was a man<br />whom the devil tried to kill, and how near he came to kill the<br />devil instead."<br />I had thought it strange enough he should bring the child into that<br />scene; that he should actually be discoursing of his act, passed<br />measure. But the worst was yet to come; for he added, turning to<br />his son - "You can ask Mackellar; he was here and saw it."<br />"Is it true, Mr. Mackellar?" asked the child. "And did you really<br />see the devil?"<br />"I have not heard the tale," I replied; "and I am in a press of<br />business." So far I said a little sourly, fencing with the<br />embarrassment of the position; and suddenly the bitterness of the<br />past, and the terror of that scene by candle-light, rushed in upon<br />my mind. I bethought me that, for a difference of a second's<br />quickness in parade, the child before me might have never seen the<br />day; and the emotion that always fluttered round my heart in that<br />dark shrubbery burst forth in words. "But so much is true," I<br />cried, "that I have met the devil in these woods, and seen him<br />foiled here. Blessed be God that we escaped with life - blessed be<br />God that one stone yet stands upon another in the walls of<br />Durrisdeer! And, oh! Mr. Alexander, if ever you come by this spot,<br />though it was a hundred years hence, and you came with the gayest<br />and the highest in the land, I would step aside and remember a bit<br />prayer."<br />My lord bowed his head gravely. "Ah!" says he, "Mackellar is<br />always in the right. Come, Alexander, take your bonnet off." And<br />with that he uncovered, and held out his hand. "O Lord," said he,<br />"I thank Thee, and my son thanks Thee, for Thy manifold great<br />mercies. Let us have peace for a little; defend us from the evil<br />man. Smite him, O Lord, upon the lying mouth!" The last broke out<br />of him like a cry; and at that, whether remembered anger choked his<br />utterance, or whether he perceived this was a singular sort of<br />prayer, at least he suddenly came to a full stop; and, after a<br />moment, set back his hat upon his head.<br />"I think you have forgot a word, my lord," said I. "'Forgive us<br />our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. For<br />Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and<br />ever. Amen.'"<br />"Ah! that is easy saying," said my lord. "That is very easy<br />saying, Mackellar. But for me to forgive! - I think I would cut a<br />very silly figure if I had the affectation to pretend it."<br />"The bairn, my lord!" said I, with some severity, for I thought his<br />expressions little fitted for the care of children.<br />"Why, very true," said he. "This is dull work for a bairn. Let's<br />go nesting."<br />I forget if it was the same day, but it was soon after, my lord,<br />finding me alone, opened himself a little more on the same head.<br />"Mackellar," he said, "I am now a very happy man."<br />"I think so indeed, my lord," said I, "and the sight of it gives me<br />a light heart."<br />"There is an obligation in happiness - do you not think so?" says<br />he, musingly.<br />"I think so indeed," says I, "and one in sorrow, too. If we are<br />not here to try to do the best, in my humble opinion the sooner we<br />are away the better for all parties."<br />"Ay, but if you were in my shoes, would you forgive him?" asks my<br />lord.<br />The suddenness of the attack a little gravelled me.<br />"It is a duty laid upon us strictly," said I.<br />"Hut!" said he. "These are expressions! Do you forgive the man<br />yourself?"<br />"Well - no!" said I. "God forgive me, I do not."<br />"Shake hands upon that!" cries my lord, with a kind of joviality.<br />"It is an ill sentiment to shake hands upon," said I, "for<br />Christian people. I think I will give you mine on some more<br />evangelical occasion."<br />This I said, smiling a little; but as for my lord, he went from the<br />room laughing aloud.<br />For my lord's slavery to the child, I can find no expression<br />adequate. He lost himself in that continual thought: business,<br />friends, and wife being all alike forgotten, or only remembered<br />with a painful effort, like that of one struggling with a posset.<br />It was most notable in the matter of his wife. Since I had known<br />Durrisdeer, she had been the burthen of his thought and the<br />loadstone of his eyes; and now she was quite cast out. I have seen<br />him come to the door of a room, look round, and pass my lady over<br />as though she were a dog before the fire. It would be Alexander he<br />was seeking, and my lady knew it well. I have heard him speak to<br />her so ruggedly that I nearly found it in my heart to intervene:<br />the cause would still be the same, that she had in some way<br />thwarted Alexander. Without doubt this was in the nature of a<br />judgment on my lady. Without doubt she had the tables turned upon<br />her, as only Providence can do it; she who had been cold so many<br />years to every mark of tenderness, it was her part now to be<br />neglected: the more praise to her that she played it well.<br />An odd situation resulted: that we had once more two parties in<br />the house, and that now I was of my lady's. Not that ever I lost<br />the love I bore my master. But, for one thing, he had the less use<br />for my society. For another, I could not but compare the case of<br />Mr. Alexander with that of Miss Katharine; for whom my lord had<br />never found the least attention. And for a third, I was wounded by<br />the change he discovered to his wife, which struck me in the nature<br />of an infidelity. I could not but admire, besides, the constancy<br />and kindness she displayed. Perhaps her sentiment to my lord, as<br />it had been founded from the first in pity, was that rather of a<br />mother than a wife; perhaps it pleased her - if I may so say - to<br />behold her two children so happy in each other; the more as one had<br />suffered so unjustly in the past. But, for all that, and though I<br />could never trace in her one spark of jealousy, she must fall back<br />for society on poor neglected Miss Katharine; and I, on my part,<br />came to pass my spare hours more and more with the mother and<br />daughter. It would be easy to make too much of this division, for<br />it was a pleasant family, as families go; still the thing existed;<br />whether my lord knew it or not, I am in doubt. I do not think he<br />did; he was bound up so entirely in his son; but the rest of us<br />knew it, and in a manner suffered from the knowledge.<br />What troubled us most, however, was the great and growing danger to<br />the child. My lord was his father over again; it was to be feared<br />the son would prove a second Master. Time has proved these fears<br />to have been quite exaggerate. Certainly there is no more worthy<br />gentleman to-day in Scotland than the seventh Lord Durrisdeer. Of<br />my own exodus from his employment it does not become me to speak,<br />above all in a memorandum written only to justify his father. . . .<br />[Editor's Note. Five pages of Mr. Mackellar's MS. are here<br />omitted. I have gathered from their perusal an impression that Mr.<br />Mackellar, in his old age, was rather an exacting servant. Against<br />the seventh Lord Durrisdeer (with whom, at any rate, we have no<br />concern) nothing material is alleged. - R. L. S.]<br />. . . But our fear at the time was lest he should turn out, in the<br />person of his son, a second edition of his brother. My lady had<br />tried to interject some wholesome discipline; she had been glad to<br />give that up, and now looked on with secret dismay; sometimes she<br />even spoke of it by hints; and sometimes, when there was brought to<br />her knowledge some monstrous instance of my lord's indulgence, she<br />would betray herself in a gesture or perhaps an exclamation. As<br />for myself, I was haunted by the thought both day and night: not<br />so much for the child's sake as for the father's. The man had gone<br />to sleep, he was dreaming a dream, and any rough wakening must<br />infallibly prove mortal. That he should survive its death was<br />inconceivable; and the fear of its dishonour made me cover my face.<br />It was this continual preoccupation that screwed me up at last to a<br />remonstrance: a matter worthy to be narrated in detail. My lord<br />and I sat one day at the same table upon some tedious business of<br />detail; I have said that he had lost his former interest in such<br />occupations; he was plainly itching to be gone, and he looked<br />fretful, weary, and methought older than I had ever previously<br />observed. I suppose it was the haggard face that put me suddenly<br />upon my enterprise.<br />"My lord," said I, with my head down, and feigning to continue my<br />occupation - "or, rather, let me call you again by the name of Mr.<br />Henry, for I fear your anger and want you to think upon old times -<br />"<br />"My good Mackellar!" said he; and that in tones so kindly that I<br />had near forsook my purpose. But I called to mind that I was<br />speaking for his good, and stuck to my colours.<br />"Has it never come in upon your mind what you are doing?" I asked.<br />"What I am doing?" he repeated; "I was never good at guessing<br />riddles."<br />"What you are doing with your son?" said I.<br />"Well," said he, with some defiance in his tone, "and what am I<br />doing with my son?"<br />"Your father was a very good man," says I, straying from the direct<br />path. "But do you think he was a wise father?"<br />There was a pause before he spoke, and then: "I say nothing<br />against him," he replied. "I had the most cause perhaps; but I say<br />nothing."<br />"Why, there it is," said I. "You had the cause at least. And yet<br />your father was a good man; I never knew a better, save on the one<br />point, nor yet a wiser. Where he stumbled, it is highly possible<br />another man should fail. He had the two sons - "<br />My lord rapped suddenly and violently on the table.<br />"What is this?" cried he. "Speak out!"<br />"I will, then," said I, my voice almost strangled with the thumping<br />of my heart. "If you continue to indulge Mr. Alexander, you are<br />following in your father's footsteps. Beware, my lord, lest (when<br />he grows up) your son should follow in the Master's."<br />I had never meant to put the thing so crudely; but in the extreme<br />of fear, there comes a brutal kind of courage, the most brutal<br />indeed of all; and I burnt my ships with that plain word. I never<br />had the answer. When I lifted my head, my lord had risen to his<br />feet, and the next moment he fell heavily on the floor. The fit or<br />seizure endured not very long; he came to himself vacantly, put his<br />hand to his head, which I was then supporting, and says he, in a<br />broken voice: "I have been ill," and a little after: "Help me."<br />I got him to his feet, and he stood pretty well, though he kept<br />hold of the table. "I have been ill, Mackellar," he said again.<br />"Something broke, Mackellar - or was going to break, and then all<br />swam away. I think I was very angry. Never you mind, Mackellar;<br />never you mind, my man. I wouldnae hurt a hair upon your head.<br />Too much has come and gone. It's a certain thing between us two.<br />But I think, Mackellar, I will go to Mrs. Henry - I think I will go<br />to Mrs. Henry," said he, and got pretty steadily from the room,<br />leaving me overcome with penitence.<br />Presently the door flew open, and my lady swept in with flashing<br />eyes. "What is all this?" she cried. "What have you done to my<br />husband? Will nothing teach you your position in this house? Will<br />you never cease from making and meddling?"<br />"My lady," said I, "since I have been in this house I have had<br />plenty of hard words. For a while they were my daily diet, and I<br />swallowed them all. As for to-day, you may call me what you<br />please; you will never find the name hard enough for such a<br />blunder. And yet I meant it for the best."<br />I told her all with ingenuity, even as it is written here; and when<br />she had heard me out, she pondered, and I could see her animosity<br />fall. "Yes," she said, "you meant well indeed. I have had the<br />same thought myself, or the same temptation rather, which makes me<br />pardon you. But, dear God, can you not understand that he can bear<br />no more? He can bear no more!" she cried. "The cord is stretched<br />to snapping. What matters the future if he have one or two good<br />days?"<br />"Amen," said I. "I will meddle no more. I am pleased enough that<br />you should recognise the kindness of my meaning."<br />"Yes," said my lady; "but when it came to the point, I have to<br />suppose your courage failed you; for what you said was said<br />cruelly." She paused, looking at me; then suddenly smiled a<br />little, and said a singular thing: "Do you know what you are, Mr.<br />Mackellar? You are an old maid."<br />No more incident of any note occurred in the family until the<br />return of that ill-starred man the Master. But I have to place<br />here a second extract from the memoirs of Chevalier Burke,<br />interesting in itself, and highly necessary for my purpose. It is<br />our only sight of the Master on his Indian travels; and the first<br />word in these pages of Secundra Dass. One fact, it is to observe,<br />appears here very clearly, which if we had known some twenty years<br />ago, how many calamities and sorrows had been spared! - that<br />Secundra Dass spoke English.<br />CHAPTER VII. - ADVENTURE OF CHEVALIER BURKE IN INDIA.<br />Extracted from his Memoirs.<br />. . . Here was I, therefore, on the streets of that city, the name<br />of which I cannot call to mind, while even then I was so illacquainted<br />with its situation that I knew not whether to go south<br />or north. The alert being sudden, I had run forth without shoes or<br />stockings; my hat had been struck from my head in the mellay; my<br />kit was in the hands of the English; I had no companion but the<br />cipaye, no weapon but my sword, and the devil a coin in my pocket.<br />In short, I was for all the world like one of those calendars with<br />whom Mr. Galland has made us acquainted in his elegant tales.<br />These gentlemen, you will remember, were for ever falling in with<br />extraordinary incidents; and I was myself upon the brink of one so<br />astonishing that I protest I cannot explain it to this day.<br />The cipaye was a very honest man; he had served many years with the<br />French colours, and would have let himself be cut to pieces for any<br />of the brave countrymen of Mr. Lally. It is the same fellow (his<br />name has quite escaped me) of whom I have narrated already a<br />surprising instance of generosity of mind - when he found Mr. de<br />Fessac and myself upon the ramparts, entirely overcome with liquor,<br />and covered us with straw while the commandant was passing by. I<br />consulted him, therefore, with perfect freedom. It was a fine<br />question what to do; but we decided at last to escalade a garden<br />wall, where we could certainly sleep in the shadow of the trees,<br />and might perhaps find an occasion to get hold of a pair of<br />slippers and a turban. In that part of the city we had only the<br />difficulty of the choice, for it was a quarter consisting entirely<br />of walled gardens, and the lanes which divided them were at that<br />hour of the night deserted. I gave the cipaye a back, and we had<br />soon dropped into a large enclosure full of trees. The place was<br />soaking with the dew, which, in that country, is exceedingly<br />unwholesome, above all to whites; yet my fatigue was so extreme<br />that I was already half asleep, when the cipaye recalled me to my<br />senses. In the far end of the enclosure a bright light had<br />suddenly shone out, and continued to burn steadily among the<br />leaves. It was a circumstance highly unusual in such a place and<br />hour; and, in our situation, it behoved us to proceed with some<br />timidity. The cipaye was sent to reconnoitre, and pretty soon<br />returned with the intelligence that we had fallen extremely amiss,<br />for the house belonged to a white man, who was in all likelihood<br />English.<br />"Faith," says I, "if there is a white man to be seen, I will have a<br />look at him; for, the Lord be praised! there are more sorts than<br />the one!"<br />The cipaye led me forward accordingly to a place from which I had a<br />clear view upon the house. It was surrounded with a wide verandah;<br />a lamp, very well trimmed, stood upon the floor of it, and on<br />either side of the lamp there sat a man, cross-legged, after the<br />Oriental manner. Both, besides, were bundled up in muslin like two<br />natives; and yet one of them was not only a white man, but a man<br />very well known to me and the reader, being indeed that very Master<br />of Ballantrae of whose gallantry and genius I have had to speak so<br />often. Word had reached me that he was come to the Indies, though<br />we had never met at least, and I heard little of his occupations.<br />But, sure, I had no sooner recognised him, and found myself in the<br />arms of so old a comrade, than I supposed my tribulations were<br />quite done. I stepped plainly forth into the light of the moon,<br />which shone exceeding strong, and hailing Ballantrae by name, made<br />him in a few words master of my grievous situation. He turned,<br />started the least thing in the world, looked me fair in the face<br />while I was speaking, and when I had done addressed himself to his<br />companion in the barbarous native dialect. The second person, who<br />was of an extraordinary delicate appearance, with legs like walking<br />canes and fingers like the stalk of a tobacco pipe, (6) now rose to<br />his feet.<br />"The Sahib," says he, "understands no English language. I<br />understand it myself, and I see you make some small mistake - oh!<br />which may happen very often. But the Sahib would be glad to know<br />how you come in a garden."<br />"Ballantrae!" I cried, "have you the damned impudence to deny me to<br />my face?"<br />Ballantrae never moved a muscle, staring at me like an image in a<br />pagoda.<br />"The Sahib understands no English language," says the native, as<br />glib as before. "He be glad to know how you come in a garden."<br />"Oh! the divil fetch him," says I. "He would be glad to know how I<br />come in a garden, would he? Well, now, my dear man, just have the<br />civility to tell the Sahib, with my kind love, that we are two<br />soldiers here whom he never met and never heard of, but the cipaye<br />is a broth of a boy, and I am a broth of a boy myself; and if we<br />don't get a full meal of meat, and a turban, and slippers, and the<br />value of a gold mohur in small change as a matter of convenience,<br />bedad, my friend, I could lay my finger on a garden where there is<br />going to be trouble."<br />They carried their comedy so far as to converse awhile in<br />Hindustanee; and then says the Hindu, with the same smile, but<br />sighing as if he were tired of the repetition, "The Sahib would be<br />glad to know how you come in a garden."<br />"Is that the way of it?" says I, and laying my hand on my swordhilt<br />I bade the cipaye draw.<br />Ballantrae's Hindu, still smiling, pulled out a pistol from his<br />bosom, and though Ballantrae himself never moved a muscle I knew<br />him well enough to be sure he was prepared.<br />"The Sahib thinks you better go away," says the Hindu.<br />Well, to be plain, it was what I was thinking myself; for the<br />report of a pistol would have been, under Providence, the means of<br />hanging the pair of us.<br />"Tell the Sahib I consider him no gentleman," says I, and turned<br />away with a gesture of contempt.<br />I was not gone three steps when the voice of the Hindu called me<br />back. "The Sahib would be glad to know if you are a dam low<br />Irishman," says he; and at the words Ballantrae smiled and bowed<br />very low.<br />"What is that?" says I.<br />"The Sahib say you ask your friend Mackellar," says the Hindu.<br />"The Sahib he cry quits."<br />"Tell the Sahib I will give him a cure for the Scots fiddle when<br />next we meet," cried I.<br />The pair were still smiling as I left.<br />There is little doubt some flaws may be picked in my own behaviour;<br />and when a man, however gallant, appeals to posterity with an<br />account of his exploits, he must almost certainly expect to share<br />the fate of Caesar and Alexander, and to meet with some detractors.<br />But there is one thing that can never be laid at the door of<br />Francis Burke: he never turned his back on a friend. . . .<br />(Here follows a passage which the Chevalier Burke has been at the<br />pains to delete before sending me his manuscript. Doubtless it was<br />some very natural complaint of what he supposed to be an<br />indiscretion on my part; though, indeed, I can call none to mind.<br />Perhaps Mr. Henry was less guarded; or it is just possible the<br />Master found the means to examine my correspondence, and himself<br />read the letter from Troyes: in revenge for which this cruel jest<br />was perpetrated on Mr. Burke in his extreme necessity. The Master,<br />for all his wickedness, was not without some natural affection; I<br />believe he was sincerely attached to Mr. Burke in the beginning;<br />but the thought of treachery dried up the springs of his very<br />shallow friendship, and his detestable nature appeared naked. - E.<br />McK.)<br />CHAPTER VIII. - THE ENEMY IN THE HOUSE.<br />It is a strange thing that I should be at a stick for a date - the<br />date, besides, of an incident that changed the very nature of my<br />life, and sent us all into foreign lands. But the truth is, I was<br />stricken out of all my habitudes, and find my journals very ill<br />redd-up, (7) the day not indicated sometimes for a week or two<br />together, and the whole fashion of the thing like that of a man<br />near desperate. It was late in March at least, or early in April,<br />1764. I had slept heavily, and wakened with a premonition of some<br />evil to befall. So strong was this upon my spirit that I hurried<br />downstairs in my shirt and breeches, and my hand (I remember) shook<br />upon the rail. It was a cold, sunny morning, with a thick white<br />frost; the blackbirds sang exceeding sweet and loud about the house<br />of Durrisdeer, and there was a noise of the sea in all the<br />chambers. As I came by the doors of the hall, another sound<br />arrested me - of voices talking. I drew nearer, and stood like a<br />man dreaming. Here was certainly a human voice, and that in my own<br />master's house, and yet I knew it not; certainly human speech, and<br />that in my native land; and yet, listen as I pleased, I could not<br />catch one syllable. An old tale started up in my mind of a fairy<br />wife (or perhaps only a wandering stranger), that came to the place<br />of my fathers some generations back, and stayed the matter of a<br />week, talking often in a tongue that signified nothing to the<br />hearers; and went again, as she had come, under cloud of night,<br />leaving not so much as a name behind her. A little fear I had, but<br />more curiosity; and I opened the hall-door, and entered.<br />The supper-things still lay upon the table; the shutters were still<br />closed, although day peeped in the divisions; and the great room<br />was lighted only with a single taper and some lurching<br />reverberation of the fire. Close in the chimney sat two men. The<br />one that was wrapped in a cloak and wore boots, I knew at once: it<br />was the bird of ill omen back again. Of the other, who was set<br />close to the red embers, and made up into a bundle like a mummy, I<br />could but see that he was an alien, of a darker hue than any man of<br />Europe, very frailly built, with a singular tall forehead, and a<br />secret eye. Several bundles and a small valise were on the floor;<br />and to judge by the smallness of this luggage, and by the condition<br />of the Master's boots, grossly patched by some unscrupulous country<br />cobbler, evil had not prospered.<br />He rose upon my entrance; our eyes crossed; and I know not why it<br />should have been, but my courage rose like a lark on a May morning.<br />"Ha!" said I, "is this you?" - and I was pleased with the unconcern<br />of my own voice.<br />"It is even myself, worthy Mackellar," says the Master.<br />"This time you have brought the black dog visibly upon your back,"<br />I continued.<br />"Referring to Secundra Dass?" asked the Master. "Let me present<br />you. He is a native gentleman of India."<br />"Hum!" said I. "I am no great lover either of you or your friends,<br />Mr. Bally. But I will let a little daylight in, and have a look at<br />you." And so saying, I undid the shutters of the eastern window.<br />By the light of the morning I could perceive the man was changed.