THE ASSEMBLY.
That same evening, Duncan, in full dress, claymore and dirk at his
sides, and carrying the great Lossie pipes, marched first through
the streets of the upper, then through the closes of the lower
town, followed by the bellman who had been appointed crier upon his
disappearance. At the proper stations, Duncan blew a rousing pibroch,
after which the bellman, who, for the dignity of his calling, insisted
on a prelude of three strokes of his clapper, proclaimed aloud that
Malcolm, Marquis of Lossie, desired the presence of each and every of
his tenants in the royal burgh of Portlossie, Newton and Seaton, in
the town-hall of the same, at seven of the clock upon the evening next
following. The proclamation ended, the piper sounded one note three
times, and they passed to the next station. When they had gone through
the Seaton, they entered a carriage waiting for them at the sea-gate,
and were driven to Scaurnose, and thence again to the several other
villages on the coast belonging to the marquis, making at each in like
manner the same announcement.
Portlossie was in a ferment of wonder, satisfaction, and pleasure.
There were few in it who were not glad at the accession of Malcolm,
and with every one of those few the cause lay in himself. In the
shops, among the nets, in the curing-sheds, in the houses and
cottages, nothing else was talked about; and stories and reminiscences
innumerable were brought out, chiefly to prove that Malcolm had always
appeared likely to turn out somebody, the narrator not seldom modestly
hinting at a glimmering foresight on his own part of what had now
been at length revealed to the world. His friends were jubilant as
revellers. For Meg Partan, she ran from house to house like a maniac,
laughing and crying. It was as if the whole Seaton had suddenly been
translated. The men came crowding about Duncan, congratulating him and
asking him a hundred questions. But the old man maintained a reticence
whose dignity was strangely mingled of pomp and grace; sat calm and
stately as feeling the glow of reflected honour; would not, by word,
gesture, tone, or exclamation, confess to any surprise; behaved as if
he had known it all the time; made no pretence however of having known
it, merely treated the fact as not a whit more than might have been
looked for by one who had known Malcolm as he had known him.
Davy, in his yacht uniform, was the next morning appointed the
marquis’s personal attendant, and a running time he had of it for a
fortnight.
Almost the first thing that fell to him in his office was to show into
the room on the ground floor where his master sat--the same in which
for ages the lords of Lossie had been wont to transact what little
business any of them ever attended to--a pale, feeble man, bowed by the
weight of a huge brass-clasped volume under each arm. His lordship rose
and met him with out-stretched hand.
“I am glad indeed to see you, Mr Crathie,” he said, “but I fear you are
out too soon.”
“I am quite well since yesterday, my lord,” returned the factor, his
face shining with pleasure. “Your lordship’s accession has made a young
man of me again. Here I am to render account of my stewardship.”
“I want none, Mr Crathie--nothing, that is, beyond a summary statement
of how things stand with me.”
“I should like to satisfy your lordship that I have dealt honestly”--
here the factor paused for a moment, then with an effort added --“by
_you_, my lord.”
“One word,” said Malcolm “--the last of the sort, I believe, that
will ever pass between us. Thank God! we had made it up before
yesterday.--If you have ever been hard upon any of my tenants, not to
say unfair, you have wronged me infinitely more than if you had taken
from me. God be with me as I prefer ruin to wrong. Remember, besides,
that my tenants are my charge and care. For you, my representative,
therefore, to do one of them an injury is to do me a double injury--to
wrong my tenant, and to wrong him in my name.”
“Ah, my lord! you don’t know how they would take advantage of you, if
there were nobody to look after your interests.”
“Then do look after them, sir. It would be bad for them to succeed,
as well as crippling to me. Only be sure, with the thought of the
righteous God to elevate your sense of justice, that you are in the
right. If doubtful, then give in.--And now, if any man thinks he has
cause of complaint, I leave it to you, with the help of the new light
that has been given you, to reconsider the matter, and, where needful,
to make reparation. You must be the friend of my tenant as much as of
his landlord. I have no interests inimical to those of my tenants. If
any man comes to me with complaint, I will send him to restate his case
to you, with the understanding that, if you will not listen to him, he
is to come to me again, when I shall hear both sides and judge between.
If after six months you should desire me to go over the books with you,
I will do so. As to your loyalty to my family and its affairs, of that
I never had a shadow of suspicion.”
As he ended, Malcolm held out his hand. The factor’s trembled in his
strong grasp.
“Mistress Crathie is sorely vexed, my lord,” he said, rising to take
his leave, “at things both said and done in the dark.”
Malcolm laughed.
“Give Mrs Crathie my compliments,” he said, “and tell her a man is more
than a marquis. If she will after this treat every honest fisherman
as if he might possibly turn out a lord, she and I shall be more than
quits.”
