"I would rather pull down the Manse," I said.
In reply, he touched with his forefinger the lease I had signed with
him, which lay on his writing-table.
"You cannot, my friend," he said.
I cannot do anything that I would. I am driven on a dark road by the
creature with the whip that is surely after every man who once yields to
his worst desires.
Just after this I received a visit from Mr. Mackenzie, the new minister,
a young and fervent, but not very knowledgeable man, whose zeal was
red-hot, but incompetent, and who would have died for the faith he could
never properly expound, like many young ministers of our church. The
little man was in a twisting turmoil of distress, and was moved, so he
said, to deal very plainly with me. I bade him deal on. It seemed that
his flock was becoming infected with atheism, which spread like the
plague, from the old Manse. The young children lisped it to each other
in the lanes; lovers talked it between their kisses; youths chattered
perdition at the idle corner by the church wall. Even the old began to
look askance at the Bible that had been their only book of age, and to
shiver wantonly at the inevitable approach of death. The young minister
cried denunciation upon Fraser, like a vague-minded, but angry Jonah
before a provincial Nineveh.
"Turn him out, Mr. Ralston, drive him forth," he ejaculated. "What is
his rent to you? What is his money in comparison with the immortal souls
of men? Away with him, away with him."
I mentioned the small matter of the lease. The young minister, with a
quivering scarlet face, replied stammering:--
"A lease! But--but--your own wife--she is--is--"
"I do not discuss her," I said sternly.
"Well; they are deserting the services. You see that yourself. They will
not come to hear me preach. They will not listen to me."
The man was tasting bitterness. He was almost crying. I was terribly
sorry for him. Yet, all I could do was to think of the spectre at the
Manse and answer:--
"I can do nothing."
His words were true. Carlounie's soul was being devoured as by a plague.
A colony of unbelievers was springing up in the midst of the beautiful
woods and the mountains. Soon the evil fame of the place began to spread
abroad, and men, in distant parts of Scotland, to speak of mad
Carlounie. The matter weighed intolerably upon me, and at last became a
fixed idea. I could think of nothing else but this devil's home in the
hills, this haunted and harassed centre of doom and darkness which was
my possession and in which I lived. I fell into silence. I ceased to
stir abroad beyond my own land. It seemed to me that Carlounie should
keep strict quarantine, should be isolated, and that each person who
went over its borders carried a strange infection and was guilty of
murder. I forbade Kate to drive beyond my estates.
"I never wish to," she said.
And I knew that where Fraser was she was happy. He had her soul fast by
this; or, it would be truer to say, the spectre of the Manse had both
him and her. And he aged apace and bore on his countenance the stamp of
evil. And I brooded and brooded upon the whole matter. But, from
whatever point I started, I came back to the Manse and to the spectre
dwelling in it with Hugh Fraser. I had given death to Doctor Wedderburn,
in return for the life so miraculously given to me, and now his spirit,
retained in its ancient abiding-place, spread death about it in its
turn. This was, and is, my conviction. The influence of the departed
clings to roof, to walls, to floors, leans on the accustomed
window-seat, trembles by the bed-head, sits by the hearthstone, stands
invisible in the passage way. _To kill it one must destroy its home._ It
was my duty to kill it, therefore it was my duty to destroy the Manse.
This thought at length took complete possession of me, and, following
it, I strove in every imaginable way to oust Fraser from the house among
the sycamores. But he would not go. He loved the place, he said. He
stood by his lease and I was powerless.
Oh, God, I have, surely I have, my excuse for what I have done! I meant
to be a saviour, not a destroyer! I would have restored Fraser and my
poor Kate to their freedom of heart. That was what I meant. Ay, but the
grey traveller fought against me. Shut up here by night in my house, on
the verge of--that which I cannot, dare not speak of, I declare that I
am guiltless. Let him bear the burden, him alone! In these last moments,
before my deed is known, I write the truth that men may exonerate me.
This is the truth.
Overwhelmed with this idea that Carlounie must be rescued, that Hugh
Fraser and Kate must be rescued from this damnation that was preying
upon them, I determined, secretly, on the destruction of the Manse, in
which the spectre of the doctor stayed to work such evil. But, to do
this, I must first make sure that Hugh Fraser was at a distance, and
that his small household--he only kept two servants, hired from the
village--were away from the haunted dwelling. I, therefore, suggested to
Fraser that he should come and spend a week with me, and give his maids
a holiday. After a little demur, and drawn, I see now, by his hidden
passion for Kate, he accepted my invitation. He dismissed the maids to
their homes for a week, and moved over to us. When the minister knew of
it, he, no doubt, fully included me in his prayers for the damnation of
those who worked evil among his flock. Will he ever read these pages, I
wonder? Kate was now an avowed atheist, and she and Fraser were
continually together, glorying in their complete freedom from old
prejudices, and their new outlook upon life. They had, I heard them say,
broken through the ties that bound poor, terrified Christians; and, when
they said this, they smiled, the one upon the other. I did not then know
why. Meanwhile, I was preparing for my deed of redemption, as I called
it, and meant it to be. I was resolved to go out by night to the empty
Manse, and secretly to set it in flames. It stood alone. The country
people slept sound at night. I calculated that if I chose midnight for
my act none would see the flames, and, ere the peasants woke at dawn,
the Manse and the spectre within it would be destroyed for ever. Such
was my belief--such the spirit in which I prepared myself for this
strange work.
V