<br />Later, when we were all together, I was more struck to see how<br />lightly time had dealt with him; but the first glance was<br />otherwise.<br />"You are getting an old man," said I.<br />A shade came upon his face. "If you could see yourself," said he,<br />"you would perhaps not dwell upon the topic."<br />"Hut!" I returned, "old age is nothing to me. I think I have been<br />always old; and I am now, I thank God, better known and more<br />respected. It is not every one that can say that, Mr. Bally! The<br />lines in your brow are calamities; your life begins to close in<br />upon you like a prison; death will soon be rapping at the door; and<br />I see not from what source you are to draw your consolations."<br />Here the Master addressed himself to Secundra Dass in Hindustanee,<br />from which I gathered (I freely confess, with a high degree of<br />pleasure) that my remarks annoyed him. All this while, you may be<br />sure, my mind had been busy upon other matters, even while I<br />rallied my enemy; and chiefly as to how I should communicate<br />secretly and quickly with my lord. To this, in the breathing-space<br />now given me, I turned all the forces of my mind; when, suddenly<br />shifting my eyes, I was aware of the man himself standing in the<br />doorway, and, to all appearance, quite composed. He had no sooner<br />met my looks than he stepped across the threshold. The Master<br />heard him coming, and advanced upon the other side; about four feet<br />apart, these brothers came to a full pause, and stood exchanging<br />steady looks, and then my lord smiled, bowed a little forward, and<br />turned briskly away.<br />"Mackellar," says he, "we must see to breakfast for these<br />travellers."<br />It was plain the Master was a trifle disconcerted; but he assumed<br />the more impudence of speech and manner. "I am as hungry as a<br />hawk," says he. "Let it be something good, Henry."<br />My lord turned to him with the same hard smile.<br />"Lord Durrisdeer," says he.<br />"Oh! never in the family," returned the Master.<br />"Every one in this house renders me my proper title," says my lord.<br />"If it please you to make an exception, I will leave you to<br />consider what appearance it will bear to strangers, and whether it<br />may not be translated as an effect of impotent jealousy."<br />I could have clapped my hands together with delight: the more so<br />as my lord left no time for any answer, but, bidding me with a sign<br />to follow him, went straight out of the hall.<br />"Come quick," says he; "we have to sweep vermin from the house."<br />And he sped through the passages, with so swift a step that I could<br />scarce keep up with him, straight to the door of John Paul, the<br />which he opened without summons and walked in. John was, to all<br />appearance, sound asleep, but my lord made no pretence of waking<br />him.<br />"John Paul," said he, speaking as quietly as ever I heard him, "you<br />served my father long, or I would pack you from the house like a<br />dog. If in half an hour's time I find you gone, you shall continue<br />to receive your wages in Edinburgh. If you linger here or in St.<br />Bride's - old man, old servant, and altogether - I shall find some<br />very astonishing way to make you smart for your disloyalty. Up and<br />begone. The door you let them in by will serve for your departure.<br />I do not choose my son shall see your face again."<br />"I am rejoiced to find you bear the thing so quietly," said I, when<br />we were forth again by ourselves.<br />"Quietly!" cries he, and put my hand suddenly against his heart,<br />which struck upon his bosom like a sledge.<br />At this revelation I was filled with wonder and fear. There was no<br />constitution could bear so violent a strain - his least of all,<br />that was unhinged already; and I decided in my mind that we must<br />bring this monstrous situation to an end.<br />"It would be well, I think, if I took word to my lady," said I.<br />Indeed, he should have gone himself, but I counted - not in vain -<br />on his indifference.<br />"Aye," says he, "do. I will hurry breakfast: we must all appear<br />at the table, even Alexander; it must appear we are untroubled."<br />I ran to my lady's room, and with no preparatory cruelty disclosed<br />my news.<br />"My mind was long ago made up," said she. "We must make our<br />packets secretly to-day, and leave secretly to-night. Thank<br />Heaven, we have another house! The first ship that sails shall<br />bear us to New York."<br />"And what of him?" I asked.<br />"We leave him Durrisdeer," she cried. "Let him work his pleasure<br />upon that."<br />"Not so, by your leave," said I. "There shall be a dog at his<br />heels that can hold fast. Bed he shall have, and board, and a<br />horse to ride upon, if he behave himself; but the keys - if you<br />think well of it, my lady - shall be left in the hands of one<br />Mackellar. There will be good care taken; trust him for that."<br />"Mr. Mackellar," she cried, "I thank you for that thought. All<br />shall be left in your hands. If we must go into a savage country,<br />I bequeath it to you to take our vengeance. Send Macconochie to<br />St. Bride's, to arrange privately for horses and to call the<br />lawyer. My lord must leave procuration."<br />At that moment my lord came to the door, and we opened our plan to<br />him.<br />"I will never hear of it," he cried; "he would think I feared him.<br />I will stay in my own house, please God, until I die. There lives<br />not the man can beard me out of it. Once and for all, here I am,<br />and here I stay in spite of all the devils in hell." I can give no<br />idea of the vehemency of his words and utterance; but we both stood<br />aghast, and I in particular, who had been a witness of his former<br />self-restraint.<br />My lady looked at me with an appeal that went to my heart and<br />recalled me to my wits. I made her a private sign to go, and when<br />my lord and I were alone, went up to him where he was racing to and<br />fro in one end of the room like a half-lunatic, and set my hand<br />firmly on his shoulder.<br />"My lord," says I, "I am going to be the plain-dealer once more; if<br />for the last time, so much the better, for I am grown weary of the<br />part."<br />"Nothing will change me," he answered. "God forbid I should refuse<br />to hear you; but nothing will change me." This he said firmly,<br />with no signal of the former violence, which already raised my<br />hopes.<br />"Very well," said I "I can afford to waste my breath." I pointed<br />to a chair, and he sat down and looked at me. "I can remember a<br />time when my lady very much neglected you," said I.<br />"I never spoke of it while it lasted," returned my lord, with a<br />high flush of colour; "and it is all changed now."'<br />"Do you know how much?" I said. "Do you know how much it is all<br />changed? The tables are turned, my lord! It is my lady that now<br />courts you for a word, a look - ay, and courts you in vain. Do you<br />know with whom she passes her days while you are out gallivanting<br />in the policies? My lord, she is glad to pass them with a certain<br />dry old grieve (8) of the name of Ephraim Mackellar; and I think<br />you may be able to remember what that means, for I am the more in a<br />mistake or you were once driven to the same company yourself."<br />"Mackellar!" cries my lord, getting to his feet. "O my God,<br />Mackellar!"<br />"It is neither the name of Mackellar nor the name of God that can<br />change the truth," said I; "and I am telling you the fact. Now for<br />you, that suffered so much, to deal out the same suffering to<br />another, is that the part of any Christian? But you are so<br />swallowed up in your new friend that the old are all forgotten.<br />They are all clean vanished from your memory. And yet they stood<br />by you at the darkest; my lady not the least. And does my lady<br />ever cross your mind? Does it ever cross your mind what she went<br />through that night? - or what manner of a wife she has been to you<br />thenceforward? - or in what kind of a position she finds herself<br />to-day? Never. It is your pride to stay and face him out, and she<br />must stay along with you. Oh! my lord's pride - that's the great<br />affair! And yet she is the woman, and you are a great hulking man!<br />She is the woman that you swore to protect; and, more betoken, the<br />own mother of that son of yours!"<br />"You are speaking very bitterly, Mackellar," said he; "but, the<br />Lord knows, I fear you are speaking very true. I have not proved<br />worthy of my happiness. Bring my lady back."<br />My lady was waiting near at hand to learn the issue. When I<br />brought her in, my lord took a hand of each of us, and laid them<br />both upon his bosom. "I have had two friends in my life," said he.<br />"All the comfort ever I had, it came from one or other. When you<br />two are in a mind, I think I would be an ungrateful dog - " He<br />shut his mouth very hard, and looked on us with swimming eyes. "Do<br />what ye like with me," says he, "only don't think - " He stopped<br />again. "Do what ye please with me: God knows I love and honour<br />you." And dropping our two hands, he turned his back and went and<br />gazed out of the window. But my lady ran after, calling his name,<br />and threw herself upon his neck in a passion of weeping.<br />I went out and shut the door behind me, and stood and thanked God<br />from the bottom of my heart.<br />At the breakfast board, according to my lord's design, we were all<br />met. The Master had by that time plucked off his patched boots and<br />made a toilet suitable to the hour; Secundra Dass was no longer<br />bundled up in wrappers, but wore a decent plain black suit, which<br />misbecame him strangely; and the pair were at the great window,<br />looking forth, when the family entered. They turned; and the black<br />man (as they had already named him in the house) bowed almost to<br />his knees, but the Master was for running forward like one of the<br />family. My lady stopped him, curtseying low from the far end of<br />the hall, and keeping her children at her back. My lord was a<br />little in front: so there were the three cousins of Durrisdeer<br />face to face. The hand of time was very legible on all; I seemed<br />to read in their changed faces a MEMENTO MORI; and what affected me<br />still more, it was the wicked man that bore his years the<br />handsomest. My lady was quite transfigured into the matron, a<br />becoming woman for the head of a great tableful of children and<br />dependents. My lord was grown slack in his limbs; he stooped; he<br />walked with a running motion, as though he had learned again from<br />Mr. Alexander; his face was drawn; it seemed a trifle longer than<br />of old; and it wore at times a smile very singularly mingled, and<br />which (in my eyes) appeared both bitter and pathetic. But the<br />Master still bore himself erect, although perhaps with effort; his<br />brow barred about the centre with imperious lines, his mouth set as<br />for command. He had all the gravity and something of the splendour<br />of Satan in the "Paradise Lost." I could not help but see the man<br />with admiration, and was only surprised that I saw him with so<br />little fear.<br />But indeed (as long as we were at the table) it seemed as if his<br />authority were quite vanished and his teeth all drawn. We had<br />known him a magician that controlled the elements; and here he was,<br />transformed into an ordinary gentleman, chatting like his<br />neighbours at the breakfast-board. For now the father was dead,<br />and my lord and lady reconciled, in what ear was he to pour his<br />calumnies? It came upon me in a kind of vision how hugely I had<br />overrated the man's subtlety. He had his malice still; he was<br />false as ever; and, the occasion being gone that made his strength,<br />he sat there impotent; he was still the viper, but now spent his<br />venom on a file. Two more thoughts occurred to me while yet we sat<br />at breakfast: the first, that he was abashed - I had almost said,<br />distressed - to find his wickedness quite unavailing; the second,<br />that perhaps my lord was in the right, and we did amiss to fly from<br />our dismasted enemy. But my poor man's leaping heart came in my<br />mind, and I remembered it was for his life we played the coward.<br />When the meal was over, the Master followed me to my room, and,<br />taking a chair (which I had never offered him), asked me what was<br />to be done with him.<br />"Why, Mr. Bally," said I, "the house will still be open to you for<br />a time."<br />"For a time?" says he. "I do not know if I quite take your<br />meaning."<br />"It is plain enough," said I. "We keep you for our reputation; as<br />soon as you shall have publicly disgraced yourself by some of your<br />misconduct, we shall pack you forth again."<br />"You are become an impudent rogue," said the Master, bending his<br />brows at me dangerously.<br />"I learned in a good school," I returned. "And you must have<br />perceived yourself that with my old lord's death your power is<br />quite departed. I do not fear you now, Mr. Bally; I think even -<br />God forgive me - that I take a certain pleasure in your company."<br />He broke out in a burst of laughter, which I clearly saw to be<br />assumed.<br />"I have come with empty pockets," says he, after a pause.<br />"I do not think there will be any money going," I replied. "I<br />would advise you not to build on that."<br />"I shall have something to say on the point," he returned.<br />"Indeed?" said I. "I have not a guess what it will be, then."<br />"Oh! you affect confidence," said the Master. "I have still one<br />strong position - that you people fear a scandal, and I enjoy it."<br />"Pardon me, Mr. Bally," says I. "We do not in the least fear a<br />scandal against you."<br />He laughed again. "You have been studying repartee," he said.<br />"But speech is very easy, and sometimes very deceptive. I warn you<br />fairly: you will find me vitriol in the house. You would do wiser<br />to pay money down and see my back." And with that he waved his<br />hand to me and left the room.<br />A little after, my lord came with the lawyer, Mr. Carlyle; a bottle<br />of old wine was brought, and we all had a glass before we fell to<br />business. The necessary deeds were then prepared and executed, and<br />the Scotch estates made over in trust to Mr. Carlyle and myself.<br />"There is one point, Mr. Carlyle," said my lord, when these affairs<br />had been adjusted, "on which I wish that you would do us justice.<br />This sudden departure coinciding with my brother's return will be<br />certainly commented on. I wish you would discourage any<br />conjunction of the two."<br />"I will make a point of it, my lord," said Mr. Carlyle. "The MasBally<br />does not, then, accompany you?"<br />"It is a point I must approach," said my lord. "Mr. Bally remains<br />at Durrisdeer, under the care of Mr. Mackellar; and I do not mean<br />that he shall even know our destination."<br />"Common report, however - " began the lawyer.<br />"Ah! but, Mr. Carlyle, this is to be a secret quite among<br />ourselves," interrupted my lord. "None but you and Mackellar are<br />to be made acquainted with my movements."<br />"And Mr. Bally stays here? Quite so," said Mr. Carlyle. "The<br />powers you leave - " Then he broke off again. "Mr. Mackellar, we<br />have a rather heavy weight upon us."<br />"No doubt," said I.<br />"No doubt," said he. "Mr. Bally will have no voice?"<br />"He will have no voice," said my lord; "and, I hope, no influence.<br />Mr. Bally is not a good adviser."<br />"I see," said the lawyer. "By the way, has Mr. Bally means?"<br />"I understand him to have nothing," replied my lord. "I give him<br />table, fire, and candle in this house."<br />"And in the matter of an allowance? If I am to share the<br />responsibility, you will see how highly desirable it is that I<br />should understand your views," said the lawyer. "On the question<br />of an allowance?"<br />"There will be no allowance," said my lord. "I wish Mr. Bally to<br />live very private. We have not always been gratified with his<br />behaviour."<br />"And in the matter of money," I added, "he has shown himself an<br />infamous bad husband. Glance your eye upon that docket, Mr.<br />Carlyle, where I have brought together the different sums the man<br />has drawn from the estate in the last fifteen or twenty years. The<br />total is pretty."<br />Mr. Carlyle made the motion of whistling. "I had no guess of<br />this," said he. "Excuse me once more, my lord, if I appear to push<br />you; but it is really desirable I should penetrate your intentions.<br />Mr. Mackellar might die, when I should find myself alone upon this<br />trust. Would it not be rather your lordship's preference that Mr.<br />Bally should - ahem - should leave the country?"<br />My lord looked at Mr. Carlyle. "Why do you ask that?" said he.<br />"I gather, my lord, that Mr. Bally is not a comfort to his family,"<br />says the lawyer with a smile.<br />My lord's face became suddenly knotted. "I wish he was in hell!"<br />cried he, and filled himself a glass of wine, but with a hand so<br />tottering that he spilled the half into his bosom. This was the<br />second time that, in the midst of the most regular and wise<br />behaviour, his animosity had spirted out. It startled Mr. Carlyle,<br />who observed my lord thenceforth with covert curiosity; and to me<br />it restored the certainty that we were acting for the best in view<br />of my lord's health and reason.<br />Except for this explosion the interview was very successfully<br />conducted. No doubt Mr. Carlyle would talk, as lawyers do, little<br />by little. We could thus feel we had laid the foundations of a<br />better feeling in the country, and the man's own misconduct would<br />certainly complete what we had begun. Indeed, before his<br />departure, the lawyer showed us there had already gone abroad some<br />glimmerings of the truth.<br />"I should perhaps explain to you, my lord," said he, pausing, with<br />his hat in his hand, "that I have not been altogether surprised<br />with your lordship's dispositions in the case of Mr. Bally.<br />Something of this nature oozed out when he was last in Durrisdeer.<br />There was some talk of a woman at St. Bride's, to whom you had<br />behaved extremely handsome, and Mr. Bally with no small degree of<br />cruelty. There was the entail, again, which was much controverted.<br />In short, there was no want of talk, back and forward; and some of<br />our wise-acres took up a strong opinion. I remained in suspense,<br />as became one of my cloth; but Mr. Mackellar's docket here has<br />finally opened my eyes. I do not think, Mr. Mackellar, that you<br />and I will give him that much rope."<br />The rest of that important day passed prosperously through. It was<br />our policy to keep the enemy in view, and I took my turn to be his<br />watchman with the rest. I think his spirits rose as he perceived<br />us to be so attentive, and I know that mine insensibly declined.<br />What chiefly daunted me was the man's singular dexterity to worm<br />himself into our troubles. You may have felt (after a horse<br />accident) the hand of a bone-setter artfully divide and interrogate<br />the muscles, and settle strongly on the injured place? It was so<br />with the Master's tongue, that was so cunning to question; and his<br />eyes, that were so quick to observe. I seemed to have said<br />nothing, and yet to have let all out. Before I knew where I was<br />the man was condoling with me on my lord's neglect of my lady and<br />myself, and his hurtful indulgence to his son. On this last point<br />I perceived him (with panic fear) to return repeatedly. The boy<br />had displayed a certain shrinking from his uncle; it was strong in<br />my mind his father had been fool enough to indoctrinate the same,<br />which was no wise beginning: and when I looked upon the man before<br />me, still so handsome, so apt a speaker, with so great a variety of<br />fortunes to relate, I saw he was the very personage to captivate a<br />boyish fancy. John Paul had left only that morning; it was not to<br />be supposed he had been altogether dumb upon his favourite subject:<br />so that here would be Mr. Alexander in the part of Dido, with a<br />curiosity inflamed to hear; and there would be the Master, like a<br />diabolical AEneas, full of matter the most pleasing in the world to<br />any youthful ear, such as battles, sea-disasters, flights, the<br />forests of the West, and (since his later voyage) the ancient<br />cities of the Indies. How cunningly these baits might be employed,<br />and what an empire might be so founded, little by little, in the<br />mind of any boy, stood obviously clear to me. There was no<br />inhibition, so long as the man was in the house, that would be<br />strong enough to hold these two apart; for if it be hard to charm<br />serpents, it is no very difficult thing to cast a glamour on a<br />little chip of manhood not very long in breeches. I recalled an<br />ancient sailor-man who dwelt in a lone house beyond the Figgate<br />Whins (I believe, he called it after Portobello), and how the boys<br />would troop out of Leith on a Saturday, and sit and listen to his<br />swearing tales, as thick as crows about a carrion: a thing I often<br />remarked as I went by, a young student, on my own more meditative<br />holiday diversion. Many of these boys went, no doubt, in the face<br />of an express command; many feared and even hated the old brute of<br />whom they made their hero; and I have seen them flee from him when<br />he was tipsy, and stone him when he was drunk. And yet there they<br />came each Saturday! How much more easily would a boy like Mr.<br />Alexander fall under the influence of a high-looking, high-spoken<br />gentleman-adventurer, who should conceive the fancy to entrap him;<br />and, the influence gained, how easy to employ it for the child's<br />perversion!<br />I doubt if our enemy had named Mr. Alexander three times before I<br />perceived which way his mind was aiming - all this train of thought<br />and memory passed in one pulsation through my own - and you may say<br />I started back as though an open hole had gaped across a pathway.<br />Mr. Alexander: there was the weak point, there was the Eve in our<br />perishable paradise; and the serpent was already hissing on the<br />trail.<br />I promise you, I went the more heartily about the preparations; my<br />last scruple gone, the danger of delay written before me in huge<br />characters. From that moment forth I seem not to have sat down or<br />breathed. Now I would be at my post with the Master and his<br />Indian; now in the garret, buckling a valise; now sending forth<br />Macconochie by the side postern and the wood-path to bear it to the<br />trysting-place; and, again, snatching some words of counsel with my<br />lady. This was the VERSO of our life in Durrisdeer that day; but<br />on the RECTO all appeared quite settled, as of a family at home in<br />its paternal seat; and what perturbation may have been observable,<br />the Master would set down to the blow of his unlooked-for coming,<br />and the fear he was accustomed to inspire.<br />Supper went creditably off, cold salutations passed and the company<br />trooped to their respective chambers. I attended the Master to the<br />last. We had put him next door to his Indian, in the north wing;<br />because that was the most distant and could be severed from the<br />body of the house with doors. I saw he was a kind friend or a good<br />master (whichever it was) to his Secundra Dass - seeing to his<br />comfort; mending the fire with his own hand, for the Indian<br />complained of cold; inquiring as to the rice on which the stranger<br />made his diet; talking with him pleasantly in the Hindustanee,<br />while I stood by, my candle in my hand, and affected to be overcome<br />with slumber. At length the Master observed my signals of<br />distress. "I perceive," says he, "that you have all your ancient<br />habits: early to bed and early to rise. Yawn yourself away!"