The next morning he carried her again a few mackerel he had just
caught, and she never forgot the lesson given her. That morning, I may
mention, he did not go fishing alone, but had a lady with him in the
dinghy; and indeed they were together, in one place and another, the
most of the day--at one time flying along the fields, she on the bay
mare, and he on Kelpie.
When the evening came, the town-hall was crammed--men standing on all
the window-sills; and so many could not get in that Malcolm proposed
they should occupy the square in front. A fisherman in garb and
gesture, not the less a gentleman and a marquis, he stood on the steps
of the town-hall and spoke to his people. They received him with wild
enthusiasm.
“The open air is better for everything,” he began. “Fishers, I have
called you first, because you are my own people. I am, and shall be
a fisherman, after such fashion, I trust, as will content my old
comrades. How things have come about, I shall not now tell you. Come
all of you and dine with me, and you shall hear enough to satisfy
at least lawful curiosity. At present my care is that you should
understand the terms upon which it is possible for us to live together
as friends. I make no allusion to personal friendships. A true friend
is for ever a friend. And I venture to say my old friends know best
both what I am and what I shall be. As to them I have no shadow
of anxiety. But I would gladly be a friend to all, and will do my
endeavour to that end.
“You of Portlossie shall have your harbour cleared without delay.”
In justice to the fishers I here interrupt my report to state that the
very next day they set about clearing the harbour themselves. It was
their business--in part at least, they said, and they were ashamed of
having left it so long. This did much towards starting well for a new
order of things.
“You of Scaurnose shall hear the blasting necessary for your harbour
commence within a fortnight; and every house shall ere long have a
small piece of land at a reasonable rate allotted to it. But I feel
bound to mention that there are some among you upon whom, until I see
that they carry themselves differently, I must keep an eye. That they
have shown themselves unfriendly to myself in my attempts to persuade
them to what they knew to be right, I shall endeavour to forget, but
I give them warning that whoever shall hereafter disturb the peace or
interfere with the liberty of my people, shall assuredly be cast out of
my borders, and that as soon as the law will permit.
“I shall take measures that all complaints shall be heard, and all save
foolish ones heeded; for, as much as in me lies, I will to execute
justice and judgment and righteousness in the land. Whoever oppresses
or wrongs his neighbour shall have to do with me. And to aid me in
doing justice, I pray the help of every honest man. I have not been so
long among you without having in some measure distinguished between
the men who have heart and brain, and the men who have merely a sense
of their own importance--which latter class, unhappily, always takes
itself for the former. I will deal with every man as I find him. I am
set to rule, and rule I will. He who loves righteousness, will help me
to rule; he who loves it not, shall be ruled, or depart.”
The address had been every now and then interrupted by a hearty cheer;
at this point the cheering was greatly prolonged; after it there was no
more. For thus he went on:
“And now I am about to give you proof that I mean what I say, and that
evil shall not come to the light without being noted and dealt with.
“There are in this company two women--my eyes are at this moment upon
them where they stand together. One of them is already well-known to
you all by sight: now you shall know, not what she looks, but what she
is. Her name, or at least that by which she goes among you, is Barbara
Catanach. The other is an Englishwoman of whom you know nothing. Her
name is Caley.”
All eyes were turned upon the two. Even Mrs Catanach was cowed by the
consciousness of the universal stare, and a kind of numb thrill went
through her from head to foot.
“Well assured that, if I brought a criminal action against them, it
would hang them both, I trust you will not imagine it revenge that
moves me thus to expose them. In refraining from prosecuting them,
I bind myself of necessity to see that they work no more evil. In
giving them time for repentance, I take the consequences upon myself.
I am bound to take care that they do not employ the respite in doing
mischief to their neighbours. Without precaution I could not be
justified in sparing them. Therefore those women shall not go forth
to pass for harmless members of society, and see the life and honour
of others lie bare to their secret attack. They shall live _here_, in
this town, thoroughly known; and absolutely distrusted. And that they
may thus be known and distrusted, I publicly declare that I hold proof
against these women of having conspired to kill me. From the effects of
the poison they succeeded in giving me, I fear I shall never altogether
recover. I can prove also, to the extreme of circumstantial evidence,
that there is the blood of one child at least upon the hands of each;
and that there are mischiefs innumerable upon their lying tongues, it
were an easy task to convince you. If I wrong them, let them accuse
me; and whether they lose or gain their suit, I promise before you for
witnesses, I will pay all; only thereby they will compel me to bring my
actions for murder and conspiracy. Let them choose.
