When I awoke, I thought that I was on shipboard; for the first sound
I heard was that of the sea booming against the castle walls. I arose,
looked out of the window of my bedchamber, and saw that the whole
prospect bore an air of savage wildness. As I contemplated the scene,
my imagination was seized with the idea of remoteness from civilized
society: the melancholy feeling of solitary grandeur took possession of
my soul.
From this feeling I was relieved by the affectionate countenance of my
old nurse, who at this instant put her head half in at the door.
“I only just made bold to look in at the fire, to see did it burn,
because I lighted it myself, and would not be blowing of it for fear of
wakening you.”
“Come in, Ellinor, come in,” said I. “Come quite in.”
“I will, since you’ve nobody with you that I need be afraid of,” said
she, looking round satisfied, when she saw my own man was not in the
room.
“You need never be afraid of any body, Ellinor, whilst I am alive,” said
I; “for I will always protect you. I do not forget your conduct, when
you thought I was dead in the banqueting-room.”
“Oh! don’t be talking of that; thanks be to God there was nothing in it!
I see you well now. Long life to you! Sure you must have been tired to
death last night, for this morning early you lay so _quite_, sleeping
like an angel; and I could see a great likeness in _yees_ to what you
were when you were a child in my arms.”
“But sit down, sit down, my good Ellinor,” said I, “and let us talk a
little of your own affairs.”
“And are not these my own affairs?” said she, rather angrily.
“Certainly; but I mean, that you must tell me how you are going on in
the world, and what I can do to make you comfortable and happy.”
“There’s one thing would make me happy,” said she.
“Name it,” said I.
“To be let light your fire myself every morning, and open your shutters,
dear.”
I could not help smiling at the simplicity of the request. I was going
to press her to ask something of more consequence, but she heard a
servant coming along the gallery, and, starting from her chair, she ran
and threw herself upon her knees before the fire, blowing it with her
mouth with great vehemence.
The servant came to let me know that Mr. M’Leod, my agent, was waiting
for me in the breakfast-room.
“And will I be let light your fire then every morning?” said Ellinor
eagerly, turning as she knelt.
“And welcome,” said I.
“Then you won’t forget to speak about it for me,” said she, “else may
be I won’t be let up by them English. God bless you, and don’t forget to
speak for me.”
“I will remember to speak about it,” said I; but I went down stairs and
forgot it.
Mr. M’Leod, whom I found reading the newspaper in the breakfast-room,
seemed less affected by my presence than any body I had seen since my
arrival. He was a hard-featured, strong-built, perpendicular man, with
a remarkable quietness of deportment: he spoke with deliberate
distinctness, in an accent slightly Scotch; and, in speaking, he made
use of no gesticulation, but held himself surprisingly still. No part
of him but his eyes moved, and they had an expression of slow, but
determined good sense. He was sparing of his words; but the few that
he used said much, and went directly to the point. He pressed for the
immediate examination and settlement of his accounts: he enumerated
several things of importance, which he had done for my service: but he
did this without pretending the slightest attachment to me; he mentioned
them only as proofs of his having done his duty to his employer, for
which he neither expected nor would accept of thanks. He seemed to be
cold and upright in his mind as in his body. I was not influenced in his
favour even by his striking appearance of plain-dealing, so strong was
the general abhorrence of agents which Crawley’s treachery had left in
my mind. The excess of credulity, when convinced of its error, becomes
the extreme of suspicion. Persons not accustomed to reason often argue
absurdly, because, from particular instances, they deduce general
conclusions, and extend the result of their limited experience of
individuals indiscriminately to whole classes. The labour of thinking
was so great to me, that, having once come to a conclusion upon any
subject, I would rather persist in it, right or wrong, than be at
the trouble of going over the process again to revise and rectify my
judgment.
Upon this occasion national prejudice heightened the prepossession
which circumstances had raised. Mr. M’Leod was not only an agent, but a
Scotchman; and I had a notion that all Scotchmen were crafty: therefore
I concluded that his blunt manner was assumed, and his plain-dealing but
a more refined species of policy.
After breakfast he laid before me a general statement of my affairs;
obliged me to name a day for the examination of his accounts; and then,
without expressing either mortification or displeasure at the coldness
of my behaviour, or at my evident impatience of his presence, he,
unmoved of spirit, rang for his horse, wished me a good morning, and
departed.
By this time my castle-yard was filled with a crowd of “great-coated
suitors,” who were all _come to see--could they see my lordship? _or
_waiting just to say two words to my honour._ In various lounging
attitudes, leaning against the walls, or pacing backwards and forwards
before the window, to catch my eye, they, with a patience passing the
patience of courtiers, waited, hour after hour, the live-long day, for
their turn, or their chance, of an audience. I had promised myself the
pleasure of viewing my castle this day, and of taking a ride through my
grounds; but that was totally out of the question. I was no longer a man
with a will of my own, or with time at my own disposal.
_“Long may you live to reign over us!”_ was the signal that I was now
to live, like a prince, only for the service of my subjects. How these
subjects of mine had contrived to go on for so many years in my absence,
I was at a loss to conceive; for, the moment I was present, it seemed
evident that they could not exist without me.