<br />Once in my own room, I made the customary motions of undressing, so<br />that I might time myself; and when the cycle was complete, set my<br />tinder-box ready, and blew out my taper. The matter of an hour<br />afterward I made a light again, put on my shoes of list that I had<br />worn by my lord's sick-bed, and set forth into the house to call<br />the voyagers. All were dressed and waiting - my lord, my lady,<br />Miss Katharine, Mr. Alexander, my lady's woman Christie; and I<br />observed the effect of secrecy even upon quite innocent persons,<br />that one after another showed in the chink of the door a face as<br />white as paper. We slipped out of the side postern into a night of<br />darkness, scarce broken by a star or two; so that at first we<br />groped and stumbled and fell among the bushes. A few hundred yards<br />up the wood-path Macconochie was waiting us with a great lantern;<br />so the rest of the way we went easy enough, but still in a kind of<br />guilty silence. A little beyond the abbey the path debauched on<br />the main road and some quarter of a mile farther, at the place<br />called Eagles, where the moors begin, we saw the lights of the two<br />carriages stand shining by the wayside. Scarce a word or two was<br />uttered at our parting, and these regarded business: a silent<br />grasping of hands, a turning of faces aside, and the thing was<br />over; the horses broke into a trot, the lamplight sped like Willo'-<br />the-Wisp upon the broken moorland, it dipped beyond Stony Brae;<br />and there were Macconochie and I alone with our lantern on the<br />road. There was one thing more to wait for, and that was the<br />reappearance of the coach upon Cartmore. It seems they must have<br />pulled up upon the summit, looked back for a last time, and seen<br />our lantern not yet moved away from the place of separation. For a<br />lamp was taken from a carriage, and waved three times up and down<br />by way of a farewell. And then they were gone indeed, having<br />looked their last on the kind roof of Durrisdeer, their faces<br />toward a barbarous country. I never knew before, the greatness of<br />that vault of night in which we two poor serving-men - the one old,<br />and the one elderly - stood for the first time deserted; I had<br />never felt before my own dependency upon the countenance of others.<br />The sense of isolation burned in my bowels like a fire. It seemed<br />that we who remained at home were the true exiles, and that<br />Durrisdeer and Solwayside, and all that made my country native, its<br />air good to me, and its language welcome, had gone forth and was<br />far over the sea with my old masters.<br />The remainder of that night I paced to and fro on the smooth<br />highway, reflecting on the future and the past. My thoughts, which<br />at first dwelled tenderly on those who were just gone, took a more<br />manly temper as I considered what remained for me to do. Day came<br />upon the inland mountain-tops, and the fowls began to cry, and the<br />smoke of homesteads to arise in the brown bosom of the moors,<br />before I turned my face homeward, and went down the path to where<br />the roof of Durrisdeer shone in the morning by the sea.<br />At the customary hour I had the Master called, and awaited his<br />coming in the hall with a quiet mind. He looked about him at the<br />empty room and the three covers set.<br />"We are a small party," said he. "How comes?"<br />"This is the party to which we must grow accustomed," I replied.<br />He looked at me with a sudden sharpness. "What is all this?" said<br />he.<br />"You and I and your friend Mr. Dass are now all the company," I<br />replied. "My lord, my lady, and the children, are gone upon a<br />voyage."<br />"Upon my word!" said he. "Can this be possible? I have indeed<br />fluttered your Volscians in Corioli! But this is no reason why our<br />breakfast should go cold. Sit down, Mr. Mackellar, if you please"<br />- taking, as he spoke, the head of the table, which I had designed<br />to occupy myself - "and as we eat, you can give me the details of<br />this evasion."<br />I could see he was more affected than his language carried, and I<br />determined to equal him in coolness. "I was about to ask you to<br />take the head of the table," said I; "for though I am now thrust<br />into the position of your host, I could never forget that you were,<br />after all, a member of the family."<br />For a while he played the part of entertainer, giving directions to<br />Macconochie, who received them with an evil grace, and attending<br />specially upon Secundra. "And where has my good family withdrawn<br />to?" he asked carelessly.<br />"Ah! Mr. Bally, that is another point," said I. "I have no orders<br />to communicate their destination."<br />"To me," he corrected.<br />"To any one," said I.<br />"It is the less pointed," said the master; "C'EST DE BON TON: my<br />brother improves as he continues. And I, dear Mr. Mackellar?"<br />"You will have bed and board, Mr. Bally," said I. "I am permitted<br />to give you the run of the cellar, which is pretty reasonably<br />stocked. You have only to keep well with me, which is no very<br />difficult matter, and you shall want neither for wine nor a saddlehorse."<br />He made an excuse to send Macconochie from the room.<br />"And for money?" he inquired. "Have I to keep well with my good<br />friend Mackellar for my pocket-money also? This is a pleasing<br />return to the principles of boyhood."<br />"There was no allowance made," said I; "but I will take it on<br />myself to see you are supplied in moderation."<br />"In moderation?" he repeated. "And you will take it on yourself?"<br />He drew himself up, and looked about the hall at the dark rows of<br />portraits. "In the name of my ancestors, I thank you," says he;<br />and then, with a return to irony, "But there must certainly be an<br />allowance for Secundra Dass?" he said. "It in not possible they<br />have omitted that?"<br />"I will make a note of it, and ask instructions when I write," said<br />I.<br />And he, with a sudden change of manner, and leaning forward with an<br />elbow on the table - "Do you think this entirely wise?"<br />"I execute my orders, Mr. Bally," said I.<br />"Profoundly modest," said the Master; "perhaps not equally<br />ingenuous. You told me yesterday my power was fallen with my<br />father's death. How comes it, then, that a peer of the realm flees<br />under cloud of night out of a house in which his fathers have stood<br />several sieges? that he conceals his address, which must be a<br />matter of concern to his Gracious Majesty and to the whole<br />republic? and that he should leave me in possession, and under the<br />paternal charge of his invaluable Mackellar? This smacks to me of<br />a very considerable and genuine apprehension."<br />I sought to interrupt him with some not very truthful denegation;<br />but he waved me down, and pursued his speech.<br />"I say, it smacks of it," he said; "but I will go beyond that, for<br />I think the apprehension grounded. I came to this house with some<br />reluctancy. In view of the manner of my last departure, nothing<br />but necessity could have induced me to return. Money, however, is<br />that which I must have. You will not give with a good grace; well,<br />I have the power to force it from you. Inside of a week, without<br />leaving Durrisdeer, I will find out where these fools are fled to.<br />I will follow; and when I have run my quarry down, I will drive a<br />wedge into that family that shall once more burst it into shivers.<br />I shall see then whether my Lord Durrisdeer" (said with<br />indescribable scorn and rage) "will choose to buy my absence; and<br />you will all see whether, by that time, I decide for profit or<br />revenge."<br />I was amazed to hear the man so open. The truth is, he was<br />consumed with anger at my lord's successful flight, felt himself to<br />figure as a dupe, and was in no humour to weigh language.<br />"Do you consider THIS entirely wise?" said I, copying his words.<br />"These twenty years I have lived by my poor wisdom," he answered<br />with a smile that seemed almost foolish in its vanity.<br />"And come out a beggar in the end," said I, "if beggar be a strong<br />enough word for it."<br />"I would have you to observe, Mr. Mackellar," cried he, with a<br />sudden imperious heat, in which I could not but admire him, "that I<br />am scrupulously civil: copy me in that, and we shall be the better<br />friends."<br />Throughout this dialogue I had been incommoded by the observation<br />of Secundra Dass. Not one of us, since the first word, had made a<br />feint of eating: our eyes were in each other's faces - you might<br />say, in each other's bosoms; and those of the Indian troubled me<br />with a certain changing brightness, as of comprehension. But I<br />brushed the fancy aside, telling myself once more he understood no<br />English; only, from the gravity of both voices, and the occasional<br />scorn and anger in the Master's, smelled out there was something of<br />import in the wind.<br />For the matter of three weeks we continued to live together in the<br />house of Durrisdeer: the beginning of that most singular chapter<br />of my life - what I must call my intimacy with the Master. At<br />first he was somewhat changeable in his behaviour: now civil, now<br />returning to his old manner of flouting me to my face; and in both<br />I met him half-way. Thanks be to Providence, I had now no measure<br />to keep with the man; and I was never afraid of black brows, only<br />of naked swords. So that I found a certain entertainment in these<br />bouts of incivility, and was not always ill-inspired in my<br />rejoinders. At last (it was at supper) I had a droll expression<br />that entirely vanquished him. He laughed again and again; and "Who<br />would have guessed," he cried, "that this old wife had any wit<br />under his petticoats?"<br />"It is no wit, Mr. Bally," said I: "a dry Scot's humour, and<br />something of the driest." And, indeed, I never had the least<br />pretension to be thought a wit.<br />From that hour he was never rude with me, but all passed between us<br />in a manner of pleasantry. One of our chief times of daffing (9)<br />was when he required a horse, another bottle, or some money. He<br />would approach me then after the manner of a schoolboy, and I would<br />carry it on by way of being his father: on both sides, with an<br />infinity of mirth. I could not but perceive that he thought more<br />of me, which tickled that poor part of mankind, the vanity. He<br />dropped, besides (I must suppose unconsciously), into a manner that<br />was not only familiar, but even friendly; and this, on the part of<br />one who had so long detested me, I found the more insidious. He<br />went little abroad; sometimes even refusing invitations. "No," he<br />would say, "what do I care for these thick-headed bonnet-lairds? I<br />will stay at home, Mackellar; and we shall share a bottle quietly,<br />and have one of our good talks." And, indeed, meal-time at<br />Durrisdeer must have been a delight to any one, by reason of the<br />brilliancy of the discourse. He would often express wonder at his<br />former indifference to my society. "But, you see," he would add,<br />"we were upon opposite sides. And so we are to-day; but let us<br />never speak of that. I would think much less of you if you were<br />not staunch to your employer." You are to consider he seemed to me<br />quite impotent for any evil; and how it is a most engaging form of<br />flattery when (after many years) tardy justice is done to a man's<br />character and parts. But I have no thought to excuse myself. I<br />was to blame; I let him cajole me, and, in short, I think the<br />watch-dog was going sound asleep, when he was suddenly aroused.<br />I should say the Indian was continually travelling to and fro in<br />the house. He never spoke, save in his own dialect and with the<br />Master; walked without sound; and was always turning up where you<br />would least expect him, fallen into a deep abstraction, from which<br />he would start (upon your coming) to mock you with one of his<br />grovelling obeisances. He seemed so quiet, so frail, and so<br />wrapped in his own fancies, that I came to pass him over without<br />much regard, or even to pity him for a harmless exile from his<br />country. And yet without doubt the creature was still<br />eavesdropping; and without doubt it was through his stealth and my<br />security that our secret reached the Master.<br />It was one very wild night, after supper, and when we had been<br />making more than usually merry, that the blow fell on me.<br />"This is all very fine," says the Master, "but we should do better<br />to be buckling our valise."<br />"Why so?" I cried. "Are you leaving?"<br />"We are all leaving to-morrow in the morning," said he. "For the<br />port of Glascow first, thence for the province of New York."<br />I suppose I must have groaned aloud.<br />"Yes," he continued, "I boasted; I said a week, and it has taken me<br />near twenty days. But never mind; I shall make it up; I will go<br />the faster."<br />"Have you the money for this voyage?" I asked.<br />"Dear and ingenuous personage, I have," said he. "Blame me, if you<br />choose, for my duplicity; but while I have been wringing shillings<br />from my daddy, I had a stock of my own put by against a rainy day.<br />You will pay for your own passage, if you choose to accompany us on<br />our flank march; I have enough for Secundra and myself, but not<br />more - enough to be dangerous, not enough to be generous. There<br />is, however, an outside seat upon the chaise which I will let you<br />have upon a moderate commutation; so that the whole menagerie can<br />go together - the house-dog, the monkey, and the tiger."<br />"I go with you," said I.<br />"I count upon it," said the Master. "You have seen me foiled; I<br />mean you shall see me victorious. To gain that I will risk wetting<br />you like a sop in this wild weather."<br />"And at least," I added, "you know very well you could not throw me<br />off."<br />"Not easily," said he. "You put your finger on the point with your<br />usual excellent good sense. I never fight with the inevitable."<br />"I suppose it is useless to appeal to you?" said I.<br />"Believe me, perfectly," said he.<br />"And yet, if you would give me time, I could write - " I began.<br />"And what would be my Lord Durrisdeer's answer?" asks he.<br />"Aye," said I, "that is the rub."<br />"And, at any rate, how much more expeditions that I should go<br />myself!" says he. "But all this is quite a waste of breath. At<br />seven to-morrow the chaise will be at the door. For I start from<br />the door, Mackellar; I do not skulk through woods and take my<br />chaise upon the wayside - shall we say, at Eagles?"<br />My mind was now thoroughly made up. "Can you spare me quarter of<br />an hour at St. Bride's?" said I. "I have a little necessary<br />business with Carlyle."<br />"An hour, if you prefer," said he. "I do not seek to deny that the<br />money for your seat is an object to me; and you could always get<br />the first to Glascow with saddle-horses."<br />"Well," said I, "I never thought to leave old Scotland."<br />"It will brisken you up," says he.<br />"This will be an ill journey for some one," I said. "I think, sir,<br />for you. Something speaks in my bosom; and so much it says plain -<br />that this is an ill-omened journey."<br />"If you take to prophecy," says he, "listen to that."<br />There came up a violent squall off the open Solway, and the rain<br />was dashed on the great windows.<br />"Do ye ken what that bodes, warlock?" said he, in a broad accent:<br />"that there'll be a man Mackellar unco' sick at sea."<br />When I got to my chamber, I sat there under a painful excitation,<br />hearkening to the turmoil of the gale, which struck full upon that<br />gable of the house. What with the pressure on my spirits, the<br />eldritch cries of the wind among the turret-tops, and the perpetual<br />trepidation of the masoned house, sleep fled my eyelids utterly. I<br />sat by my taper, looking on the black panes of the window, where<br />the storm appeared continually on the point of bursting in its<br />entrance; and upon that empty field I beheld a perspective of<br />consequences that made the hair to rise upon my scalp. The child<br />corrupted, the home broken up, my master dead or worse than dead,<br />my mistress plunged in desolation - all these I saw before me<br />painted brightly on the darkness; and the outcry of the wind<br />appeared to mock at my inaction.<br />CHAPTER IX. - MR. MACKELLAR'S JOURNEY WITH THE MASTER.<br />The chaise came to the door in a strong drenching mist. We took<br />our leave in silence: the house of Durrisdeer standing with<br />dropping gutters and windows closed, like a place dedicate to<br />melancholy. I observed the Master kept his head out, looking back<br />on these splashed walls and glimmering roofs, till they were<br />suddenly swallowed in the mist; and I must suppose some natural<br />sadness fell upon the man at this departure; or was it some<br />provision of the end? At least, upon our mounting the long brae<br />from Durrisdeer, as we walked side by side in the wet, he began<br />first to whistle and then to sing the saddest of our country tunes,<br />which sets folk weeping in a tavern, WANDERING WILLIE. The set of<br />words he used with it I have not heard elsewhere, and could never<br />come by any copy; but some of them which were the most appropriate<br />to our departure linger in my memory. One verse began -<br />Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,<br />Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.<br />And ended somewhat thus -<br />Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,<br />Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.<br />Lone let it stand, now the folks are all departed,<br />The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.<br />I could never be a judge of the merit of these verses; they were so<br />hallowed by the melancholy of the air, and were sung (or rather<br />"soothed") to me by a master-singer at a time so fitting. He<br />looked in my face when he had done, and saw that my eyes watered.<br />"Ah! Mackellar," said he, "do you think I have never a regret?"<br />"I do not think you could be so bad a man," said I, "if you had not<br />all the machinery to be a good one."<br />"No, not all," says he: "not all. You are there in error. The<br />malady of not wanting, my evangelist." But methought he sighed as<br />he mounted again into the chaise.<br />All day long we journeyed in the same miserable weather: the mist<br />besetting us closely, the heavens incessantly weeping on my head.<br />The road lay over moorish hills, where was no sound but the crying<br />of moor-fowl in the wet heather and the pouring of the swollen<br />burns. Sometimes I would doze off in slumber, when I would find<br />myself plunged at once in some foul and ominous nightmare, from the<br />which I would awake strangling. Sometimes, if the way was steep<br />and the wheels turning slowly, I would overhear the voices from<br />within, talking in that tropical tongue which was to me as<br />inarticulate as the piping of the fowls. Sometimes, at a longer<br />ascent, the Master would set foot to ground and walk by my side,<br />mostly without speech. And all the time, sleeping or waking, I<br />beheld the same black perspective of approaching ruin; and the same<br />pictures rose in my view, only they were now painted upon hillside<br />mist. One, I remember, stood before me with the colours of a true<br />illusion. It showed me my lord seated at a table in a small room;<br />his head, which was at first buried in his hands, he slowly raised,<br />and turned upon me a countenance from which hope had fled. I saw<br />it first on the black window-panes, my last night in Durrisdeer; it<br />haunted and returned upon me half the voyage through; and yet it<br />was no effect of lunacy, for I have come to a ripe old age with no<br />decay of my intelligence; nor yet (as I was then tempted to<br />suppose) a heaven-sent warning of the future, for all manner of<br />calamities befell, not that calamity - and I saw many pitiful<br />sights, but never that one.<br />It was decided we should travel on all night; and it was singular,<br />once the dusk had fallen, my spirits somewhat rose. The bright<br />lamps, shining forth into the mist and on the smoking horses and<br />the hodding post-boy, gave me perhaps an outlook intrinsically more<br />cheerful than what day had shown; or perhaps my mind had become<br />wearied of its melancholy. At least, I spent some waking hours,<br />not without satisfaction in my thoughts, although wet and weary in<br />my body; and fell at last into a natural slumber without dreams.<br />Yet I must have been at work even in the deepest of my sleep; and<br />at work with at least a measure of intelligence. For I started<br />broad awake, in the very act of crying out to myself<br />Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child,<br />stricken to find in it an appropriateness, which I had not<br />yesterday observed, to the Master's detestable purpose in the<br />present journey.<br />We were then close upon the city of Glascow, where we were soon<br />breakfasting together at an inn, and where (as the devil would have<br />it) we found a ship in the very article of sailing. We took our<br />places in the cabin; and, two days after, carried our effects on<br />board. Her name was the NONESUCH, a very ancient ship and very<br />happily named. By all accounts this should be her last voyage;<br />people shook their heads upon the quays, and I had several warnings<br />offered me by strangers in the street to the effect that she was<br />rotten as a cheese, too deeply loaden, and must infallibly founder<br />if we met a gale. From this it fell out we were the only<br />passengers; the Captain, McMurtrie, was a silent, absorbed man,<br />with the Glascow or Gaelic accent; the mates ignorant rough<br />seafarers, come in through the hawsehole; and the Master and I were<br />cast upon each other's company.<br />THE NONESUCH carried a fair wind out of the Clyde, and for near<br />upon a week we enjoyed bright weather and a sense of progress. I<br />found myself (to my wonder) a born seaman, in so far at least as I<br />was never sick; yet I was far from tasting the usual serenity of my<br />health. Whether it was the motion of the ship on the billows, the<br />confinement, the salted food, or all of these together, I suffered<br />from a blackness of spirit and a painful strain upon my temper.<br />The nature of my errand on that ship perhaps contributed; I think<br />it did no more; the malady (whatever it was) sprang from my<br />environment; and if the ship were not to blame, then it was the<br />Master. Hatred and fear are ill bedfellows; but (to my shame be it<br />spoken) I have tasted those in other places, lain down and got up<br />with them, and eaten and drunk with them, and yet never before, nor<br />after, have I been so poisoned through and through, in soul and<br />body, as I was on board the NONESUCH. I freely confess my enemy<br />set me a fair example of forbearance; in our worst days displayed<br />the most patient geniality, holding me in conversation as long as I<br />would suffer, and when I had rebuffed his civility, stretching<br />himself on deck to read. The book he had on board with him was Mr.<br />Richardson's famous CLARISSA! and among other small attentions he<br />would read me passages aloud; nor could any elocutionist have given<br />with greater potency the pathetic portions of that work. I would<br />retort upon him with passages out of the Bible, which was all my<br />library - and very fresh to me, my religious duties (I grieve to<br />say it) being always and even to this day extremely neglected. He<br />tasted the merits of the word like the connoisseur he was; and<br />would sometimes take it from my hand, turn the leaves over like a<br />man that knew his way, and give me, with his fine declamation, a<br />Roland for my Oliver. But it was singular how little he applied<br />his reading to himself; it passed high above his head like summer<br />thunder: Lovelace and Clarissa, the tales of David's generosity,<br />the psalms of his penitence, the solemn questions of the book of<br />Job, the touching poetry of Isaiah - they were to him a source of<br />entertainment only, like the scraping of a fiddle in a changehouse.<br />This outer sensibility and inner toughness set me against<br />him; it seemed of a piece with that impudent grossness which I knew<br />to underlie the veneer of his fine manners; and sometimes my gorge<br />rose against him as though he were deformed - and sometimes I would<br />draw away as though from something partly spectral. I had moments<br />when I thought of him as of a man of pasteboard - as though, if one<br />should strike smartly through the buckram of his countenance, there<br />would be found a mere vacuity within. This horror (not merely<br />fanciful, I think) vastly increased my detestation of his<br />neighbourhood; I began to feel something shiver within me on his<br />drawing near; I had at times a longing to cry out; there were days<br />when I thought I could have struck him. This frame of mind was<br />doubtless helped by shame, because I had dropped during our last<br />days at Durrisdeer into a certain toleration of the man; and if any<br />one had then told me I should drop into it again, I must have<br />laughed in his face. It is possible he remained unconscious of<br />this extreme fever of my resentment; yet I think he was too quick;<br />and rather that he had fallen, in a long life of idleness, into a<br />positive need of company, which obliged him to confront and<br />tolerate my unconcealed aversion. Certain, at least, that he loved<br />the note of his own tongue, as, indeed, he entirely loved all the<br />parts and properties of himself; a sort of imbecility which almost<br />necessarily attends on wickedness. I have seen him driven, when I<br />proved recalcitrant, to long discourses with the skipper; and this,<br />although the man plainly testified his weariness, fiddling<br />miserably with both hand and foot, and replying only with a grunt.