Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/richmansrelative01clel
(University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
A RICH MAN'S RELATIVES
PRESS NOTICES
OF
"INCHBRACKEN,"
A NOVEL BY R. CLELAND
* * *
_Westminster Review, October_, 1883.
"Inchbracken" is a clever sketch of Scottish life and manners at the
time of the "Disruption," or great secession from the Established
Church of Scotland, which resulted in the formation of the Free
Church. The scene of the story is a remote country parish in the north
of Scotland, within a few miles of the highland line. The main
interest centres in the young Free Church minister and his sister and
their relations, on the one hand, with the enthusiastic supporters of
the Disruption movement, mostly of the peasant or small tradesmen
class, with a sprinkling of the smaller landowners; and, on the other
hand, with the zealous supporters of the Established Church,
represented by the Drysdales of Inchbracken, the great family of the
neighbourhood. The story is well and simply told, with many a quiet
touch of humour, founded on no inconsiderable knowledge of human
nature.
_Academy, 27th October_, 1883.
There is a great deal of solid writing in "Inchbracken," and they who
read it will hardly do so in vain. It is a story of the Disruption;
and it sets forth, with much pains and not a little spirit, the
humours and scandals of one of the communities affected by the event.
The main incident of the story has nothing to do with the Disruption,
it is true; but its personages are those of the time, and the uses to
which they are put are such as the Disruption made possible. Roderick
Brown, the enthusiastic young Free Church minister, finds on the
sea-shore after wreck and storm, a poor little human waif which the
sea has spared. He takes the baby home, and does his best for it. One
of his parishioners has lost her character, however; and as Roderick,
at the instigation of his beadle, the real author of her ruin, is good
enough to give her money and help, it soon becomes evident to
Inchbracken that he is the villain, and that the baby of the wreck is
the fruit of an illicit amour. How it ends I shall not say. I shall do
no more than note that the story of the minister's trials and the
portraitures--of elders and gossips, hags and maids and village
notables--with which it is enriched are (especially if you are not
afraid of the broadest Scotch, written with the most uncompromising
regard for the national honour) amusing and natural in no mean degree.
W. E. HENLEY.
_Athenæum, 17th November_, 1883.
"Inchbracken" will be found amusing by those who are familiar with
Scotch country life. The period chosen, the "Disruption time," is an
epoch in the religious and social life of Scotland, marking a revival,
in an extremely modified and not altogether genuine form, of the
polemic Puritanism of the early Presbyterians, and so furnishing a
subject which lends itself better to literary treatment than most
sides of Scottish life in this prosaic century. The author has a good
descriptive gift, and makes the most of the picturesque side of the
early Free Church meetings at which declaimers against Erastian
patronage posed in the attitude of the Covenanters of old. The story
opens on a stormy night when Roderick Brown, the young Free Church
minister of Kilrundle, is summoned on a ten-mile expedition to attend
a dying woman, an expedition which involves him in all the troubles
which form the subject of the book. The patient has nothing on her
mind of an urgent character. "No, mem! na!" says the messenger.
"My granny's a godly auld wife, tho' maybe she's gye fraxious whiles,
an' money's the sair paikin' she's gi'en me; gin there was ocht to
confess she kens the road to the Throne better nor maist. But ye see
there's a maggit gotten intil her heid an' she says she bent to
testifee afore she gangs hence."
The example of Jenny Geddes has been too much for the poor old
woman:--
"Ay, an' I'm thinkin' it's that auld carline, Jenny Geddes, 'at's
raised a' the fash! My granny gaed to hear Mester Dowlas whan he
preached among the whins down by the shore, an' oh, but he was bonny!
An' a graand screed o' doctrine he gae us. For twa hale hours he
preached an expundet an' never drew breath for a' the wind was
skirlin', an' the renn whiles skelpin' like wild. An' I'm thinkin' my
granny's gotten her death o' ta'. But oh! an' he was grand on Jenny
Geddes! an' hoo she up wi' the creepie am' heved it a the Erastian's
heid. An' my granny was just fairly ta'en wi't a', an' she vooed she
beut to be a mither in Israel tae, an' whan she gaed hame she out wi'
the auld hugger 'at she keeps the bawbees in, aneath the hearthstane,
for to buy a creepie o' her ain,--she thocht a new ane wad be best for
the Lord's wark,--an' she coupet the chair whaur hung her grave
claes,' at she airs fonent the fire ilika Saturday at e'en, 'an out
there cam a lowe, an' scorched a hole i' the windin' sheet, an' noo,
puir body, we'll hae to hap her in her muckle tartan plaid. An'
aiblins she'll be a' the warmer e'y moulds for that. But, however, she
says the sheet was weel waur'd, for the guid cause. An' syne she took
til her bed, wi' a sair host, an' sma' winder, for there was a weet
daub whaur she had been sittin' amang the whins. An' noo the host's
settled on her that sair, she whiles canna draw her breath. Sae she
says she maun let the creepie birlin' slide, but she beut to testifee
afore some godly minister or she gangs hence. An' I'm fear'd, sir, ye
maun hurry, for she's real far through."