One had a wife and six _childer,_ and not a spot in the wide world to
live in, if my honour did not let him live under me, in any bit of a
skirt of the estate that would feed a cow.
Another had a brother in jail, who could not be _got out without me._
Another had three lives dropped in a _lase_ for ever; another wanted
a renewal; another a farm; another a house; and one _expected_ my lard
would make his son an exciseman; and another that I would make him a
policeman; and another was _racked,_ if I did not settle the _mearing_
between him and Corny Corkran; and half a hundred had given in
_proposials_ to the agent for lands that would be out next May; and half
a hundred more came with legends of traditionary _promises from the
old lord, my lordship’s father that was_: and for hours I was forced
to listen to long stories _out of the face_, in which there was such
a perplexing and provoking mixture of truth and fiction, involved in
language so figurative, and tones so new to my English ears, that, with
my utmost patience and strained attention, I could comprehend but a very
small portion of what was said to me.
Never were my ears so weary any day of my life as they were this day. I
could not have endured the fatigue, if I had not been supported by the
agreeable idea of my own power and consequence; a power seemingly next
to despotic. This new stimulus sustained me for three days that I was
kept a state-prisoner in my own castle, by the crowds who came to do me
homage, and to claim my favour and protection. In vain every morning was
my horse led about saddled and bridled: I never was permitted to mount.
On the fourth morning, when I felt sure of having despatched all my
tormentors, I was in astonishment and despair on seeing my levee crowded
with a fresh succession of petitioners. I gave orders to my people to
say that I was going out, and absolutely could see nobody. I supposed
that they did not understand what my English servants said, for they
never stirred from their posts. On receiving a second message, they
acknowledged that they understood the first; but replied, that they
could wait there till my honour came back from my ride. With
difficulty I mounted my horse, and escaped from the closing ranks of my
persecutors. At night I gave directions to have the gates kept shut, and
ordered the porter not to admit any body at his peril. When I got up, I
was delighted to see the coast clear; but the moment I went out, lo! at
the outside of the gate, the host of besiegers were posted, and in my
lawn, and along the road, and through the fields: they pursued me; and
when I forbade them to speak to me when I was on horseback, the next
day I found parties in ambuscade, who laid wait for me in silence, with
their hats off, bowing and bowing, till I could not refrain from saying,
“Well, my good friend, what do you stand bowing there for?” Then I was
fairly prisoner, and held by the bridle for an hour.
In short, I found that I was now placed in a situation where I could
hope neither for privacy nor leisure; but I had the joys of power, my
rising passion for which would certainly have been extinguished in a
short time by my habitual indolence, if it had not been kept alive by
jealousy of Mr. M’Leod.
One day, when I refused to hear an importunate tenant, and declared that
I had been persecuted with petitioners ever since my arrival, and that
I was absolutely tired to death, the man answered, “True _for ye_, my
lard; and it’s a shame to be troubling you this way. Then, may be, it’s
to Mr. M’Leod I’ll go? Sure the agent will do as well, and no more about
it. Mr. M’Leod will do every thing the same way as usual.”
“Mr. M’Leod will do every thing!” said I, hastily: “no, by no means.”
“Who will we speak to, then?” said the man.
“To myself,” said I, with as haughty a tone as Louis XIV. could have
assumed, when he announced to his court his resolution to be his own
minister. After this intrepid declaration to act for myself, I could not
yield to my habitual laziness. So much had my pride been hurt, as well
as my other feelings, by Captain Crawley’s conduct, that I determined to
show the world I was not to be duped a second time by an agent.
When, on the day appointed, Mr. M’Leod came to settle accounts with me,
I, with an air of self-important capability, as if I had been all my
life used to look into my own affairs, sat down to inspect the papers;
and, incredible as it may appear, I went through the whole at a sitting,
without a single yawn; and, for a man who never before had looked into
an account, I understood the nature of debtor and creditor wonderfully
well: but, with my utmost desire to evince my arithmetical sagacity, I
could not detect the slightest error in the accounts; and it was evident
that Mr. M’Leod was not Captain Crawley; yet, rather than believe that
he could be both an agent and an honest man, I concluded, that if he did
not cheat me out of my money, his aim was to cheat me out of power; and,
fancying that he wished to be a man of influence and consequence in the
county, I transferred to him instantly the feelings that were passing in
my own mind, and took it for granted that he must be actuated by a love
of power in every thing that he did apparently for my service.
About this time I remember being much disturbed in my mind, by a letter
which Mr. M’Leod received in my presence, and of which he read to me
only a part: I never rested till I saw the whole. The epistle proved
well worth the trouble of deciphering: it related merely to the paving
of my chicken-yard. Like the King of Prussia,[79] who was said to be so
jealous of power, that he wanted to regulate all the mousetraps in his
dominions, I soon engrossed the management of a perplexing multiplicity
of minute insignificant details. Alas! I discovered to my cost, that
trouble is the inseparable attendant upon power: and many times, in
the course of the first ten days of my reign, I was ready to give up my
dignity from excessive fatigue.