<br />After the first week out we fell in with foul winds and heavy<br />weather. The sea was high. The NONESUCH, being an old-fashioned<br />ship and badly loaden, rolled beyond belief; so that the skipper<br />trembled for his masts, and I for my life. We made no progress on<br />our course. An unbearable ill-humour settled on the ship: men,<br />mates, and master, girding at one another all day long. A saucy<br />word on the one hand, and a blow on the other, made a daily<br />incident. There were times when the whole crew refused their duty;<br />and we of the afterguard were twice got under arms - being the<br />first time that ever I bore weapons - in the fear of mutiny.<br />In the midst of our evil season sprang up a hurricane of wind; so<br />that all supposed she must go down. I was shut in the cabin from<br />noon of one day till sundown of the next; the Master was somewhere<br />lashed on deck. Secundra had eaten of some drug and lay<br />insensible; so you may say I passed these hours in an unbroken<br />solitude. At first I was terrified beyond motion, and almost<br />beyond thought, my mind appearing to be frozen. Presently there<br />stole in on me a ray of comfort. If the NONESUCH foundered, she<br />would carry down with her into the deeps of that unsounded sea the<br />creature whom we all so feared and hated; there would be no more<br />Master of Ballantrae, the fish would sport among his ribs; his<br />schemes all brought to nothing, his harmless enemies at peace. At<br />first, I have said, it was but a ray of comfort; but it had soon<br />grown to be broad sunshine. The thought of the man's death, of his<br />deletion from this world, which he embittered for so many, took<br />possession of my mind. I hugged it, I found it sweet in my belly.<br />I conceived the ship's last plunge, the sea bursting upon all sides<br />into the cabin, the brief mortal conflict there, all by myself, in<br />that closed place; I numbered the horrors, I had almost said with<br />satisfaction; I felt I could bear all and more, if the NONESUCH<br />carried down with her, overtook by the same ruin, the enemy of my<br />poor master's house. Towards noon of the second day the screaming<br />of the wind abated; the ship lay not so perilously over, and it<br />began to be clear to me that we were past the height of the<br />tempest. As I hope for mercy, I was singly disappointed. In the<br />selfishness of that vile, absorbing passion of hatred, I forgot the<br />case of our innocent shipmates, and thought but of myself and my<br />enemy. For myself, I was already old; I had never been young, I<br />was not formed for the world's pleasures, I had few affections; it<br />mattered not the toss of a silver tester whether I was drowned<br />there and then in the Atlantic, or dribbled out a few more years,<br />to die, perhaps no less terribly, in a deserted sick-bed. Down I<br />went upon my knees - holding on by the locker, or else I had been<br />instantly dashed across the tossing cabin - and, lifting up my<br />voice in the midst of that clamour of the abating hurricane,<br />impiously prayed for my own death. "O God!" I cried, "I would be<br />liker a man if I rose and struck this creature down; but Thou<br />madest me a coward from my mother's womb. O Lord, Thou madest me<br />so, Thou knowest my weakness, Thou knowest that any face of death<br />will set me shaking in my shoes. But, lo! here is Thy servant<br />ready, his mortal weakness laid aside. Let me give my life for<br />this creature's; take the two of them, Lord! take the two, and have<br />mercy on the innocent!" In some such words as these, only yet more<br />irreverent and with more sacred adjurations, I continued to pour<br />forth my spirit. God heard me not, I must suppose in mercy; and I<br />was still absorbed in my agony of supplication when some one,<br />removing the tarpaulin cover, let the light of the sunset pour into<br />the cabin. I stumbled to my feet ashamed, and was seized with<br />surprise to find myself totter and ache like one that had been<br />stretched upon the rack. Secundra Dass, who had slept off the<br />effects of his drug, stood in a corner not far off, gazing at me<br />with wild eyes; and from the open skylight the captain thanked me<br />for my supplications.<br />"It's you that saved the ship, Mr. Mackellar," says he. "There is<br />no craft of seamanship that could have kept her floating: well may<br />we say, 'Except the Lord the city keep, the watchmen watch in<br />vain!'"<br />I was abashed by the captain's error; abashed, also, by the<br />surprise and fear with which the Indian regarded me at first, and<br />the obsequious civilities with which he soon began to cumber me. I<br />know now that he must have overheard and comprehended the peculiar<br />nature of my prayers. It is certain, of course, that he at once<br />disclosed the matter to his patron; and looking back with greater<br />knowledge, I can now understand what so much puzzled me at the<br />moment, those singular and (so to speak) approving smiles with<br />which the Master honoured me. Similarly, I can understand a word<br />that I remember to have fallen from him in conversation that same<br />night; when, holding up his hand and smiling, "Ah! Mackellar," said<br />he, "not every man is so great a coward as he thinks he is - nor<br />yet so good a Christian." He did not guess how true he spoke! For<br />the fact is, the thoughts which had come to me in the violence of<br />the storm retained their hold upon my spirit; and the words that<br />rose to my lips unbidden in the instancy of prayer continued to<br />sound in my ears: with what shameful consequences, it is fitting I<br />should honestly relate; for I could not support a part of such<br />disloyalty as to describe the sins of others and conceal my own.<br />The wind fell, but the sea hove ever the higher. All night the<br />NONESUCH rolled outrageously; the next day dawned, and the next,<br />and brought no change. To cross the cabin was scarce possible; old<br />experienced seamen were cast down upon the deck, and one cruelly<br />mauled in the concussion; every board and block in the old ship<br />cried out aloud; and the great bell by the anchor-bitts continually<br />and dolefully rang. One of these days the Master and I sate alone<br />together at the break of the poop. I should say the NONESUCH<br />carried a high, raised poop. About the top of it ran considerable<br />bulwarks, which made the ship unweatherly; and these, as they<br />approached the front on each side, ran down in a fine, oldfashioned,<br />carven scroll to join the bulwarks of the waist. From<br />this disposition, which seems designed rather for ornament than<br />use, it followed there was a discontinuance of protection: and<br />that, besides, at the very margin of the elevated part where (in<br />certain movements of the ship) it might be the most needful. It<br />was here we were sitting: our feet hanging down, the Master<br />betwixt me and the side, and I holding on with both hands to the<br />grating of the cabin skylight; for it struck me it was a dangerous<br />position, the more so as I had continually before my eyes a measure<br />of our evolutions in the person of the Master, which stood out in<br />the break of the bulwarks against the sun. Now his head would be<br />in the zenith and his shadow fall quite beyond the NONESUCH on the<br />farther side; and now he would swing down till he was underneath my<br />feet, and the line of the sea leaped high above him like the<br />ceiling of a room. I looked on upon this with a growing<br />fascination, as birds are said to look on snakes. My mind,<br />besides, was troubled with an astonishing diversity of noises; for<br />now that we had all sails spread in the vain hope to bring her to<br />the sea, the ship sounded like a factory with their reverberations.<br />We spoke first of the mutiny with which we had been threatened;<br />this led us on to the topic of assassination; and that offered a<br />temptation to the Master more strong than he was able to resist.<br />He must tell me a tale, and show me at the same time how clever he<br />was and how wicked. It was a thing he did always with affectation<br />and display; generally with a good effect. But this tale, told in<br />a high key in the midst of so great a tumult, and by a narrator who<br />was one moment looking down at me from the skies and the next up<br />from under the soles of my feet - this particular tale, I say, took<br />hold upon me in a degree quite singular.<br />"My friend the count," it was thus that he began his story, "had<br />for an enemy a certain German baron, a stranger in Rome. It<br />matters not what was the ground of the count's enmity; but as he<br />had a firm design to be revenged, and that with safety to himself,<br />he kept it secret even from the baron. Indeed, that is the first<br />principle of vengeance; and hatred betrayed is hatred impotent.<br />The count was a man of a curious, searching mind; he had something<br />of the artist; if anything fell for him to do, it must always be<br />done with an exact perfection, not only as to the result, but in<br />the very means and instruments, or he thought the thing miscarried.<br />It chanced he was one day riding in the outer suburbs, when he came<br />to a disused by-road branching off into the moor which lies about<br />Rome. On the one hand was an ancient Roman tomb; on the other a<br />deserted house in a garden of evergreen trees. This road brought<br />him presently into a field of ruins, in the midst of which, in the<br />side of a hill, he saw an open door, and, not far off, a single<br />stunted pine no greater than a currant-bush. The place was desert<br />and very secret; a voice spoke in the count's bosom that there was<br />something here to his advantage. He tied his horse to the pinetree,<br />took his flint and steel in his hand to make a light, and<br />entered into the hill. The doorway opened on a passage of old<br />Roman masonry, which shortly after branched in two. The count took<br />the turning to the right, and followed it, groping forward in the<br />dark, till he was brought up by a kind of fence, about elbow-high,<br />which extended quite across the passage. Sounding forward with his<br />foot, he found an edge of polished stone, and then vacancy. All<br />his curiosity was now awakened, and, getting some rotten sticks<br />that lay about the floor, he made a fire. In front of him was a<br />profound well; doubtless some neighbouring peasant had once used it<br />for his water, and it was he that had set up the fence. A long<br />while the count stood leaning on the rail and looking down into the<br />pit. It was of Roman foundation, and, like all that nation set<br />their hands to, built as for eternity; the sides were still<br />straight, and the joints smooth; to a man who should fall in, no<br />escape was possible. 'Now,' the count was thinking, 'a strong<br />impulsion brought me to this place. What for? what have I gained?<br />why should I be sent to gaze into this well?' when the rail of the<br />fence gave suddenly under his weight, and he came within an ace of<br />falling headlong in. Leaping back to save himself, he trod out the<br />last flicker of his fire, which gave him thenceforward no more<br />light, only an incommoding smoke. 'Was I sent here to my death?'<br />says he, and shook from head to foot. And then a thought flashed<br />in his mind. He crept forth on hands and knees to the brink of the<br />pit, and felt above him in the air. The rail had been fast to a<br />pair of uprights; it had only broken from the one, and still<br />depended from the other. The count set it back again as he had<br />found it, so that the place meant death to the first comer, and<br />groped out of the catacomb like a sick man. The next day, riding<br />in the Corso with the baron, he purposely betrayed a strong<br />preoccupation. The other (as he had designed) inquired into the<br />cause; and he, after some fencing, admitted that his spirits had<br />been dashed by an unusual dream. This was calculated to draw on<br />the baron - a superstitious man, who affected the scorn of<br />superstition. Some rallying followed, and then the count, as if<br />suddenly carried away, called on his friend to beware, for it was<br />of him that he had dreamed. You know enough of human nature, my<br />excellent Mackellar, to be certain of one thing: I mean that the<br />baron did not rest till he had heard the dream. The count, sure<br />that he would never desist, kept him in play till his curiosity was<br />highly inflamed, and then suffered himself, with seeming<br />reluctance, to be overborne. 'I warn you,' says he, 'evil will<br />come of it; something tells me so. But since there is to be no<br />peace either for you or me except on this condition, the blame be<br />on your own head! This was the dream:- I beheld you riding, I know<br />not where, yet I think it must have been near Rome, for on your one<br />hand was an ancient tomb, and on the other a garden of evergreen<br />trees. Methought I cried and cried upon you to come back in a very<br />agony of terror; whether you heard me I know not, but you went<br />doggedly on. The road brought you to a desert place among ruins,<br />where was a door in a hillside, and hard by the door a misbegotten<br />pine. Here you dismounted (I still crying on you to beware), tied<br />your horse to the pine-tree, and entered resolutely in by the door.<br />Within, it was dark; but in my dream I could still see you, and<br />still besought you to hold back. You felt your way along the<br />right-hand wall, took a branching passage to the right, and came to<br />a little chamber, where was a well with a railing. At this - I<br />know not why - my alarm for you increased a thousandfold, so that I<br />seemed to scream myself hoarse with warnings, crying it was still<br />time, and bidding you begone at once from that vestibule. Such was<br />the word I used in my dream, and it seemed then to have a clear<br />significancy; but to-day, and awake, I profess I know not what it<br />means. To all my outcry you rendered not the least attention,<br />leaning the while upon the rail and looking down intently in the<br />water. And then there was made to you a communication; I do not<br />think I even gathered what it was, but the fear of it plucked me<br />clean out of my slumber, and I awoke shaking and sobbing. And<br />now,' continues the count, 'I thank you from my heart for your<br />insistency. This dream lay on me like a load; and now I have told<br />it in plain words and in the broad daylight, it seems no great<br />matter.' - 'I do not know,' says the baron. 'It is in some points<br />strange. A communication, did you say? Oh! it is an odd dream.<br />It will make a story to amuse our friends.' - 'I am not so sure,'<br />says the count. 'I am sensible of some reluctancy. Let us rather<br />forget it.' - 'By all means,' says the baron. And (in fact) the<br />dream was not again referred to. Some days after, the count<br />proposed a ride in the fields, which the baron (since they were<br />daily growing faster friends) very readily accepted. On the way<br />back to Rome, the count led them insensibly by a particular route.<br />Presently he reined in his horse, clapped his hand before his eyes,<br />and cried out aloud. Then he showed his face again (which was now<br />quite white, for he was a consummate actor), and stared upon the<br />baron. 'What ails you?' cries the baron. 'What is wrong with<br />you?' - 'Nothing,' cries the count. 'It is nothing. A seizure, I<br />know not what. Let us hurry back to Rome.' But in the meanwhile<br />the baron had looked about him; and there, on the left-hand side of<br />the way as they went back to Rome, he saw a dusty by-road with a<br />tomb upon the one hand and a garden of evergreen trees upon the<br />other. - 'Yes,' says he, with a changed voice. 'Let us by all<br />means hurry back to Rome. I fear you are not well in health.' -<br />'Oh, for God's sake!' cries the count, shuddering, 'back to Rome<br />and let me get to bed.' They made their return with scarce a word;<br />and the count, who should by rights have gone into society, took to<br />his bed and gave out he had a touch of country fever. The next day<br />the baron's horse was found tied to the pine, but himself was never<br />heard of from that hour. - And, now, was that a murder?" says the<br />Master, breaking sharply off.<br />"Are you sure he was a count?" I asked.<br />"I am not certain of the title," said he, "but he was a gentleman<br />of family: and the Lord deliver you, Mackellar, from an enemy so<br />subtile!"<br />These last words he spoke down at me, smiling, from high above; the<br />next, he was under my feet. I continued to follow his evolutions<br />with a childish fixity; they made me giddy and vacant, and I spoke<br />as in a dream.<br />"He hated the baron with a great hatred?" I asked.<br />His belly moved when the man came near him," said the Master.<br />"I have felt that same," said I.<br />"Verily!" cries the Master. "Here is news indeed! I wonder - do I<br />flatter myself? or am I the cause of these ventral perturbations?"<br />He was quite capable of choosing out a graceful posture, even with<br />no one to behold him but myself, and all the more if there were any<br />element of peril. He sat now with one knee flung across the other,<br />his arms on his bosom, fitting the swing of the ship with an<br />exquisite balance, such as a featherweight might overthrow. All at<br />once I had the vision of my lord at the table, with his head upon<br />his hands; only now, when he showed me his countenance, it was<br />heavy with reproach. The words of my own prayer - I WERE LIKER A<br />MAN IF I STRUCK THIS CREATURE DOWN - shot at the same time into my<br />memory. I called my energies together, and (the ship then heeling<br />downward toward my enemy) thrust at him swiftly with my foot. It<br />was written I should have the guilt of this attempt without the<br />profit. Whether from my own uncertainty or his incredible<br />quickness, he escaped the thrust, leaping to his feet and catching<br />hold at the same moment of a stay.<br />I do not know how long a time passed by. I lying where I was upon<br />the deck, overcome with terror and remorse and shame: he standing<br />with the stay in his hand, backed against the bulwarks, and<br />regarding me with an expression singularly mingled. At last he<br />spoke.<br />"Mackellar," said he, "I make no reproaches, but I offer you a<br />bargain. On your side, I do not suppose you desire to have this<br />exploit made public; on mine, I own to you freely I do not care to<br />draw my breath in a perpetual terror of assassination by the man I<br />sit at meat with. Promise me - but no," says he, breaking off,<br />"you are not yet in the quiet possession of your mind; you might<br />think I had extorted the promise from your weakness; and I would<br />leave no door open for casuistry to come in - that dishonesty of<br />the conscientious. Take time to meditate."<br />With that he made off up the sliding deck like a squirrel, and<br />plunged into the cabin. About half an hour later he returned - I<br />still lying as he had left me.<br />"Now,' says be, "will you give me your troth as a Christian, and a<br />faithful servant of my brother's, that I shall have no more to fear<br />from your attempts?"<br />"I give it you," said I.<br />"I shall require your hand upon it," says he.<br />"You have the right to make conditions," I replied, and we shook<br />hands.<br />He sat down at once in the same place and the old perilous<br />attitude.<br />"Hold on!" cried I, covering my eyes. "I cannot bear to see you in<br />that posture. The least irregularity of the sea might plunge you<br />overboard."<br />"You are highly inconsistent," he replied, smiling, but doing as I<br />asked. "For all that, Mackellar, I would have you to know you have<br />risen forty feet in my esteem. You think I cannot set a price upon<br />fidelity? But why do you suppose I carry that Secundra Dass about<br />the world with me? Because he would die or do murder for me tomorrow;<br />and I love him for it. Well, you may think it odd, but I<br />like you the better for this afternoon's performance. I thought<br />you were magnetised with the Ten Commandments; but no - God damn my<br />soul!" - he cries, "the old wife has blood in his body after all!<br />Which does not change the fact," he continued, smiling again, "that<br />you have done well to give your promise; for I doubt if you would<br />ever shine in your new trade."<br />"I suppose," said I, "I should ask your pardon and God's for my<br />attempt. At any rate, I have passed my word, which I will keep<br />faithfully. But when I think of those you persecute - " I paused.<br />"Life is a singular thing," said he, "and mankind a very singular<br />people. You suppose yourself to love my brother. I assure you, it<br />is merely custom. Interrogate your memory; and when first you came<br />to Durrisdeer, you will find you considered him a dull, ordinary<br />youth. He is as dull and ordinary now, though not so young. Had<br />you instead fallen in with me, you would to-day be as strong upon<br />my side."<br />"I would never say you were ordinary, Mr. Bally," I returned; "but<br />here you prove yourself dull. You have just shown your reliance on<br />my word. In other terms, that is my conscience - the same which<br />starts instinctively back from you, like the eye from a strong<br />light."<br />"Ah!" says he, "but I mean otherwise. I mean, had I met you in my<br />youth. You are to consider I was not always as I am to-day; nor<br />(had I met in with a friend of your description) should I have ever<br />been so."<br />"Hut, Mr. Bally," says I, "you would have made a mock of me; you<br />would never have spent ten civil words on such a Square-toes."<br />But he was now fairly started on his new course of justification,<br />with which he wearied me throughout the remainder of the passage.<br />No doubt in the past he had taken pleasure to paint himself<br />unnecessarily black, and made a vaunt of his wickedness, bearing it<br />for a coat-of-arms. Nor was he so illogical as to abate one item<br />of his old confessions. "But now that I know you are a human<br />being," he would say, "I can take the trouble to explain myself.<br />For I assure you I am human, too, and have my virtues, like my<br />neighbours." I say, he wearied me, for I had only the one word to<br />say in answer: twenty times I must have said it: "Give up your<br />present purpose and return with me to Durrisdeer; then I will<br />believe you."<br />Thereupon he would shake his head at me. "Ah! Mackellar, you might<br />live a thousand years and never understand my nature," he would<br />say. "This battle is now committed, the hour of reflection quite<br />past, the hour for mercy not yet come. It began between us when we<br />span a coin in the hall of Durrisdeer, now twenty years ago; we<br />have had our ups and downs, but never either of us dreamed of<br />giving in; and as for me, when my glove is cast, life and honour go<br />with it."<br />"A fig for your honour!" I would say. "And by your leave, these<br />warlike similitudes are something too high-sounding for the matter<br />in hand. You want some dirty money; there is the bottom of your<br />contention; and as for your means, what are they? to stir up sorrow<br />in a family that never harmed you, to debauch (if you can) your own<br />nephew, and to wring the heart of your born brother! A footpad<br />that kills an old granny in a woollen mutch with a dirty bludgeon,<br />and that for a shilling-piece and a paper of snuff - there is all<br />the warrior that you are."<br />When I would attack him thus (or somewhat thus) he would smile, and<br />sigh like a man misunderstood. Once, I remember, he defended<br />himself more at large, and had some curious sophistries, worth<br />repeating, for a light upon his character.<br />"You are very like a civilian to think war consists in drums and<br />banners," said he. "War (as the ancients said very wisely) is<br />ULTIMA RATIO. When we take our advantage unrelentingly, then we<br />make war. Ah! Mackellar, you are a devil of a soldier in the<br />steward's room at Durrisdeer, or the tenants do you sad injustice!"