The excuse for this long extract must be its excellence as a specimen
of a long-winded statement, just such as a Scotch fisher boy would
make when once the ice was broken. Not less idiomatic is the interview
between Mrs. Boague, the shepherd's wife, and Mrs. Sangster "of
Auchlippie," the great lady of the congregation, when the latter has
had her painful experience of mountain climbing, till rescued by the
"lug and the horn" at the hands of her spiritual pastor. Other good
scenes are the meeting of the two old wives in mutches an the brae
side, and the final discomfiture of the hypocritical scamp Joseph
Smiley by his mother-in-law, Tibbie Tirpie, who rights her daughter's
wrongs and the minister's reputation by a capital _coup de main_. Of
more serious interest, though full of humour, are the trials the
excellent Roderick endures at the hands of his kirk session. Ebenezer
Prittie and Peter Malloch are types of many an elder minister and
ministers' wives have had to groan under, and the race is not extinct.
But all who are interested in such specimens of human nature should
refer to Mr. Cleland, who knows his countrymen as well as he can
describe his country.
* * * * *
Select Novels by Popular Authors.
_Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. each_.
By Florence Marryat.
MY SISTER THE ACTRESS.
A BROKEN BLOSSOM.
PHYLLIDA.
THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL.
FACING THE FOOTLIGHTS.
By Annie Thomas.
ALLERTON TOWERS.
FRIENDS AND LOVERS.
EYRE OF BLENDON.
By Mrs. Eiloart.
THE DEAN'S WIFE.
SOME OF OUR GIRLS.
By Lady Constance Howard.
SWEETHEART AND WIFE.
MOLLIE DARLING.
By the Author of "Recommended to Mercy."
BARBARA'S WARNING.
By Mrs. Alexander Fraser.
A PROFESSIONAL BEAUTY.
By Harriett Jay.
TWO MEN AND A MAID.
A
RICH MAN'S RELATIVES.
BY
R. CLELAND,
AUTHOR OF "INCHBRACKEN."
_IN THREE VOLUMES_.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
F. V. WHITE AND CO.,
31, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1885.
PRINTED BY
KELLY AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS;
AND MIDDLE MILL KINGSTON-ON-THAMES.
CONTENTS
* * *
CHAP.
I.--How his Relations vexed the Rich Man.
II.--Steadfast Mary.
III.--Little Arcadia.
IV.--"Ouff."
V.--Fidèle.
VI.--The Misses Stanley.
VII.--The Desolate Mother.
VIII.--Ralph.
IX.--At St. Euphrase.
X.--Ten Years Later.
XI.--Mahomet and Kadijah.
XII.--A Garden Tea.
XIII.--On Account of Strawberries.
A RICH MAN'S RELATIVES.
CHAPTER I.
HOW HIS RELATIONS VEXED THE RICH MAN.
One evening early in July, 1858, there might have been seen through
the railings of a villa in a suburban street of Montreal, if only the
thick shrubbery leaves would have permitted the view, a lady--Miss
Judith Herkimer, to wit--seated in a quiet corner of the verandah, and
partially concealed by the clusters of a wisteria trained to the
pillar against which she leaned. Miss Judith had entered on that
uninteresting middle time of life, when, though youth with its graces
is undeniably of the past, the grey hairs which may perchance intrude
among the brown, are not yet a crown of honour; the bloom and the
promise of life are over, but the pathetic dignity of retrospect, with
its suggestions of what has or what might have been, which make age
beautiful, are not yet arrived. It was the sear and dusty afternoon
stage of her pilgrimage and her spinsterhood, and there was a shade of
severity in her aspect, as though living had grown into something to
be struggled with and endured--the season for duty to a serious mind,
seeing that the time for enjoyment is manifestly gone by.
The flatness with which her hair was laid upon her temples, and then
drawn back tightly without wave or pad to the apex of her head, and
secured in the form of an onion, left no doubt as to the seriousness
of Miss Judith's mind, while the severe ungracefulness of her dress
argued an ascetic tendency of that aggressive kind which says,
"Brother, I would fast, therefore you shall go without your dinner"--a
person tiresome rather than bad, but with the long chin of that
obstinacy which can be so provoking when the understanding and
imagination are too narrow to perceive the true relation of things.