“Hear what I have determined concerning them. The woman Catanach shall
take to her cottage the woman Caley. That cottage they shall have rent
free: who could receive money from such hands? I will appoint them also
a sufficiency for life and maintenance, bare indeed, for I would not
have them comfortable. But they shall be free to work if they can find
any to employ them. If, however, either shall go beyond the bounds I
set, she shall be followed the moment she is missed, and that with a
warrant for her apprehension. And I beg all honest people to keep an
eye upon them. According as they live shall their life be. If they come
to repentance, they will bless the day I resolved upon such severe
measures on their behalf. Let them go to their place.”
I will not try to describe the devilish look, mingled of contempt and
hate, that possessed the countenance of the midwife, as, with head
erect, and eyes looking straight before her, she obeyed the command.
Caley, white as death, trembled and tottered, nor dared once look up
as she followed her companion to their appointed hell. Whether they
made it pleasant for each other my reader may debate with himself.
Before many months had gone by, stared at and shunned by all, even by
Miss Horn’s Jean, driven back upon her own memories, and the pictures
that rose out of them, and deprived of every chance of indulging her
dominant passion for mischievous influence, the midwife’s face told
such a different tale, that the schoolmaster began to cherish a feeble
hope that within a few years Mrs Catanach might get so far as to begin
to suspect she was a sinner--that she had actually done things she
ought not to have done. One of those things that same night Malcolm
heard from the lips of Duncan, a tale of horror and dismay. Not until
then did he know, after all he knew concerning her, what the woman was
capable of.
At his own entreaty, Duncan was formally recognized as piper to the
Marquis of Lossie. His ambition reached no higher. Malcolm himself saw
to his perfect equipment, heedful specially that his kilt and plaid
should be of Duncan’s own tartan of red and blue and green. His dirk
and broadsword he had new sheathed, with silver mountings. A great
silver brooch with a big cairngorm in the centre, took the place of
the brass one, which henceforth was laid up among the precious things
in the little armoury, and the badge of his clan in gold, with rubies
and amethysts for the bells of the heather, glowed on his bonnet. And
Malcolm’s guests, as long as Duncan continued able to fill the bag,
had to endure as best they might, between each course of every dinner
without fail, two or three minutes of uproar and outcry from the treble
throat of the powerful Lossie pipes. By his own desire, the piper had a
chair and small table set for him behind and to the right of his chief,
as he called him; there he ate with the family and guests, waited upon
by Davy, part of whose business it was to hand him the pipes at the
proper moment, whereupon he rose to his feet, for even he with all
his experience and habitude was unable in a sitting posture to keep
that stand of pipes full of wind, and raised such a storm of sound as
made the windows tremble. A lady guest would now and then venture to
hint that the custom was rather a trying one for English ears; but
Clementina would never listen to a breath against Duncan’s music. Her
respect and affection for the old man were unbounded.
Malcolm was one of the few who understand the shelter of light, the
protection to be gained against lying tongues by the discarding of
needless reticence, and the open presentation of the truth. Many men
who would not tell a lie, yet seem to have faith in concealment:
they would rather not reveal the truth; darkness seems to offer them
the cover of a friendly wing. But there is no veil like light --no
adamantine armour against hurt like the truth. To Malcolm it was one of
the promises of the kingdom that there is nothing covered that shall
not be revealed. He was anxious, therefore, to tell his people, at the
coming dinner, the main points of his story, and certain that such
openness would also help to lay the foundation of confidence between
him and his people. The one difficulty in the way was the position of
Florimel. But that could not fail to appear in any case, and he was
satisfied that even for her sake it was far better to speak openly; for
then the common heart would take her in and cover her. He consulted,
therefore, with Lenorme, who went to find her. She came, threw her arms
round his neck and begged him to say whatever he thought best.
To add the final tinge to the rainbow of Malcolm’s joy, on the morning
of the dinner the schoolmaster arrived. It would be hard to say whether
Malcolm or Clementina was the more delighted to see him. He said little
with his tongue, but much with his eyes and face and presence.
This time the tables were not set in different parts of the grounds,
but gathered upon the level of the drive and the adjacent lawny spaces
between the house and the trees. Malcolm, in full highland dress as
chief of his clan, took the head of the central table, with Florimel
in the place of honour at his right hand, and Clementina on his left.
Lenorme sat next to Florimel, and Annie Mair next to Lenorme. On
the other side, Mr Graham sat next to Clementina, Miss Horn next to
Mr Graham, and Blue Peter next to Miss Horn. Except Mr Morrison, he
had asked none who were not his tenants or servants or in some way
connected with the estates, except indeed a few whom he counted old
friends, amongst them some aged beggar-folk, waiting their summons to
Abraham’s bosom--in which there was no such exceptional virtue on the
marquis’s part, for, the poor law not having yet invaded Scotland, a
man was not without the respect of his neighbours merely because he was
a beggar. He set Mr Morrison to preside at the farmers’ tables, and had
all the fisher-folk about himself.