<br />"I think little of what war is or is not," I replied. "But you<br />weary me with claiming my respect. Your brother is a good man, and<br />you are a bad one - neither more nor less."<br />"Had I been Alexander - " he began.<br />"It is so we all dupe ourselves," I cried. "Had I been St. Paul,<br />it would have been all one; I would have made the same hash of that<br />career that you now see me making of my own."<br />"I tell you," he cried, bearing down my interruption, "had I been<br />the least petty chieftain in the Highlands, had I been the least<br />king of naked negroes in the African desert, my people would have<br />adored me. A bad man, am I? Ah! but I was born for a good tyrant!<br />Ask Secundra Dass; he will tell you I treat him like a son. Cast<br />in your lot with me to-morrow, become my slave, my chattel, a thing<br />I can command as I command the powers of my own limbs and spirit -<br />you will see no more that dark side that I turn upon the world in<br />anger. I must have all or none. But where all is given, I give it<br />back with usury. I have a kingly nature: there is my loss!"<br />"It has been hitherto rather the loss of others," I remarked,<br />"which seems a little on the hither side of royalty."<br />"Tilly-vally!" cried he. "Even now, I tell you, I would spare that<br />family in which you take so great an interest: yes, even now - tomorrow<br />I would leave them to their petty welfare, and disappear in<br />that forest of cut-throats and thimble-riggers that we call the<br />world. I would do it to-morrow!" says he. "Only - only - "<br />"Only what?" I asked.<br />"Only they must beg it on their bended knees. I think in public,<br />too," he added, smiling. "Indeed, Mackellar, I doubt if there be a<br />hall big enough to serve my purpose for that act of reparation."<br />"Vanity, vanity!" I moralised. "To think that this great force for<br />evil should be swayed by the same sentiment that sets a lassie<br />mincing to her glass!"<br />"Oh! there are double words for everything: the word that swells,<br />the word that belittles; you cannot fight me with a word!" said he.<br />"You said the other day that I relied on your conscience: were I<br />in your humour of detraction, I might say I built upon your vanity.<br />It is your pretension to be UN HOMME DE PAROLE; 'tis mine not to<br />accept defeat. Call it vanity, call it virtue, call it greatness<br />of soul - what signifies the expression? But recognise in each of<br />us a common strain: that we both live for an idea."<br />It will be gathered from so much familiar talk, and so much<br />patience on both sides, that we now lived together upon excellent<br />terms. Such was again the fact, and this time more seriously than<br />before. Apart from disputations such as that which I have tried to<br />reproduce, not only consideration reigned, but, I am tempted to<br />say, even kindness. When I fell sick (as I did shortly after our<br />great storm), he sat by my berth to entertain me with his<br />conversation, and treated me with excellent remedies, which I<br />accepted with security. Himself commented on the circumstance.<br />"You see," says he, "you begin to know me better. A very little<br />while ago, upon this lonely ship, where no one but myself has any<br />smattering of science, you would have made sure I had designs upon<br />your life. And, observe, it is since I found you had designs upon<br />my own, that I have shown you most respect. You will tell me if<br />this speaks of a small mind." I found little to reply. In so far<br />as regarded myself, I believed him to mean well; I am, perhaps, the<br />more a dupe of his dissimulation, but I believed (and I still<br />believe) that he regarded me with genuine kindness. Singular and<br />sad fact! so soon as this change began, my animosity abated, and<br />these haunting visions of my master passed utterly away. So that,<br />perhaps, there was truth in the man's last vaunting word to me,<br />uttered on the second day of July, when our long voyage was at last<br />brought almost to an end, and we lay becalmed at the sea end of the<br />vast harbour of New York, in a gasping heat, which was presently<br />exchanged for a surprising waterfall of rain. I stood on the poop,<br />regarding the green shores near at hand, and now and then the light<br />smoke of the little town, our destination. And as I was even then<br />devising how to steal a march on my familiar enemy, I was conscious<br />of a shade of embarrassment when he approached me with his hand<br />extended.<br />"I am now to bid you farewell," said he, "and that for ever. For<br />now you go among my enemies, where all your former prejudices will<br />revive. I never yet failed to charm a person when I wanted; even<br />you, my good friend - to call you so for once - even you have now a<br />very different portrait of me in your memory, and one that you will<br />never quite forget. The voyage has not lasted long enough, or I<br />should have wrote the impression deeper. But now all is at an end,<br />and we are again at war. Judge by this little interlude how<br />dangerous I am; and tell those fools" - pointing with his finger to<br />the town - "to think twice and thrice before they set me at<br />defiance."<br />CHAPTER X. - PASSAGES AT NEW YORK.<br />I have mentioned I was resolved to steal a march upon the Master;<br />and this, with the complicity of Captain McMurtrie, was mighty<br />easily effected: a boat being partly loaded on the one side of our<br />ship and the Master placed on board of it, the while a skiff put<br />off from the other, carrying me alone. I had no more trouble in<br />finding a direction to my lord's house, whither I went at top<br />speed, and which I found to be on the outskirts of the place, a<br />very suitable mansion, in a fine garden, with an extraordinary<br />large barn, byre, and stable, all in one. It was here my lord was<br />walking when I arrived; indeed, it had become his chief place of<br />frequentation, and his mind was now filled with farming. I burst<br />in upon him breathless, and gave him my news: which was indeed no<br />news at all, several ships having outsailed the NONESUCH in the<br />interval.<br />"We have been expecting you long," said my lord; "and indeed, of<br />late days, ceased to expect you any more. I am glad to take your<br />hand again, Mackellar. I thought you had been at the bottom of the<br />sea."<br />"Ah! my lord, would God I had!" cried I. "Things would have been<br />better for yourself."<br />"Not in the least," says he, grimly. "I could not ask better.<br />There is a long score to pay, and now - at last - I can begin to<br />pay it."<br />I cried out against his security.<br />"Oh!" says he, "this is not Durrisdeer, and I have taken my<br />precautions. His reputation awaits him; I have prepared a welcome<br />for my brother. Indeed, fortune has served me; for I found here a<br />merchant of Albany who knew him after the '45 and had mighty<br />convenient suspicions of a murder: some one of the name of Chew it<br />was, another Albanian. No one here will be surprised if I deny him<br />my door; he will not be suffered to address my children, nor even<br />to salute my wife: as for myself, I make so much exception for a<br />brother that he may speak to me. I should lose my pleasure else,"<br />says my lord, rubbing his palms.<br />Presently he bethought himself, and set men off running, with<br />billets, to summon the magnates of the province. I cannot recall<br />what pretext he employed; at least, it was successful; and when our<br />ancient enemy appeared upon the scene, he found my lord pacing in<br />front of his house under some trees of shade, with the Governor<br />upon one hand and various notables upon the other. My lady, who<br />was seated in the verandah, rose with a very pinched expression and<br />carried her children into the house.<br />The Master, well dressed and with an elegant walking-sword, bowed<br />to the company in a handsome manner and nodded to my lord with<br />familiarity. My lord did not accept the salutation, but looked<br />upon his brother with bended brows.<br />"Well, sir," says he, at last, "what ill wind brings you hither of<br />all places, where (to our common disgrace) your reputation has<br />preceded you?"<br />"Your lordship is pleased to be civil," said the Master, with a<br />fine start.<br />"I am pleased to be very plain," returned my lord; "because it is<br />needful you should clearly understand your situation. At home,<br />where you were so little known, it was still possible to keep<br />appearances; that would be quite vain in this province; and I have<br />to tell you that I am quite resolved to wash my hands of you. You<br />have already ruined me almost to the door, as you ruined my father<br />before me; - whose heart you also broke. Your crimes escape the<br />law; but my friend the Governor has promised protection to my<br />family. Have a care, sir!" cries my lord, shaking his cane at him:<br />"if you are observed to utter two words to any of my innocent<br />household, the law shall be stretched to make you smart for it."<br />"Ah!" says the Master, very slowly. "And so this is the advantage<br />of a foreign land! These gentlemen are unacquainted with our<br />story, I perceive. They do not know that I am the Lord Durrisdeer;<br />they do not know you are my younger brother, sitting in my place<br />under a sworn family compact; they do not know (or they would not<br />be seen with you in familiar correspondence) that every acre is<br />mine before God Almighty - and every doit of the money you withhold<br />from me, you do it as a thief, a perjurer, and a disloyal brother!"<br />"General Clinton," I cried, "do not listen to his lies. I am the<br />steward of the estate, and there is not one word of truth in it.<br />The man is a forfeited rebel turned into a hired spy: there is his<br />story in two words."<br />It was thus that (in the heat of the moment) I let slip his infamy.<br />"Fellow," said the Governor, turning his face sternly on the<br />Master, "I know more of you than you think for. We have some<br />broken ends of your adventures in the provinces, which you will do<br />very well not to drive me to investigate. There is the<br />disappearance of Mr. Jacob Chew with all his merchandise; there is<br />the matter of where you came ashore from with so much money and<br />jewels, when you were picked up by a Bermudan out of Albany.<br />Believe me, if I let these matters lie, it is in commiseration for<br />your family and out of respect for my valued friend, Lord<br />Durrisdeer."<br />There was a murmur of applause from the provincials.<br />"I should have remembered how a title would shine out in such a<br />hole as this," says the Master, white as a sheet: "no matter how<br />unjustly come by. It remains for me, then, to die at my lord's<br />door, where my dead body will form a very cheerful ornament."<br />"Away with your affectations!" cries my lord. "You know very well<br />I have no such meaning; only to protect myself from calumny, and my<br />home from your intrusion. I offer you a choice. Either I shall<br />pay your passage home on the first ship, when you may perhaps be<br />able to resume your occupations under Government, although God<br />knows I would rather see you on the highway! Or, if that likes you<br />not, stay here and welcome! I have inquired the least sum on which<br />body and soul can be decently kept together in New York; so much<br />you shall have, paid weekly; and if you cannot labour with your<br />hands to better it, high time you should betake yourself to learn.<br />The condition is - that you speak with no member of my family<br />except myself," he added.<br />I do not think I have ever seen any man so pale as was the Master;<br />but he was erect and his mouth firm.<br />"I have been met here with some very unmerited insults," said he,<br />"from which I have certainly no idea to take refuge by flight.<br />Give me your pittance; I take it without shame, for it is mine<br />already - like the shirt upon your back; and I choose to stay until<br />these gentlemen shall understand me better. Already they must spy<br />the cloven hoof, since with all your pretended eagerness for the<br />family honour, you take a pleasure to degrade it in my person."<br />"This is all very fine," says my lord; "but to us who know you of<br />old, you must be sure it signifies nothing. You take that<br />alternative out of which you think that you can make the most.<br />Take it, if you can, in silence; it will serve you better in the<br />long run, you may believe me, than this ostentation of<br />ingratitude."<br />"Oh, gratitude, my lord!" cries the Master, with a mounting<br />intonation and his forefinger very conspicuously lifted up. "Be at<br />rest: it will not fail you. It now remains that I should salute<br />these gentlemen whom we have wearied with our family affairs."<br />And he bowed to each in succession, settled his walking-sword, and<br />took himself off, leaving every one amazed at his behaviour, and me<br />not less so at my lord's.<br />We were now to enter on a changed phase of this family division.<br />The Master was by no manner of means so helpless as my lord<br />supposed, having at his hand, and entirely devoted to his service,<br />an excellent artist in all sorts of goldsmith work. With my lord's<br />allowance, which was not so scanty as he had described it, the pair<br />could support life; and all the earnings of Secundra Dass might be<br />laid upon one side for any future purpose. That this was done, I<br />have no doubt. It was in all likelihood the Master's design to<br />gather a sufficiency, and then proceed in quest of that treasure<br />which he had buried long before among the mountains; to which, if<br />he had confined himself, he would have been more happily inspired.<br />But unfortunately for himself and all of us, he took counsel of his<br />anger. The public disgrace of his arrival - which I sometimes<br />wonder he could manage to survive - rankled in his bones; he was in<br />that humour when a man - in the words of the old adage - will cut<br />off his nose to spite his face; and he must make himself a public<br />spectacle in the hopes that some of the disgrace might spatter on<br />my lord.<br />He chose, in a poor quarter of the town, a lonely, small house of<br />boards, overhung with some acacias. It was furnished in front with<br />a sort of hutch opening, like that of a dog's kennel, but about as<br />high as a table from the ground, in which the poor man that built<br />it had formerly displayed some wares; and it was this which took<br />the Master's fancy and possibly suggested his proceedings. It<br />appears, on board the pirate ship he had acquired some quickness<br />with the needle - enough, at least, to play the part of tailor in<br />the public eye; which was all that was required by the nature of<br />his vengeance. A placard was hung above the hutch, bearing these<br />words in something of the following disposition:<br />JAMES DURIE,<br />FORMERLY MASTER OF BALLANTRAE.<br />CLOTHES NEATLY CLOUTED.<br />* * * * *<br />SECUNDRA DASS,<br />DECAYED GENTLEMAN OF INDIA.<br />FINE GOLDSMITH WORK.<br />Underneath this, when he had a job, my gentleman sat withinside<br />tailor-wise and busily stitching. I say, when he had a job; but<br />such customers as came were rather for Secundra, and the Master's<br />sewing would be more in the manner of Penelope's. He could never<br />have designed to gain even butter to his bread by such a means of<br />livelihood: enough for him that there was the name of Durie<br />dragged in the dirt on the placard, and the sometime heir of that<br />proud family set up cross-legged in public for a reproach upon his<br />brother's meanness. And in so far his device succeeded that there<br />was murmuring in the town and a party formed highly inimical to my<br />lord. My lord's favour with the Governor laid him more open on the<br />other side; my lady (who was never so well received in the colony)<br />met with painful innuendoes; in a party of women, where it would be<br />the topic most natural to introduce, she was almost debarred from<br />the naming of needle-work; and I have seen her return with a<br />flushed countenance and vow that she would go abroad no more.<br />In the meanwhile my lord dwelled in his decent mansion, immersed in<br />farming; a popular man with his intimates, and careless or<br />unconscious of the rest. He laid on flesh; had a bright, busy<br />face; even the heat seemed to prosper with him; and my lady - in<br />despite of her own annoyances - daily blessed Heaven her father<br />should have left her such a paradise. She had looked on from a<br />window upon the Master's humiliation; and from that hour appeared<br />to feel at ease. I was not so sure myself; as time went on, there<br />seemed to me a something not quite wholesome in my lord's<br />condition. Happy he was, beyond a doubt, but the grounds of this<br />felicity were wont; even in the bosom of his family he brooded with<br />manifest delight upon some private thought; and I conceived at last<br />the suspicion (quite unworthy of us both) that he kept a mistress<br />somewhere in the town. Yet he went little abroad, and his day was<br />very fully occupied; indeed, there was but a single period, and<br />that pretty early in the morning, while Mr. Alexander was at his<br />lesson-book, of which I was not certain of the disposition. It<br />should be borne in mind, in the defence of that which I now did,<br />that I was always in some fear my lord was not quite justly in his<br />reason; and with our enemy sitting so still in the same town with<br />us, I did well to be upon my guard. Accordingly I made a pretext,<br />had the hour changed at which I taught Mr. Alexander the foundation<br />of cyphering and the mathematic, and set myself instead to dog my<br />master's footsteps.<br />Every morning, fair or foul, he took his gold-headed cane, set his<br />hat on the back of his head - a recent habitude, which I thought to<br />indicate a burning brow - and betook himself to make a certain<br />circuit. At the first his way was among pleasant trees and beside<br />a graveyard, where he would sit awhile, if the day were fine, in<br />meditation. Presently the path turned down to the waterside, and<br />came back along the harbour-front and past the Master's booth. As<br />he approached this second part of his circuit, my Lord Durrisdeer<br />began to pace more leisurely, like a man delighted with the air and<br />scene; and before the booth, half-way between that and the water's<br />edge, would pause a little, leaning on his staff. It was the hour<br />when the Master sate within upon his board and plied his needle.<br />So these two brothers would gaze upon each other with hard faces;<br />and then my lord move on again, smiling to himself.<br />It was but twice that I must stoop to that ungrateful necessity of<br />playing spy. I was then certain of my lord's purpose in his<br />rambles and of the secret source of his delight. Here was his<br />mistress: it was hatred and not love that gave him healthful<br />colours. Some moralists might have been relieved by the discovery;<br />I confess that I was dismayed. I found this situation of two<br />brethren not only odious in itself, but big with possibilities of<br />further evil; and I made it my practice, in so far as many<br />occupations would allow, to go by a shorter path and be secretly<br />present at their meeting. Coming down one day a little late, after<br />I had been near a week prevented, I was struck with surprise to<br />find a new development. I should say there was a bench against the<br />Master's house, where customers might sit to parley with the<br />shopman; and here I found my lord seated, nursing his cane and<br />looking pleasantly forth upon the bay. Not three feet from him<br />sate the Master, stitching. Neither spoke; nor (in this new<br />situation) did my lord so much as cut a glance upon his enemy. He<br />tasted his neighbourhood, I must suppose, less indirectly in the<br />bare proximity of person; and, without doubt, drank deep of hateful<br />pleasures.<br />He had no sooner come away than I openly joined him. "My lord, my<br />lord," said I, "this is no manner of behaviour."<br />"I grow fat upon it," he replied; and not merely the words, which<br />were strange enough, but the whole character of his expression,<br />shocked me.<br />"I warn you, my lord, against this indulgency of evil feeling,"<br />said I. "I know not to which it is more perilous, the soul or the<br />reason; but you go the way to murder both."<br />"You cannot understand," said he. "You had never such mountains of<br />bitterness upon your heart."<br />"And if it were no more," I added, "you will surely goad the man to<br />some extremity."<br />"To the contrary; I am breaking his spirit," says my lord.<br />Every morning for hard upon a week my lord took his same place upon<br />the bench. It was a pleasant place, under the green acacias, with<br />a sight upon the bay and shipping, and a sound (from some way off)<br />of marines singing at their employ. Here the two sate without<br />speech or any external movement, beyond that of the needle or the<br />Master biting off a thread, for he still clung to his pretence of<br />industry; and here I made a point to join them, wondering at myself<br />and my companions. If any of my lord's friends went by, he would<br />hail them cheerfully, and cry out he was there to give some good<br />advice to his brother, who was now (to his delight) grown quite<br />industrious. And even this the Master accepted with a steady<br />countenance; what was in his mind, God knows, or perhaps Satan<br />only.<br />All of a sudden, on a still day of what they call the Indian<br />Summer, when the woods were changed into gold and pink and scarlet,<br />the Master laid down his needle and burst into a fit of merriment.<br />I think he must have been preparing it a long while in silence, for<br />the note in itself was pretty naturally pitched; but breaking<br />suddenly from so extreme a silence, and in circumstances so averse<br />from mirth, it sounded ominously on my ear.<br />"Henry," said he, "I have for once made a false step, and for once<br />you have had the wit to profit by it. The farce of the cobbler<br />ends to-day; and I confess to you (with my compliments) that you<br />have had the best of it. Blood will out; and you have certainly a<br />choice idea of how to make yourself unpleasant."<br />Never a word said my lord; it was just as though the Master had not<br />broken silence.<br />"Come," resumed the Master, "do not be sulky; it will spoil your<br />attitude. You can now afford (believe me) to be a little gracious;<br />for I have not merely a defeat to accept. I had meant to continue<br />this performance till I had gathered enough money for a certain<br />purpose; I confess ingenuously, I have not the courage. You<br />naturally desire my absence from this town; I have come round by<br />another way to the same idea. And I have a proposition to make;<br />or, if your lordship prefers, a favour to ask."<br />"Ask it," says my lord.<br />"You may have heard that I had once in this country a considerable<br />treasure," returned the Master; "it matters not whether or no -<br />such is the fact; and I was obliged to bury it in a spot of which I<br />have sufficient indications. To the recovery of this, has my<br />ambition now come down; and, as it is my own, you will not grudge<br />it me."<br />"Go and get it," says my lord. "I make no opposition."<br />"Yes," said the Master; "but to do so, I must find men and<br />carriage. The way is long and rough, and the country infested with<br />wild Indians. Advance me only so much as shall be needful: either<br />as a lump sum, in lieu of my allowance; or, if you prefer it, as a<br />loan, which I shall repay on my return. And then, if you so<br />decide, you may have seen the last of me."<br />My lord stared him steadily in the eyes; there was a hard smile<br />upon his face, but he uttered nothing.<br />"Henry," said the Master, with a formidable quietness, and drawing<br />at the same time somewhat back - "Henry, I had the honour to<br />address you."<br />"Let us be stepping homeward," says my lord to me, who was plucking<br />at his sleeve; and with that he rose, stretched himself, settled<br />his hat, and still without a syllable of response, began to walk<br />steadily along the shore.<br />I hesitated awhile between the two brothers, so serious a climax<br />did we seem to have reached. But the Master had resumed his<br />occupation, his eyes lowered, his hand seemingly as deft as ever;<br />and I decided to pursue my lord.<br />"Are you mad?" I cried, so soon as I had overtook him. "Would you<br />cast away so fair an opportunity?"<br />"Is it possible you should still believe in him?" inquired my lord,<br />almost with a sneer.<br />"I wish him forth of this town!" I cried. "I wish him anywhere and<br />anyhow but as he is."<br />"I have said my say," returned my lord, "and you have said yours.<br />There let it rest."<br />But I was bent on dislodging the Master. That sight of him<br />patiently returning to his needlework was more than my imagination<br />could digest. There was never a man made, and the Master the least<br />of any, that could accept so long a series of insults. The air<br />smelt blood to me. And I vowed there should be no neglect of mine<br />if, through any chink of possibility, crime could be yet turned<br />aside. That same day, therefore, I came to my lord in his business<br />room, where he sat upon some trivial occupation.<br />"My lord," said I, "I have found a suitable investment for my small<br />economies. But these are unhappily in Scotland; it will take some<br />time to lift them, and the affair presses. Could your lordship see<br />his way to advance me the amount against my note?"<br />He read me awhile with keen eyes. "I have never inquired into the<br />state of your affairs, Mackellar," says he. "Beyond the amount of<br />your caution, you may not be worth a farthing, for what I know."<br />"I have been a long while in your service, and never told a lie,<br />nor yet asked a favour for myself," said I, "until to-day."<br />"A favour for the Master," he returned, quietly. "Do you take me<br />for a fool, Mackellar? Understand it once and for all, I treat<br />this beast in my own way; fear nor favour shall not move me; and<br />before I am hoodwinked, it will require a trickster less<br />transparent than yourself. I ask service, loyal service; not that<br />you should make and mar behind my back, and steal my own money to<br />defeat me."<br />"My lord," said I, "these are very unpardonable expressions."<br />"Think once more, Mackellar," he replied; "and you will see they<br />fit the fact. It is your own subterfuge that is unpardonable.<br />Deny (if you can) that you designed this money to evade my orders<br />with, and I will ask your pardon freely. If you cannot, you must<br />have the resolution to hear your conduct go by its own name."<br />"If you think I had any design but to save you - " I began.<br />"Oh! my old friend," said he, "you know very well what I think!<br />Here is my hand to you with all my heart; but of money, not one<br />rap."<br />Defeated upon this side, I went straight to my room, wrote a<br />letter, ran with it to the harbour, for I knew a ship was on the<br />point of sailing; and came to the Master's door a little before<br />dusk. Entering without the form of any knock, I found him sitting<br />with his Indian at a simple meal of maize porridge with some milk.<br />The house within was clean and poor; only a few books upon a shelf<br />distinguished it, and (in one corner) Secundra's little bench.<br />"Mr. Bally," said I, "I have near five hundred pounds laid by in<br />Scotland, the economies of a hard life. A letter goes by yon ship<br />to have it lifted. Have so much patience till the return ship<br />comes in, and it is all yours, upon the same condition you offered<br />to my lord this morning."<br />He rose from the table, came forward, took me by the shoulders, and<br />looked me in the face, smiling.<br />"And yet you are very fond of money!" said he. "And yet you love<br />money beyond all things else, except my brother!"<br />"I fear old age and poverty," said I, "which is another matter."<br />"I will never quarrel for a name. Call it so," he replied. "Ah!<br />Mackellar, Mackellar, if this were done from any love to me, how<br />gladly would I close upon your offer!"<br />"And yet," I eagerly answered - "I say it to my shame, but I cannot<br />see you in this poor place without compunction. It is not my<br />single thought, nor my first; and yet it's there! I would gladly<br />see you delivered. I do not offer it in love, and far from that;<br />but, as God judges me - and I wonder at it too! - quite without<br />enmity."<br />"Ah!" says he, still holding my shoulders, and now gently shaking<br />me, "you think of me more than you suppose. 'And I wonder at it<br />too,'" he added, repeating my expression and, I suppose, something<br />of my voice. "You are an honest man, and for that cause I spare<br />you."<br />"Spare me?" I cried.<br />"Spare you," he repeated, letting me go and turning away. And<br />then, fronting me once more. "You little know what I would do with<br />it, Mackellar! Did you think I had swallowed my defeat indeed?<br />Listen: my life has been a series of unmerited cast-backs. That<br />fool, Prince Charlie, mismanaged a most promising affair: there<br />fell my first fortune. In Paris I had my foot once more high upon<br />the ladder: that time it was an accident; a letter came to the<br />wrong hand, and I was bare again. A third time, I found my<br />opportunity; I built up a place for myself in India with an<br />infinite patience; and then Clive came, my rajah was swallowed up,<br />and I escaped out of the convulsion, like another AEneas, with<br />Secundra Dass upon my back. Three times I have had my hand upon<br />the highest station: and I am not yet three-and-forty. I know the<br />world as few men know it when they come to die - Court and camp,<br />the East and the West; I know where to go, I see a thousand<br />openings. I am now at the height of my resources, sound of health,<br />of inordinate ambition. Well, all this I resign; I care not if I<br />die, and the world never hear of me; I care only for one thing, and<br />that I will have. Mind yourself; lest, when the roof falls, you,<br />too, should be crushed under the ruins."<br />As I came out of his house, all hope of intervention quite<br />destroyed, I was aware of a stir on the harbour-side, and, raising<br />my eyes, there was a great ship newly come to anchor. It seems<br />strange I could have looked upon her with so much indifference, for<br />she brought death to the brothers of Durrisdeer. After all the<br />desperate episodes of this contention, the insults, the opposing<br />interests, the fraternal duel in the shrubbery, it was reserved for<br />some poor devil in Grub Street, scribbling for his dinner, and not<br />caring what he scribbled, to cast a spell across four thousand<br />miles of the salt sea, and send forth both these brothers into<br />savage and wintry deserts, there to die. But such a thought was<br />distant from my mind; and while all the provincials were fluttered<br />about me by the unusual animation of their port, I passed<br />throughout their midst on my return homeward, quite absorbed in the<br />recollection of my visit and the Master's speech.<br />The same night there was brought to us from the ship a little<br />packet of pamphlets. The next day my lord was under engagement to<br />go with the Governor upon some party of pleasure; the time was<br />nearly due, and I left him for a moment alone in his room and<br />skimming through the pamphlets. When I returned, his head had<br />fallen upon the table, his arms lying abroad amongst the crumpled<br />papers.<br />"My lord, my lord!" I cried as I ran forward, for I supposed he was<br />in some fit.<br />He sprang up like a figure upon wires, his countenance deformed<br />with fury, so that in a strange place I should scarce have known<br />him. His hand at the same time flew above his head, as though to<br />strike me down. "Leave me alone!" he screeched, and I fled, as<br />fast as my shaking legs would bear me, for my lady. She, too, lost<br />no time; but when we returned, he had the door locked within, and<br />only cried to us from the other side to leave him be. We looked in<br />each other's faces, very white - each supposing the blow had come<br />at last.<br />"I will write to the Governor to excuse him," says she. "We must<br />keep our strong friends." But when she took up the pen, it flew<br />out of her fingers. "I cannot write," said she. "Can you?"<br />"I will make a shift, my lady," said I.<br />She looked over me as I wrote. "That will do," she said, when I<br />had done. "Thank God, Mackellar, I have you to lean upon! But<br />what can it be now? What, what can it be?"<br />In my own mind, I believed there was no explanation possible, and<br />none required; it was my fear that the man's madness had now simply<br />burst forth its way, like the long-smothered flames of a volcano;<br />but to this (in mere mercy to my lady) I durst not give expression.<br />"It is more to the purpose to consider our own behaviour," said I.<br />"Must we leave him there alone?"<br />"I do not dare disturb him," she replied. "Nature may know best;<br />it may be Nature that cries to be alone; and we grope in the dark.<br />Oh yes, I would leave him as he is."<br />"I will, then, despatch this letter, my lady, and return here, if<br />you please, to sit with you," said I.<br />"Pray do," cries my lady.<br />All afternoon we sat together, mostly in silence, watching my<br />lord's door. My own mind was busy with the scene that had just<br />passed, and its singular resemblance to my vision. I must say a<br />word upon this, for the story has gone abroad with great<br />exaggeration, and I have even seen it printed, and my own name<br />referred to for particulars. So much was the same: here was my<br />lord in a room, with his head upon the table, and when he raised<br />his face, it wore such an expression as distressed me to the soul.<br />But the room was different, my lord's attitude at the table not at<br />all the same, and his face, when he disclosed it, expressed a<br />painful degree of fury instead of that haunting despair which had<br />always (except once, already referred to) characterised it in the<br />vision. There is the whole truth at last before the public; and if<br />the differences be great, the coincidence was yet enough to fill me<br />with uneasiness. All afternoon, as I say, I sat and pondered upon<br />this quite to myself; for my lady had trouble of her own, and it<br />was my last thought to vex her with fancies. About the midst of<br />our time of waiting, she conceived an ingenious scheme, had Mr.<br />Alexander fetched, and bid him knock at his father's door. My lord<br />sent the boy about his business, but without the least violence,<br />whether of manner or expression; so that I began to entertain a<br />hope the fit was over.<br />At last, as the night fell and I was lighting a lamp that stood<br />there trimmed, the door opened and my lord stood within upon the<br />threshold. The light was not so strong that we could read his<br />countenance; when he spoke, methought his voice a little altered<br />but yet perfectly steady.<br />"Mackellar," said he, "carry this note to its destination with your<br />own hand. It is highly private. Find the person alone when you<br />deliver it."<br />"Henry," says my lady, "you are not ill?"<br />"No, no," says be, querulously, "I am occupied. Not at all; I am<br />only occupied. It is a singular thing a man must be supposed to be<br />ill when he has any business! Send me supper to this room, and a<br />basket of wine: I expect the visit of a friend. Otherwise I am<br />not to be disturbed."<br />And with that he once more shut himself in.<br />The note was addressed to one Captain Harris, at a tavern on the<br />portside. I knew Harris (by reputation) for a dangerous<br />adventurer, highly suspected of piracy in the past, and now<br />following the rude business of an Indian trader. What my lord<br />should have to say to him, or he to my lord, it passed my<br />imagination to conceive: or yet how my lord had heard of him,<br />unless by a disgraceful trial from which the man was recently<br />escaped. Altogether I went upon the errand with reluctance, and<br />from the little I saw of the captain, returned from it with sorrow.<br />I found him in a foul-smelling chamber, sitting by a guttering<br />candle and an empty bottle; he had the remains of a military<br />carriage, or rather perhaps it was an affectation, for his manners<br />were low.<br />"Tell my lord, with my service, that I will wait upon his lordship<br />in the inside of half an hour," says he, when he had read the note;<br />and then had the servility, pointing to his empty bottle, to<br />propose that I should buy him liquor.<br />Although I returned with my best speed, the Captain followed close<br />upon my heels, and he stayed late into the night. The cock was<br />crowing a second time when I saw (from my chamber window) my lord<br />lighting him to the gate, both men very much affected with their<br />potations, and sometimes leaning one upon the other to confabulate.<br />Yet the next morning my lord was abroad again early with a hundred<br />pounds of money in his pocket. I never supposed that he returned<br />with it; and yet I was quite sure it did not find its way to the<br />Master, for I lingered all morning within view of the booth. That<br />was the last time my Lord Durrisdeer passed his own enclosure till<br />we left New York; he walked in his barn, or sat and talked with his<br />family, all much as usual; but the town saw nothing of him, and his<br />daily visits to the Master seemed forgotten. Nor yet did Harris<br />reappear; or not until the end.<br />I was now much oppressed with a sense of the mysteries in which we<br />had begun to move. It was plain, if only from his change of<br />habitude, my lord had something on his mind of a grave nature; but<br />what it was, whence it sprang, or why he should now keep the house<br />and garden, I could make no guess at. It was clear, even to<br />probation, the pamphlets had some share in this revolution; I read<br />all I could find, and they were all extremely insignificant, and of<br />the usual kind of party scurrility; even to a high politician, I<br />could spy out no particular matter of offence, and my lord was a<br />man rather indifferent on public questions. The truth is, the<br />pamphlet which was the spring of this affair, lay all the time on<br />my lord's bosom. There it was that I found it at last, after he<br />was dead, in the midst of the north wilderness: in such a place,<br />in such dismal circumstances, I was to read for the first time<br />these idle, lying words of a Whig pamphleteer declaiming against<br />indulgency to Jacobites:- "Another notorious Rebel, the M-r of B-e,<br />is to have his Title restored," the passage ran. "This Business<br />has been long in hand, since he rendered some very disgraceful<br />Services in Scotland and France. His Brother, L-D D-R, is known to<br />be no better than himself in Inclination; and the supposed Heir,<br />who is now to be set aside, was bred up in the most detestable<br />Principles. In the old Phrase, it is SIX OF THE ONE AND HALF A<br />DOZEN OF THE OTHER; but the Favour of such a Reposition is too<br />extreme to be passed over." A man in his right wits could not have<br />cared two straws for a tale so manifestly false; that Government<br />should ever entertain the notion, was inconceivable to any<br />reasoning creature, unless possibly the fool that penned it; and my<br />lord, though never brilliant, was ever remarkable for sense. That<br />he should credit such a rodomontade, and carry the pamphlet on his<br />bosom and the words in his heart, is the clear proof of the man's<br />lunacy. Doubtless the mere mention of Mr. Alexander, and the<br />threat directly held out against the child's succession,<br />precipitated that which had so long impended. Or else my master<br />had been truly mad for a long time, and we were too dull or too<br />much used to him, and did not perceive the extent of his infirmity.<br />About a week after the day of the pamphlets I was late upon the<br />harbour-side, and took a turn towards the Master's, as I often did.<br />The door opened, a flood of light came forth upon the road, and I<br />beheld a man taking his departure with friendly salutations. I<br />cannot say how singularly I was shaken to recognise the adventurer<br />Harris. I could not but conclude it was the hand of my lord that<br />had brought him there; and prolonged my walk in very serious and<br />apprehensive thought. It was late when I came home, and there was<br />my lord making up his portmanteau for a voyage.<br />"Why do you come so late?" he cried. "We leave to-morrow for<br />Albany, you and I together; and it is high time you were about your<br />preparations."<br />"For Albany, my lord?" I cried. "And for what earthly purpose?"<br />"Change of scene," said he.<br />And my lady, who appeared to have been weeping, gave me the signal<br />to obey without more parley. She told me a little later (when we<br />found occasion to exchange some words) that he had suddenly<br />announced his intention after a visit from Captain Harris, and her<br />best endeavours, whether to dissuade him from the journey, or to<br />elicit some explanation of its purpose, had alike proved<br />unavailing.<br />CHAPTER XI. - THE JOURNEY IN THE WILDERNESS.<br />We made a prosperous voyage up that fine river of the Hudson, the<br />weather grateful, the hills singularly beautified with the colours<br />of the autumn. At Albany we had our residence at an inn, where I<br />was not so blind and my lord not so cunning but what I could see he<br />had some design to hold me prisoner. The work he found for me to<br />do was not so pressing that we should transact it apart from<br />necessary papers in the chamber of an inn; nor was it of such<br />importance that I should be set upon as many as four or five<br />scrolls of the same document. I submitted in appearance; but I<br />took private measures on my own side, and had the news of the town<br />communicated to me daily by the politeness of our host. In this<br />way I received at last a piece of intelligence for which, I may<br />say, I had been waiting. Captain Harris (I was told) with "Mr.<br />Mountain, the trader," had gone by up the river in a boat. I would<br />have feared the landlord's eye, so strong the sense of some<br />complicity upon my master's part oppressed me. But I made out to<br />say I had some knowledge of the Captain, although none of Mr.<br />Mountain, and to inquire who else was of the party. My informant<br />knew not; Mr. Mountain had come ashore upon some needful purchases;<br />had gone round the town buying, drinking, and prating; and it<br />seemed the party went upon some likely venture, for he had spoken<br />much of great things he would do when he returned. No more was<br />known, for none of the rest had come ashore, and it seemed they<br />were pressed for time to reach a certain spot before the snow<br />should fall.<br />And sure enough, the next day, there fell a sprinkle even in<br />Albany; but it passed as it came, and was but a reminder of what<br />lay before us. I thought of it lightly then, knowing so little as<br />I did of that inclement province: the retrospect is different; and<br />I wonder at times if some of the horror of there events which I<br />must now rehearse flowed not from the foul skies and savage winds<br />to which we were exposed, and the agony of cold that we must<br />suffer.<br />The boat having passed by, I thought at first we should have left<br />the town. But no such matter. My lord continued his stay in<br />Albany where he had no ostensible affairs, and kept me by him, far<br />from my due employment, and making a pretence of occupation. It is<br />upon this passage I expect, and perhaps deserve, censure. I was<br />not so dull but what I had my own thoughts. I could not see the<br />Master entrust himself into the hands of Harris, and not suspect<br />some underhand contrivance. Harris bore a villainous reputation,<br />and he had been tampered with in private by my lord; Mountain, the<br />trader, proved, upon inquiry, to be another of the same kidney; the<br />errand they were all gone upon being the recovery of ill-gotten<br />treasures, offered in itself a very strong incentive to foul play;<br />and the character of the country where they journeyed promised<br />impunity to deeds of blood. Well: it is true I had all these<br />thoughts and fears, and guesses of the Master's fate. But you are<br />to consider I was the same man that sought to dash him from the<br />bulwarks of a ship in the mid-sea; the same that, a little before,<br />very impiously but sincerely offered God a bargain, seeking to hire<br />God to be my bravo. It is true again that I had a good deal melted<br />towards our enemy. But this I always thought of as a weakness of<br />the flesh and even culpable; my mind remaining steady and quite<br />bent against him. True, yet again, that it was one thing to assume<br />on my own shoulders the guilt and danger of a criminal attempt, and<br />another to stand by and see my lord imperil and besmirch himself.<br />But this was the very ground of my inaction. For (should I anyway<br />stir in the business) I might fail indeed to save the Master, but I<br />could not miss to make a byword of my lord.<br />Thus it was that I did nothing; and upon the same reasons, I am<br />still strong to justify my course. We lived meanwhile in Albany,<br />but though alone together in a strange place, had little traffic<br />beyond formal salutations. My lord had carried with him several<br />introductions to chief people of the town and neighbourhood; others<br />he had before encountered in New York: with this consequence, that<br />he went much abroad, and I am sorry to say was altogether too<br />convivial in his habits. I was often in bed, but never asleep,<br />when he returned; and there was scarce a night when he did not<br />betray the influence of liquor. By day he would still lay upon me<br />endless tasks, which he showed considerable ingenuity to fish up<br />and renew, in the manner of Penelope's web. I never refused, as I<br />say, for I was hired to do his bidding; but I took no pains to keep<br />my penetration under a bushel, and would sometimes smile in his<br />face.<br />"I think I must be the devil and you Michael Scott," I said to him<br />one day. "I have bridged Tweed and split the Eildons; and now you<br />set me to the rope of sand."<br />He looked at me with shining eyes, and looked away again, his jaw<br />chewing, but without words.<br />"Well, well, my lord," said I, "your will is my pleasure. I will<br />do this thing for the fourth time; but I would beg of you to invent<br />another task against to-morrow, for by my troth, I am weary of this<br />one."<br />"You do not know what you are saying," returned my lord, putting on<br />his hat and turning his back to me. "It is a strange thing you<br />should take a pleasure to annoy me. A friend - but that is a<br />different affair. It is a strange thing. I am a man that has had<br />ill-fortune all my life through. I am still surrounded by<br />contrivances. I am always treading in plots," he burst out. "The<br />whole world is banded against me."<br />"I would not talk wicked nonsense if I were you," said I; "but I<br />will tell you what I WOULD do - I would put my head in cold water,<br />for you had more last night than you could carry."<br />"Do ye think that?" said he, with a manner of interest highly<br />awakened. "Would that be good for me? It's a thing I never<br />tried."<br />"I mind the days when you had no call to try, and I wish, my lord,<br />that they were back again," said I. "But the plain truth is, if<br />you continue to exceed, you will do yourself a mischief."<br />"I don't appear to carry drink the way I used to," said my lord.<br />"I get overtaken, Mackellar. But I will be more upon my guard."<br />"That is what I would ask of you," I replied. "You are to bear in<br />mind that you are Mr. Alexander's father: give the bairn a chance<br />to carry his name with some responsibility."<br />"Ay, ay," said he. "Ye're a very sensible man, Mackellar, and have<br />been long in my employ. But I think, if you have nothing more to<br />say to me I will be stepping. If you have nothing more to say?" he<br />added, with that burning, childish eagerness that was now so common<br />with the man.<br />"No, my lord, I have nothing more," said I, dryly enough.<br />"Then I think I will be stepping," says my lord, and stood and<br />looked at me fidgeting with his hat, which he had taken off again.<br />"I suppose you will have no errands? No? I am to meet Sir William<br />Johnson, but I will be more upon my guard." He was silent for a<br />time, and then, smiling: "Do you call to mind a place, Mackellar -<br />it's a little below Engles - where the burn runs very deep under a<br />wood of rowans. I mind being there when I was a lad - dear, it<br />comes over me like an old song! - I was after the fishing, and I<br />made a bonny cast. Eh, but I was happy. I wonder, Mackellar, why<br />I am never happy now?"