When the main part of the dinner was over, he rose, and with as much
circumstance as he thought desirable, told his story, beginning with
the parts in it his uncle and Mrs Catanach had taken. It was, however,
he said, a principle in the history of the world, that evil should
bring forth good, and his poor little cock-boat had been set adrift
upon an ocean of blessing. For had he not been taken to the heart of
one of the noblest and simplest of men, who had brought him up in
honourable poverty and rectitude? When he had said this, he turned to
Duncan, who sat at his own table behind him, with his pipe on a stool
covered with a rich cloth by his side.
“You all know my grandfather,” he went on, “and you all respect him.”
At this rose a great shout.
“I thank you, my friends,” he continued. “My desire is that every soul
upon land of mine should carry himself to Duncan MacPhail as if he were
in blood that which he is in deed and in truth, my grandfather.”
A second great shout arose, which wavered and sank when they saw the
old man bow his head upon his hands.
He went on to speak of the privileges he alone of all his race had ever
enjoyed--the privileges of toil and danger, with all their experiences
of human dependence and divine aid; the privilege of the confidence
and companionship of honourable labouring men, and the understanding
of their ways and thoughts and feelings; and, above all, the privilege
of the friendship and instruction of the schoolmaster, to whom he owed
more than eternity could reveal.
Then he turned again to his narrative, and told how his father, falsely
informed that his wife and child were dead, married Florimel’s mother;
how his mother, out of compassion for both of them, held her peace;
how for twenty years she had lived with her cousin Miss Horn, and held
her peace even from her; how at last, when, having succeeded to the
property, she heard he was coming to the House, the thought of his
nearness yet unapproachableness--in this way at least he, the child
of both, interpreted the result--so worked upon a worn and enfeebled
frame, that she died.
Then he told how Miss Horn, after his mother’s death, came upon letters
revealing the secret which she had all along known must exist, but
after which, from love and respect for her cousin, she had never
inquired.
Last of all he told how, in a paroxysm of rage, Mrs Catanach had
let the secret of his birth escape her; how she had afterwards made
affidavit concerning it; and how his father had upon his death-bed,
with all necessary legal observances, acknowledged him his son and heir.
“And now, to the mighty gladness of my soul,” he said, looking on
Florimel at his side, “my dearly loved and honoured sister, loved
and honoured long before I knew she was my own, has accepted me as
her brother, and I do not think she greatly regrets the loss of the
headship of the house which she has passed over to me. She will lose
little else. And of all women it may well be to her a small matter to
lose a mere title, seeing she is so soon to change her name for one who
will bring her honour of a more enduring reality. For he who is about
to become her husband is not only one of the noblest of men, but a man
of genius whose praises she will hear on all sides. One of his works,
the labour and gift of love, you shall see when we rise from the table.
It is a portrait of your late landlord, my father, painted partly
from a miniature, partly from my sister, partly from the portraits of
the family, and partly, I am happy to think, from myself. You must
yourselves judge of the truth of it. And you will remember that Mr
Lenorme never saw my father. I say this, not to excuse, but to enhance
his work.
“My tenants, I will do my best to give you fair play. My friend and
factor, Mr Crathie, has confided to me his doubts whether he may not
have been a little hard: he is prepared to reconsider some of your
cases. Do not imagine that I am going to be a careless man of business.
I want money, for I have enough to do with it, if only to set right
much that is wrong. But let God judge between you and me.
“My fishermen, every honest man of you is my friend, and you shall know
it. Between you and me that is enough. But for the sake of harmony, and
right, and order, and that I may keep near you, I shall appoint three
men of yourselves in each village, to whom any man or woman may go with
request or complaint. If two of those three men judge the matter fit to
refer to me, the probability is that I shall see it as they do. If any
man think them scant of justice towards him, let him come to me. Should
I find myself in doubt, I have here at my side my beloved and honoured
master to whom to apply for counsel, knowing that what oracle he may
utter I shall receive straight from the innermost parts of a temple of
the Holy Ghost. Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be
honest with each other.
“And, in conclusion, why should you hear from any lips but my own,
that this lady beside me, the daughter of an English earl of ancient
house, has honoured the house of Lossie by consenting to become its
marchioness? Lady Clementina Thornicroft possesses large estates in
the south of England, but not for them did I seek her favour--as you
will be convinced when you reflect what the fact involves which she has
herself desired me to make known to you-- namely, that it was while yet
she was unacquainted with my birth and position, and had never dreamed
that I was other than only a fisherman and a groom, that she accepted
me for her husband.-- I thank my God.”
With that he took his seat, and after hearty cheering, a glass or
two of wine, and several speeches, all rose, and went to look at the
portrait of the late marquis.