<br />"My lord," said I, "if you would drink with more moderation you<br />would have the better chance. It is an old byword that the bottle<br />is a false consoler."<br />"No doubt," said he, "no doubt. Well, I think I will be going."<br />"Good-morning, my lord," said I.<br />"Good-morning, good-morning," said he, and so got himself at last<br />from the apartment.<br />I give that for a fair specimen of my lord in the morning; and I<br />must have described my patron very ill if the reader does not<br />perceive a notable falling off. To behold the man thus fallen: to<br />know him accepted among his companions for a poor, muddled toper,<br />welcome (if he were welcome at all) for the bare consideration of<br />his title; and to recall the virtues he had once displayed against<br />such odds of fortune; was not this a thing at once to rage and to<br />be humbled at?<br />In his cups, he was more expensive. I will give but the one scene,<br />close upon the end, which is strongly marked upon my memory to this<br />day, and at the time affected me almost with horror<br />I was in bed, lying there awake, when I heard him stumbling on the<br />stair and singing. My lord had no gift of music, his brother had<br />all the graces of the family, so that when I say singing, you are<br />to understand a manner of high, carolling utterance, which was<br />truly neither speech nor song. Something not unlike is to be heard<br />upon the lips of children, ere they learn shame; from those of a<br />man grown elderly, it had a strange effect. He opened the door<br />with noisy precaution; peered in, shading his candle; conceived me<br />to slumber; entered, set his light upon the table, and took off his<br />hat. I saw him very plain; a high, feverish exultation appeared to<br />boil in his veins, and he stood and smiled and smirked upon the<br />candle. Presently he lifted up his arm, snapped his fingers, and<br />fell to undress. As he did so, having once more forgot my<br />presence, he took back to his singing; and now I could hear the<br />words, which were those from the old song of the TWA CORBIES<br />endlessly repeated:<br />"And over his banes when they are bare<br />The wind sall blaw for evermair!"<br />I have said there was no music in the man. His strains had no<br />logical succession except in so far as they inclined a little to<br />the minor mode; but they exercised a rude potency upon the<br />feelings, and followed the words, and signified the feelings of the<br />singer with barbaric fitness. He took it first in the time and<br />manner of a rant; presently this ill-favoured gleefulness abated,<br />he began to dwell upon the notes more feelingly, and sank at last<br />into a degree of maudlin pathos that was to me scarce bearable. By<br />equal steps, the original briskness of his acts declined; and when<br />he was stripped to his breeches, he sat on the bedside and fell to<br />whimpering. I know nothing less respectable than the tears of<br />drunkenness, and turned my back impatiently on this poor sight.<br />But he had started himself (I am to suppose) on that slippery<br />descent of self-pity; on the which, to a man unstrung by old<br />sorrows and recent potations there is no arrest except exhaustion.<br />His tears continued to flow, and the man to sit there, three parts<br />naked, in the cold air of the chamber. I twitted myself<br />alternately with inhumanity and sentimental weakness, now half<br />rising in my bed to interfere, now reading myself lessons of<br />indifference and courting slumber, until, upon a sudden, the<br />QUANTUM MUTATUS AB ILLO shot into my mind; and calling to<br />remembrance his old wisdom, constancy, and patience, I was<br />overborne with a pity almost approaching the passionate, not for my<br />master alone but for the sons of man.<br />At this I leaped from my place, went over to his side and laid a<br />hand on his bare shoulder, which was cold as stone. He uncovered<br />his face and showed it me all swollen and begrutten (10) like a<br />child's; and at the sight my impatience partially revived.<br />"Think shame to yourself," said I. "This is bairnly conduct. I<br />might have been snivelling myself, if I had cared to swill my belly<br />with wine. But I went to my bed sober like a man. Come: get into<br />yours, and have done with this pitiable exhibition."<br />"Oh, Mackellar," said he, "my heart is wae!"<br />"Wae?" cried I. "For a good cause, I think. What words were these<br />you sang as you came in? Show pity to others, we then can talk of<br />pity to yourself. You can be the one thing or the other, but I<br />will be no party to half-way houses. If you're a striker, strike,<br />and if you're a bleater, bleat!"<br />"Cry!" cries he, with a burst, "that's it - strike! that's talking!<br />Man, I've stood it all too long. But when they laid a hand upon<br />the child, when the child's threatened" - his momentary vigour<br />whimpering off - "my child, my Alexander!" - and he was at his<br />tears again.<br />I took him by the shoulders and shook him. "Alexander!" said I.<br />"Do you even think of him? Not you! Look yourself in the face<br />like a brave man, and you'll find you're but a self-deceiver. The<br />wife, the friend, the child, they're all equally forgot, and you<br />sunk in a mere log of selfishness."<br />"Mackellar," said he, with a wonderful return to his old manner and<br />appearance, "you may say what you will of me, but one thing I never<br />was - I was never selfish."<br />"I will open your eyes in your despite," said I. "How long have we<br />been here? and how often have you written to your family? I think<br />this is the first time you were ever separate: have you written at<br />all? Do they know if you are dead or living?"<br />I had caught him here too openly; it braced his better nature;<br />there was no more weeping, he thanked me very penitently, got to<br />bed and was soon fast asleep; and the first thing he did the next<br />morning was to sit down and begin a letter to my lady: a very<br />tender letter it was too, though it was never finished. Indeed all<br />communication with New York was transacted by myself; and it will<br />be judged I had a thankless task of it. What to tell my lady and<br />in what words, and how far to be false and how far cruel, was a<br />thing that kept me often from my slumber.<br />All this while, no doubt, my lord waited with growing impatiency<br />for news of his accomplices. Harris, it is to be thought, had<br />promised a high degree of expedition; the time was already overpast<br />when word was to be looked for; and suspense was a very evil<br />counsellor to a man of an impaired intelligence. My lord's mind<br />throughout this interval dwelled almost wholly in the Wilderness,<br />following that party with whose deeds he had so much concern. He<br />continually conjured up their camps and progresses, the fashion of<br />the country, the perpetration in a thousand different manners of<br />the same horrid fact, and that consequent spectacle of the Master's<br />bones lying scattered in the wind. These private, guilty<br />considerations I would continually observe to peep forth in the<br />man's talk, like rabbits from a hill. And it is the less wonder if<br />the scene of his meditations began to draw him bodily.<br />It is well known what pretext he took. Sir William Johnson had a<br />diplomatic errand in these parts; and my lord and I (from<br />curiosity, as was given out) went in his company. Sir William was<br />well attended and liberally supplied. Hunters brought us venison,<br />fish was taken for us daily in the streams, and brandy ran like<br />water. We proceeded by day and encamped by night in the military<br />style; sentinels were set and changed; every man had his named<br />duty; and Sir William was the spring of all. There was much in<br />this that might at times have entertained me; but for our<br />misfortune, the weather was extremely harsh, the days were in the<br />beginning open, but the nights frosty from the first. A painful<br />keen wind blew most of the time, so that we sat in the boat with<br />blue fingers, and at night, as we scorched our faces at the fire,<br />the clothes upon our back appeared to be of paper. A dreadful<br />solitude surrounded our steps; the land was quite dispeopled, there<br />was no smoke of fires, and save for a single boat of merchants on<br />the second day, we met no travellers. The season was indeed late,<br />but this desertion of the waterways impressed Sir William himself;<br />and I have heard him more than once express a sense of<br />intimidation. "I have come too late, I fear; they must have dug up<br />the hatchet;" he said; and the future proved how justly he had<br />reasoned.<br />I could never depict the blackness of my soul upon this journey. I<br />have none of those minds that are in love with the unusual: to see<br />the winter coming and to lie in the field so far from any house,<br />oppressed me like a nightmare; it seemed, indeed, a kind of awful<br />braving of God's power; and this thought, which I daresay only<br />writes me down a coward, was greatly exaggerated by my private<br />knowledge of the errand we were come upon. I was besides<br />encumbered by my duties to Sir William, whom it fell upon me to<br />entertain; for my lord was quite sunk into a state bordering on<br />PERVIGILIUM, watching the woods with a rapt eye, sleeping scarce at<br />all, and speaking sometimes not twenty words in a whole day. That<br />which he said was still coherent; but it turned almost invariably<br />upon the party for whom he kept his crazy lookout. He would tell<br />Sir William often, and always as if it were a new communication,<br />that he had "a brother somewhere in the woods," and beg that the<br />sentinels should be directed "to inquire for him." "I am anxious<br />for news of my brother," he would say. And sometimes, when we were<br />under way, he would fancy he spied a canoe far off upon the water<br />or a camp on the shore, and exhibit painful agitation. It was<br />impossible but Sir William should be struck with these<br />singularities; and at last he led me aside, and hinted his<br />uneasiness. I touched my head and shook it; quite rejoiced to<br />prepare a little testimony against possible disclosures.<br />"But in that case," cries Sir William, "is it wise to let him go at<br />large?"<br />"Those that know him best," said I, "are persuaded that he should<br />be humoured."<br />"Well, well," replied Sir William, "it is none of my affairs. But<br />if I had understood, you would never have been here."<br />Our advance into this savage country had thus uneventfully<br />proceeded for about a week, when we encamped for a night at a place<br />where the river ran among considerable mountains clothed in wood.<br />The fires were lighted on a level space at the water's edge; and we<br />supped and lay down to sleep in the customary fashion. It chanced<br />the night fell murderously cold; the stringency of the frost seized<br />and bit me through my coverings so that pain kept me wakeful; and I<br />was afoot again before the peep of day, crouching by the fires or<br />trotting to and for at the stream's edge, to combat the aching of<br />my limbs. At last dawn began to break upon hoar woods and<br />mountains, the sleepers rolled in their robes, and the boisterous<br />river dashing among spears of ice. I stood looking about me,<br />swaddled in my stiff coat of a bull's fur, and the breath smoking<br />from my scorched nostrils, when, upon a sudden, a singular, eager<br />cry rang from the borders of the wood. The sentries answered it,<br />the sleepers sprang to their feet; one pointed, the rest followed<br />his direction with their eyes, and there, upon the edge of the<br />forest and betwixt two trees, we beheld the figure of a man<br />reaching forth his hands like one in ecstasy. The next moment he<br />ran forward, fell on his knees at the side of the camp, and burst<br />in tears.<br />This was John Mountain, the trader, escaped from the most horrid<br />perils; and his fist word, when he got speech, was to ask if we had<br />seen Secundra Dass.<br />"Seen what?" cries Sir William.<br />"No," said I, "we have seen nothing of him. Why?"<br />"Nothing?" says Mountain. "Then I was right after all." With that<br />he struck his palm upon his brow. "But what takes him back?" he<br />cried. "What takes the man back among dead bodies. There is some<br />damned mystery here."<br />This was a word which highly aroused our curiosity, but I shall be<br />more perspicacious, if I narrate these incidents in their true<br />order. Here follows a narrative which I have compiled out of three<br />sources, not very consistent in all points:<br />FIRST, a written statement by Mountain, in which everything<br />criminal is cleverly smuggled out of view;<br />SECOND, two conversations with Secundra Dass; and<br />THIRD, many conversations with Mountain himself, in which he was<br />pleased to be entirely plain; for the truth is he regarded me as an<br />accomplice.<br />NARRATIVE OF THE TRADER, MOUNTAIN.<br />The crew that went up the river under the joint command of Captain<br />Harris and the Master numbered in all nine persons, of whom (if I<br />except Secundra Dass) there was not one that had not merited the<br />gallows. From Harris downward the voyagers were notorious in that<br />colony for desperate, bloody-minded miscreants; some were reputed<br />pirates, the most hawkers of rum; all ranters and drinkers; all fit<br />associates, embarking together without remorse, upon this<br />treacherous and murderous design. I could not hear there was much<br />discipline or any set captain in the gang; but Harris and four<br />others, Mountain himself, two Scotchmen - Pinkerton and Hastie -<br />and a man of the name of Hicks, a drunken shoemaker, put their<br />heads together and agreed upon the course. In a material sense,<br />they were well enough provided; and the Master in particular<br />brought with him a tent where he might enjoy some privacy and<br />shelter.<br />Even this small indulgence told against him in the minds of his<br />companions. But indeed he was in a position so entirely false (and<br />even ridiculous) that all his habit of command and arts of pleasing<br />were here thrown away. In the eyes of all, except Secundra Dass,<br />he figured as a common gull and designated victim; going<br />unconsciously to death; yet he could not but suppose himself the<br />contriver and the leader of the expedition; he could scarce help<br />but so conduct himself and at the least hint of authority or<br />condescension, his deceivers would be laughing in their sleeves. I<br />was so used to see and to conceive him in a high, authoritative<br />attitude, that when I had conceived his position on this journey, I<br />was pained and could have blushed. How soon he may have<br />entertained a first surmise, we cannot know; but it was long, and<br />the party had advanced into the Wilderness beyond the reach of any<br />help, ere he was fully awakened to the truth.<br />It fell thus. Harris and some others had drawn apart into the<br />woods for consultation, when they were startled by a rustling in<br />the brush. They were all accustomed to the arts of Indian warfare,<br />and Mountain had not only lived and hunted, but fought and earned<br />some reputation, with the savages. He could move in the woods<br />without noise, and follow a trail like a hound; and upon the<br />emergence of this alert, he was deputed by the rest to plunge into<br />the thicket for intelligence. He was soon convinced there was a<br />man in his close neighbourhood, moving with precaution but without<br />art among the leaves and branches; and coming shortly to a place of<br />advantage, he was able to observe Secundra Dass crawling briskly<br />off with many backward glances. At this he knew not whether to<br />laugh or cry; and his accomplices, when he had returned and<br />reported, were in much the same dubiety. There was now no danger<br />of an Indian onslaught; but on the other hand, since Secundra Dass<br />was at the pains to spy upon them, it was highly probable he knew<br />English, and if he knew English it was certain the whole of their<br />design was in the Master's knowledge. There was one singularity in<br />the position. If Secundra Dass knew and concealed his knowledge of<br />English, Harris was a proficient in several of the tongues of<br />India, and as his career in that part of the world had been a great<br />deal worse than profligate, he had not thought proper to remark<br />upon the circumstance. Each side had thus a spy-hole on the<br />counsels of the other. The plotters, so soon as this advantage was<br />explained, returned to camp; Harris, hearing the Hindustani was<br />once more closeted with his master, crept to the side of the tent;<br />and the rest, sitting about the fire with their tobacco, awaited<br />his report with impatience. When he came at last, his face was<br />very black. He had overheard enough to confirm the worst of his<br />suspicions. Secundra Dass was a good English scholar; he had been<br />some days creeping and listening, the Master was now fully informed<br />of the conspiracy, and the pair proposed on the morrow to fall out<br />of line at a carrying place and plunge at a venture in the woods:<br />preferring the full risk of famine, savage beasts, and savage men<br />to their position in the midst of traitors.<br />What, then, was to be done? Some were for killing the Master on<br />the spot; but Harris assured them that would be a crime without<br />profit, since the secret of the treasure must die along with him<br />that buried it. Others were for desisting at once from the whole<br />enterprise and making for New York; but the appetising name of<br />treasure, and the thought of the long way they had already<br />travelled dissuaded the majority. I imagine they were dull fellows<br />for the most part. Harris, indeed, had some acquirements, Mountain<br />was no fool, Hastie was an educated man; but even these had<br />manifestly failed in life, and the rest were the dregs of colonial<br />rascality. The conclusion they reached, at least, was more the<br />offspring of greed and hope, than reason. It was to temporise, to<br />be wary and watch the Master, to be silent and supply no further<br />aliment to his suspicions, and to depend entirely (as well as I<br />make out) on the chance that their victim was as greedy, hopeful,<br />and irrational as themselves, and might, after all, betray his life<br />and treasure.<br />Twice in the course of the next day Secundra and the Master must<br />have appeared to themselves to have escaped; and twice they were<br />circumvented. The Master, save that the second time he grew a<br />little pale, displayed no sign of disappointment, apologised for<br />the stupidity with which he had fallen aside, thanked his<br />recapturers as for a service, and rejoined the caravan with all his<br />usual gallantry and cheerfulness of mien and bearing. But it is<br />certain he had smelled a rat; for from thenceforth he and Secundra<br />spoke only in each other's ear, and Harris listened and shivered by<br />the tent in vain. The same night it was announced they were to<br />leave the boats and proceed by foot, a circumstance which (as it<br />put an end to the confusion of the portages) greatly lessened the<br />chances of escape.<br />And now there began between the two sides a silent contest, for<br />life on the one hand, for riches on the other. They were now near<br />that quarter of the desert in which the Master himself must begin<br />to play the part of guide; and using this for a pretext of<br />persecution, Harris and his men sat with him every night about the<br />fire, and laboured to entrap him into some admission. If he let<br />slip his secret, he knew well it was the warrant for his death; on<br />the other hand, he durst not refuse their questions, and must<br />appear to help them to the best of his capacity, or he practically<br />published his mistrust. And yet Mountain assures me the man's brow<br />was never ruffled. He sat in the midst of these jackals, his life<br />depending by a thread, like some easy, witty householder at home by<br />his own fire; an answer he had for everything - as often as not, a<br />jesting answer; avoided threats, evaded insults; talked, laughed,<br />and listened with an open countenance; and, in short, conducted<br />himself in such a manner as must have disarmed suspicion, and went<br />near to stagger knowledge. Indeed, Mountain confessed to me they<br />would soon have disbelieved the Captain's story, and supposed their<br />designated victim still quite innocent of their designs; but for<br />the fact that he continued (however ingeniously) to give the slip<br />to questions, and the yet stronger confirmation of his repeated<br />efforts to escape. The last of these, which brought things to a<br />head, I am now to relate. And first I should say that by this time<br />the temper of Harris's companions was utterly worn out; civility<br />was scarce pretended; and for one very significant circumstance,<br />the Master and Secundra had been (on some pretext) deprived of<br />weapons. On their side, however, the threatened pair kept up the<br />parade of friendship handsomely; Secundra was all bows, the Master<br />all smiles; and on the last night of the truce he had even gone so<br />far as to sing for the diversion of the company. It was observed<br />that he had also eaten with unusual heartiness, and drank deep,<br />doubtless from design.<br />At least, about three in the morning, he came out of the tent into<br />the open air, audibly mourning and complaining, with all the manner<br />of a sufferer from surfeit. For some while, Secundra publicly<br />attended on his patron, who at last became more easy, and fell<br />asleep on the frosty ground behind the tent, the Indian returning<br />within. Some time after, the sentry was changed; had the Master<br />pointed out to him, where he lay in what is called a robe of<br />buffalo: and thenceforth kept an eye upon him (he declared)<br />without remission. With the first of the dawn, a draught of wind<br />came suddenly and blew open one side the corner of the robe; and<br />with the same puff, the Master's hat whirled in the air and fell<br />some yards away. The sentry thinking it remarkable the sleeper<br />should not awaken, thereupon drew near; and the next moment, with a<br />great shout, informed the camp their prisoner was escaped. He had<br />left behind his Indian, who (in the first vivacity of the surprise)<br />came near to pay the forfeit of his life, and was, in fact,<br />inhumanly mishandled; but Secundra, in the midst of threats and<br />cruelties, stuck to it with extraordinary loyalty, that he was<br />quite ignorant of his master's plans, which might indeed be true,<br />and of the manner of his escape, which was demonstrably false.<br />Nothing was therefore left to the conspirators but to rely entirely<br />on the skill of Mountain. The night had been frosty, the ground<br />quite hard; and the sun was no sooner up than a strong thaw set in.<br />It was Mountain's boast that few men could have followed that<br />trail, and still fewer (even of the native Indians) found it. The<br />Master had thus a long start before his pursuers had the scent, and<br />he must have travelled with surprising energy for a pedestrian so<br />unused, since it was near noon before Mountain had a view of him.<br />At this conjuncture the trader was alone, all his companions<br />following, at his own request, several hundred yards in the rear;<br />he knew the Master was unarmed; his heart was besides heated with<br />the exercise and lust of hunting; and seeing the quarry so close,<br />so defenceless, and seeming so fatigued, he vain-gloriously<br />determined to effect the capture with his single hand. A step or<br />two farther brought him to one margin of a little clearing; on the<br />other, with his arms folded and his back to a huge stone, the<br />Master sat. It is possible Mountain may have made a rustle, it is<br />certain, at least, the Master raised his head and gazed directly at<br />that quarter of the thicket where his hunter lay; "I could not be<br />sure he saw me," Mountain said; "he just looked my way like a man<br />with his mind made up, and all the courage ran out of me like rum<br />out of a bottle." And presently, when the Master looked away<br />again, and appeared to resume those meditations in which he had sat<br />immersed before the trader's coming, Mountain slunk stealthily back<br />and returned to seek the help of his companions.<br />And now began the chapter of surprises, for the scout had scarce<br />informed the others of his discovery, and they were yet preparing<br />their weapons for a rush upon the fugitive, when the man himself<br />appeared in their midst, walking openly and quietly, with his hands<br />behind his back.<br />"Ah, men!" says he, on his beholding them. "Here is a fortunate<br />encounter. Let us get back to camp."<br />Mountain had not mentioned his own weakness or the Master's<br />disconcerting gaze upon the thicket, so that (with all the rest)<br />his return appeared spontaneous. For all that, a hubbub arose;<br />oaths flew, fists were shaken, and guns pointed.<br />"Let us get back to camp," said the Master. "I have an explanation<br />to make, but it must be laid before you all. And in the meanwhile<br />I would put up these weapons, one of which might very easily go off<br />and blow away your hopes of treasure. I would not kill," says he,<br />smiling, "the goose with the golden eggs."<br />The charm of his superiority once more triumphed; and the party, in<br />no particular order, set off on their return. By the way, he found<br />occasion to get a word or two apart with Mountain.<br />"You are a clever fellow and a bold," says he, "but I am not so<br />sure that you are doing yourself justice. I would have you to<br />consider whether you would not do better, ay, and safer, to serve<br />me instead of serving so commonplace a rascal as Mr. Harris.<br />Consider of it," he concluded, dealing the man a gentle tap upon<br />the shoulder, "and don't be in haste. Dead or alive, you will find<br />me an ill man to quarrel with."<br />When they were come back to the camp, where Harris and Pinkerton<br />stood guard over Secundra, these two ran upon the Master like<br />viragoes, and were amazed out of measure when they were bidden by<br />their comrades to "stand back and hear what the gentleman had to<br />say." The Master had not flinched before their onslaught; nor, at<br />this proof of the ground he had gained, did he betray the least<br />sufficiency.<br />"Do not let us be in haste," says he. "Meat first and public<br />speaking after."<br />With that they made a hasty meal: and as soon as it was done, the<br />Master, leaning on one elbow, began his speech. He spoke long,<br />addressing himself to each except Harris, finding for each (with<br />the same exception) some particular flattery. He called them<br />"bold, honest blades," declared he had never seen a more jovial<br />company, work better done, or pains more merrily supported. "Well,<br />then," says he, "some one asks me, Why the devil I ran away? But<br />that is scarce worth answer, for I think you all know pretty well.<br />But you know only pretty well: that is a point I shall arrive at<br />presently, and be you ready to remark it when it comes. There is a<br />traitor here: a double traitor: I will give you his name before I<br />am done; and let that suffice for now. But here comes some other<br />gentleman and asks me, 'Why, in the devil, I came back?' Well,<br />before I answer that question, I have one to put to you. It was<br />this cur here, this Harris, that speaks Hindustani?" cries he,<br />rising on one knee and pointing fair at the man's face, with a<br />gesture indescribably menacing; and when he had been answered in<br />the affirmative, "Ah!" says he, "then are all my suspicions<br />verified, and I did rightly to come back. Now, men, hear the truth<br />for the first time." Thereupon he launched forth in a long story,<br />told with extraordinary skill, how he had all along suspected<br />Harris, how he had found the confirmation of his fears, and how<br />Harris must have misrepresented what passed between Secundra and<br />himself. At this point he made a bold stroke with excellent<br />effect. "I suppose," says he, "you think you are going shares with<br />Harris; I suppose you think you will see to that yourselves; you<br />would naturally not think so flat a rogue could cozen you. But<br />have a care! These half idiots have a sort of cunning, as the<br />skunk has its stench; and it may be news to you that Harris has<br />taken care of himself already. Yes, for him the treasure is all<br />money in the bargain. You must find it or go starve. But he has<br />been paid beforehand; my brother paid him to destroy me; look at<br />him, if you doubt - look at him, grinning and gulping, a detected<br />thief!" Thence, having made this happy impression, he explained<br />how he had escaped, and thought better of it, and at last concluded<br />to come back, lay the truth before the company, and take his chance<br />with them once more: persuaded as he was, they would instantly<br />depose Harris and elect some other leader. "There is the whole<br />truth," said he: "and with one exception, I put myself entirely in<br />your hands. What is the exception? There he sits," he cried,<br />pointing once more to Harris; "a man that has to die! Weapons and<br />conditions are all one to me; put me face to face with him, and if<br />you give me nothing but a stick, in five minutes I will show you a<br />sop of broken carrion, fit for dogs to roll in."<br />It was dark night when he made an end; they had listened in almost<br />perfect silence; but the firelight scarce permitted any one to<br />judge, from the look of his neighbours, with what result of<br />persuasion or conviction. Indeed, the Master had set himself in<br />the brightest place, and kept his face there, to be the centre of<br />men's eyes: doubtless on a profound calculation. Silence followed<br />for awhile, and presently the whole party became involved in<br />disputation: the Master lying on his back, with his hands knit<br />under his head and one knee flung across the other, like a person<br />unconcerned in the result. And here, I daresay, his bravado<br />carried him too far and prejudiced his case. At least, after a<br />cast or two back and forward, opinion settled finally against him.<br />It's possible he hoped to repeat the business of the pirate ship,<br />and be himself, perhaps, on hard enough conditions, elected leader;<br />and things went so far that way, that Mountain actually threw out<br />the proposition. But the rock he split upon was Hastie. This<br />fellow was not well liked, being sour and slow, with an ugly,<br />glowering disposition, but he had studied some time for the church<br />at Edinburgh College, before ill conduct had destroyed his<br />prospects, and he now remembered and applied what he had learned.<br />Indeed he had not proceeded very far, when the Master rolled<br />carelessly upon one side, which was done (in Mountain's opinion) to<br />conceal the beginnings of despair upon his countenance. Hastie<br />dismissed the most of what they had heard as nothing to the matter:<br />what they wanted was the treasure. All that was said of Harris<br />might be true, and they would have to see to that in time. But<br />what had that to do with the treasure? They had heard a vast of<br />words; but the truth was just this, that Mr. Durie was damnably<br />frightened and had several times run off. Here he was - whether<br />caught or come back was all one to Hastie: the point was to make<br />an end of the business. As for the talk of deposing and electing<br />captains, he hoped they were all free men and could attend their<br />own affairs. That was dust flung in their eyes, and so was the<br />proposal to fight Harris. "He shall fight no one in this camp, I<br />can tell him that," said Hastie. "We had trouble enough to get his<br />arms away from him, and we should look pretty fools to give them<br />back again. But if it's excitement the gentleman is after, I can<br />supply him with more than perhaps he cares about. For I have no<br />intention to spend the remainder of my life in these mountains;<br />already I have been too long; and I propose that he should<br />immediately tell us where that treasure is, or else immediately be<br />shot. And there," says he, producing his weapon, "there is the<br />pistol that I mean to use."<br />"Come, I call you a man," cries the Master, sitting up and looking<br />at the speaker with an air of admiration.<br />"I didn't ask you to call me anything," returned Hastie; "which is<br />it to be?"<br />"That's an idle question," said the Master. "Needs must when the<br />devil drives. The truth is we are within easy walk of the place,<br />and I will show it you to-morrow."<br />With that, as if all were quite settled, and settled exactly to his<br />mind, he walked off to his tent, whither Secundra had preceded him.<br />I cannot think of these last turns and wriggles of my old enemy<br />except with admiration; scarce even pity is mingled with the<br />sentiment, so strongly the man supported, so boldly resisted his<br />misfortunes. Even at that hour, when he perceived himself quite<br />lost, when he saw he had but effected an exchange of enemies, and<br />overthrown Harris to set Hastie up, no sign of weakness appeared in<br />his behaviour, and he withdrew to his tent, already determined (I<br />must suppose) upon affronting the incredible hazard of his last<br />expedient, with the same easy, assured, genteel expression and<br />demeanour as he might have left a theatre withal to join a supper<br />of the wits. But doubtless within, if we could see there, his soul<br />trembled.<br />Early in the night, word went about the camp that he was sick; and<br />the first thing the next morning he called Hastie to his side, and<br />inquired most anxiously if he had any skill in medicine. As a<br />matter of fact, this was a vanity of that fallen divinity<br />student's, to which he had cunningly addressed himself. Hastie<br />examined him; and being flattered, ignorant, and highly auspicious,<br />knew not in the least whether the man was sick or malingering. In<br />this state he went forth again to his companions; and (as the thing<br />which would give himself most consequence either way) announced<br />that the patient was in a fair way to die.<br />"For all that," he added with an oath, "and if he bursts by the<br />wayside, he must bring us this morning to the treasure."<br />But there were several in the camp (Mountain among the number) whom<br />this brutality revolted. They would have seen the Master<br />pistolled, or pistolled him themselves, without the smallest<br />sentiment of pity; but they seemed to have been touched by his<br />gallant fight and unequivocal defeat the night before; perhaps,<br />too, they were even already beginning to oppose themselves to their<br />new leader: at least, they now declared that (if the man was sick)<br />he should have a day's rest in spite of Hastie's teeth.<br />The next morning he was manifestly worse, and Hastie himself began<br />to display something of humane concern, so easily does even the<br />pretence of doctoring awaken sympathy. The third the Master called<br />Mountain and Hastie to the tent, announced himself to be dying,<br />gave them full particulars as to the position of the cache, and<br />begged them to set out incontinently on the quest, so that they<br />might see if he deceived them, and (if they were at first<br />unsuccessful) he should be able to correct their error.<br />But here arose a difficulty on which he doubtless counted. None of<br />these men would trust another, none would consent to stay behind.<br />On the other hand, although the Master seemed extremely low, spoke<br />scarce above a whisper, and lay much of the time insensible, it was<br />still possible it was a fraudulent sickness; and if all went<br />treasure-hunting, it might prove they had gone upon a wild-goose<br />chase, and return to find their prisoner flown. They concluded,<br />therefore, to hang idling round the camp, alleging sympathy to<br />their reason; and certainly, so mingled are our dispositions,<br />several were sincerely (if not very deeply) affected by the natural<br />peril of the man whom they callously designed to murder. In the<br />afternoon, Hastie was called to the bedside to pray: the which<br />(incredible as it must appear) he did with unction; about eight at<br />night, the wailing of Secundra announced that all was over; and<br />before ten, the Indian, with a link stuck in the ground, was<br />toiling at the grave. Sunrise of next day beheld the Master's<br />burial, all hands attending with great decency of demeanour; and<br />the body was laid in the earth, wrapped in a fur robe, with only<br />the face uncovered; which last was of a waxy whiteness, and had the<br />nostrils plugged according to some Oriental habit of Secundra's.<br />No sooner was the grave filled than the lamentations of the Indian<br />once more struck concern to every heart; and it appears this gang<br />of murderers, so far from resenting his outcries, although both<br />distressful and (in such a country) perilous to their own safety,<br />roughly but kindly endeavoured to console him.<br />But if human nature is even in the worst of men occasionally kind,<br />it is still, and before all things, greedy; and they soon turned<br />from the mourner to their own concerns. The cache of the treasure<br />being hard by, although yet unidentified, it was concluded not to<br />break camp; and the day passed, on the part of the voyagers, in<br />unavailing exploration of the woods, Secundra the while lying on<br />his master's grave. That night they placed no sentinel, but lay<br />altogether about the fire, in the customary woodman fashion, the<br />heads outward, like the spokes of a wheel. Morning found them in<br />the same disposition; only Pinkerton, who lay on Mountain's right,<br />between him and Hastie, had (in the hours of darkness) been<br />secretly butchered, and there lay, still wrapped as to his body in<br />his mantle, but offering above that ungodly and horrific spectacle<br />of the scalped head. The gang were that morning as pale as a<br />company of phantoms, for the pertinacity of Indian war (or to speak<br />more correctly, Indian murder) was well known to all. But they<br />laid the chief blame on their unsentinelled posture; and fired with<br />the neighbourhood of the treasure, determined to continue where<br />they were. Pinkerton was buried hard by the Master; the survivors<br />again passed the day in exploration, and returned in a mingled<br />humour of anxiety and hope, being partly certain they were now<br />close on the discovery of what they sought, and on the other hand<br />(with the return of darkness) were infected with the fear of<br />Indians. Mountain was the first sentry; he declares he neither<br />slept nor yet sat down, but kept his watch with a perpetual and<br />straining vigilance, and it was even with unconcern that (when he<br />saw by the stars his time was up) he drew near the fire to awaken<br />his successor. This man (it was Hicks the shoemaker) slept on the<br />lee side of the circle, something farther off in consequence than<br />those to windward, and in a place darkened by the blowing smoke.<br />Mountain stooped and took him by the shoulder; his hand was at once<br />smeared by some adhesive wetness; and (the wind at the moment<br />veering) the firelight shone upon the sleeper, and showed him, like<br />Pinkerton, dead and scalped.<br />It was clear they had fallen in the hands of one of those matchless<br />Indian bravos, that will sometimes follow a party for days, and in<br />spite of indefatigable travel, and unsleeping watch, continue to<br />keep up with their advance, and steal a scalp at every restingplace.<br />Upon this discovery, the treasure-seekers, already reduced<br />to a poor half dozen, fell into mere dismay, seized a few<br />necessaries, and deserting the remainder of their goods, fled<br />outright into the forest. Their fire they left still burning, and<br />their dead comrade unburied. All day they ceased not to flee,<br />eating by the way, from hand to mouth; and since they feared to<br />sleep, continued to advance at random even in the hours of<br />darkness. But the limit of man's endurance is soon reached; when<br />they rested at last it was to sleep profoundly; and when they woke,<br />it was to find that the enemy was still upon their heels, and death<br />and mutilation had once more lessened and deformed their company.<br />By this they had become light-headed, they had quite missed their<br />path in the wilderness, their stores were already running low.<br />With the further horrors, it is superfluous that I should swell<br />this narrative, already too prolonged. Suffice it to say that when<br />at length a night passed by innocuous, and they might breathe again<br />in the hope that the murderer had at last desisted from pursuit,<br />Mountain and Secundra were alone. The trader is firmly persuaded<br />their unseen enemy was some warrior of his own acquaintance, and<br />that he himself was spared by favour. The mercy extended to<br />Secundra he explains on the ground that the East Indian was thought<br />to be insane; partly from the fact that, through all the horrors of<br />the flight and while others were casting away their very food and<br />weapons, Secundra continued to stagger forward with a mattock on<br />his shoulder, and partly because, in the last days and with a great<br />degree of heat and fluency, he perpetually spoke with himself in<br />his own language. But he was sane enough when it came to English.<br />"You think he will be gone quite away?" he asked, upon their blest<br />awakening in safety.<br />"I pray God so, I believe so, I dare to believe so," Mountain had<br />replied almost with incoherence, as he described the scene to me.<br />And indeed he was so much distempered that until he met us, the<br />next morning, he could scarce be certain whether he had dreamed, or<br />whether it was a fact, that Secundra had thereupon turned directly<br />about and returned without a word upon their footprints, setting<br />his face for these wintry and hungry solitudes, along a path whose<br />every stage was mile-stoned with a mutilated corpse.<br />CHAPTER XII. - THE JOURNEY IN THE WILDERNESS (continued).<br />Mountain's story, as it was laid before Sir William Johnson and my<br />lord, was shorn, of course, of all the earlier particulars, and the<br />expedition described to have proceeded uneventfully, until the<br />Master sickened. But the latter part was very forcibly related,<br />the speaker visibly thrilling to his recollections; and our then<br />situation, on the fringe of the same desert, and the private<br />interests of each, gave him an audience prepared to share in his<br />emotions. For Mountain's intelligence not only changed the world<br />for my Lord Durrisdeer, but materially affected the designs of Sir<br />William Johnson.<br />These I find I must lay more at length before the reader. Word had<br />reached Albany of dubious import; it had been rumoured some<br />hostility was to be put in act; and the Indian diplomatist had,<br />thereupon, sped into the wilderness, even at the approach of<br />winter, to nip that mischief in the bud. Here, on the borders, he<br />learned that he was come too late; and a difficult choice was thus<br />presented to a man (upon the whole) not any more bold than prudent.<br />His standing with the painted braves may be compared to that of my<br />Lord President Culloden among the chiefs of our own Highlanders at<br />the 'forty-five; that is as much as to say, he was, to these men,<br />reason's only speaking trumpet, and counsels of peace and<br />moderation, if they were to prevail at all, must prevail singly<br />through his influence. If, then, he should return, the province<br />must lie open to all the abominable tragedies of Indian war - the<br />houses blaze, the wayfarer be cut off, and the men of the woods<br />collect their usual disgusting spoil of human scalps. On the other<br />side, to go farther forth, to risk so small a party deeper in the<br />desert, to carry words of peace among warlike savages already<br />rejoicing to return to war: here was an extremity from which it<br />was easy to perceive his mind revolted.<br />"I have come too late," he said more than once, and would fall into<br />a deep consideration, his head bowed in his hands, his foot patting<br />the ground.<br />At length he raised his face and looked upon us, that is to say<br />upon my lord, Mountain, and myself, sitting close round a small<br />fire, which had been made for privacy in one corner of the camp.<br />"My lord, to be quite frank with you, I find myself in two minds,"<br />said he. "I think it very needful I should go on, but not at all<br />proper I should any longer enjoy the pleasure of your company. We<br />are here still upon the water side; and I think the risk to<br />southward no great matter. Will not yourself and Mr. Mackellar<br />take a single boat's crew and return to Albany?"<br />My lord, I should say, had listened to Mountain's narrative,<br />regarding him throughout with a painful intensity of gaze; and<br />since the tale concluded, had sat as in a dream. There was<br />something very daunting in his look; something to my eyes not<br />rightly human; the face, lean, and dark, and aged, the mouth<br />painful, the teeth disclosed in a perpetual rictus; the eyeball<br />swimming clear of the lids upon a field of blood-shot white. I<br />could not behold him myself without a jarring irritation, such as,<br />I believe, is too frequently the uppermost feeling on the sickness<br />of those dear to us. Others, I could not but remark. were scarce<br />able to support his neighbourhood - Sir William eviting to be near<br />him, Mountain dodging his eye, and, when he met it, blenching and<br />halting in his story. At this appeal, however, my lord appeared to<br />recover his command upon himself.<br />"To Albany?" said he, with a good voice.<br />"Not short of it, at least," replied Sir William. "There is no<br />safety nearer hand."<br />"I would be very sweir (11) to return," says my lord. "I am not<br />afraid - of Indians," he added, with a jerk.<br />"I wish that I could say so much," returned Sir William, smiling;<br />"although, if any man durst say it, it should be myself. But you<br />are to keep in view my responsibility, and that as the voyage has<br />now become highly dangerous, and your business - if you ever had<br />any," says he, "brought quite to a conclusion by the distressing<br />family intelligence you have received, I should be hardly justified<br />if I even suffered you to proceed, and run the risk of some obloquy<br />if anything regrettable should follow."<br />My lord turned to Mountain. "What did he pretend he died of?" he<br />asked.<br />"I don't think I understand your honour," said the trader, pausing<br />like a man very much affected, in the dressing of some cruel frostbites.<br />For a moment my lord seemed at a full stop; and then, with some<br />irritation, "I ask you what he died of. Surely that's a plain<br />question," said he.<br />"Oh! I don't know," said Mountain. "Hastie even never knew. He<br />seemed to sicken natural, and just pass away."<br />"There it is, you see!" concluded my lord, turning to Sir William.<br />"Your lordship is too deep for me," replied Sir William.<br />"Why," says my lord, "this in a matter of succession; my son's<br />title may be called in doubt; and the man being supposed to be dead<br />of nobody can tell what, a great deal of suspicion would be<br />naturally roused."<br />"But, God damn me, the man's buried!" cried Sir William.<br />"I will never believe that," returned my lord, painfully trembling.<br />"I'll never believe it!" he cried again, and jumped to his feet.<br />"Did he LOOK dead?" he asked of Mountain.<br />"Look dead?" repeated the trader. "He looked white. Why, what<br />would he be at? I tell you, I put the sods upon him."<br />My lord caught Sir William by the coat with a hooked hand. "This<br />man has the name of my brother," says he, "but it's well understood<br />that he was never canny."<br />"Canny?" says Sir William. "What is that?"<br />"He's not of this world," whispered my lord, "neither him nor the<br />black deil that serves him. I have struck my sword throughout his<br />vitals," he cried; "I have felt the hilt dirl (12) on his<br />breastbone, and the hot blood spirt in my very face, time and<br />again, time and again!" he repeated, with a gesture indescribable.<br />"But he was never dead for that," said he, and I sighed aloud.<br />"Why should I think he was dead now? No, not till I see him<br />rotting," says he.<br />Sir William looked across at me with a long face. Mountain forgot<br />his wounds, staring and gaping.<br />"My lord," said I, "I wish you would collect your spirits." But my<br />throat was so dry, and my own wits so scattered, I could add no<br />more.<br />"No," says my lord, "it's not to be supposed that he would<br />understand me. Mackellar does, for he kens all, and has seen him<br />buried before now. This is a very good servant to me, Sir William,<br />this man Mackellar; he buried him with his own hands - he and my<br />father - by the light of two siller candlesticks. The other man is<br />a familiar spirit; he brought him from Coromandel. I would have<br />told ye this long syne, Sir William, only it was in the family."<br />Thes