On the lawn before her stood a mulatto lad of about eighteen, dressed
in the white linen suit of a house servant, and with a long apron
suspended from his neck, as though he had been called from his
glass-washing in the pantry.
"You say, Miss Judith," he was saying, while he pulled the apron
through his fingers with a puzzled look, "dat I b'long to myself and
not to de cu'nel as owns me? Den w'y dis house as you owns not b'long
to me too?"
"Because property in our fellow-men is not recognized in this free
country, Cato. But you cannot be expected to understand these
intricate questions all at once. Patience and humility, Cato! Now for
your reading. Have you got your book? Ah! yes. Here is the place. What
does r a t read?"
"Cat! Miss Judy."
"Fie! Cato. _C a t_ is cat. That is _rat!_ Begins with an R. You see?"
"'Cep' de cat hab done gone eaten de rat. Den whaar will he be, Miss
Judy? All cat after dat! I reckon."
"Cato, you are foolish! Now, attend!"
"Cato," said another voice from the background, "go to your pantry and
assist Bridget with her tea-things," and Miss Herkimer stepped out on
the verandah from a window not far off. Miss Herkimer was a good many
years older than her sister, but she admitted the fact that she was
elderly, and did not seem to find it interfere with her comfort. Her
hair was white, and hung in curls over her temples, and the folds of
her black silk gown had a free and contented swing which refreshed the
eye after the pinched exactness of Miss Judith's costume.
"Gerald and his friend have moved into the smoking-room with their
cigars, and as the windows are open I was afraid your instructions
might be overheard; and then, Judith, there would be a commotion which
you would regret."
"We must think what is right, Susan, do it, and never mind the
consequences."
"It cannot be right to interfere between our brother Gerald and his
servant. If the customs in his country are different from ours, that
cannot be helped. He follows his own, and while he is our guest, it is
not for us to disturb."
"Think of the iniquity of slavery, Susan--that that young man should
be held in bondage, in this free Canada! It seems awful. Look at him,
and deny if you can that he is a man and a brother!"
"I have no objection whatever to admit his being a man and brother,
but I certainly should not like to have to call him _nephew!_ And that
is what it may come to if you provoke Gerald. You know how violent he
can be when he is roused, and if he thought we were tampering with his
negro, or attempting an abolitionist scheme, he is capable even
of--_adopting_ him, we will call it--and leaving him his whole
fortune."
"Do you think so? That would be most unprincipled conduct on his
part."
"I know he is quite capable of it; and besides, Judith, I think you
are unnecessarily scrupulous about that ugly word 'slavery.' It really
seems not so bad a thing after all, come to see it in action. Gerald,
now, is extremely kind to the boy--spoils him, indeed, with
indulgence, and makes him do very little work. How much better he is
off than Stephen's foot-boy, with a pony to mind and the garden to
weed when he is not splitting wood or acting butler in the house. It
is Stephen's boy who is the slave, to my thinking. Again, I heard
Gerald say he refused two thousand dollars for him from a barber in
New Orleans. He is quite a valuable boy, and you would tempt him to
leave his master!"
"Two thousand dollars for a black boy? Why! Stephen's white boy gets
only ten dollars a month and some clothes. Does it not seem
extravagant, now, to have so much money tied up in one negro?--and
sinful? How much good might be done with that money if the boy were
realized! One like Stephen's at ten dollars a month could do his
work--it seems to be only shaving his master, and after that to do
what he is bid--and the rest of the money might do such very great
good. Five hundred dollars might be given to African missions to
enlighten his pagan fellow-countrymen, and would carry the truth to so
many!--and still there would be money over to do much good."
"And how do you propose to realize a negro boy, sister, except by
selling him to another slave owner? And what about the man and
brother?"
"True, Susan! Quite true. I admit the force of your objection.
It is another illustration of the mystery our good rector dwelt
upon so touchingly last Sunday, that good and evil walk the earth
hand-in-hand. A solemn thought! But in this case it really seems to me
that the boy's bondage would be well compensated. He is a slave
already, you must remember--has no idea what liberty means--and five
hundred dollars would bring so many darkened savages within the
influence of gospel light. If the poor ignorant creature knew enough
to understand, I am sure he would rejoice to think that so slight a
change in his own circumstances would bring so vast a benefit to his
benighted brethren."
"And you'd still be fifteen hundred dollars to the good, Judith. Quite
an _operation_ in another man's niggers! Ha, ha! Godliness is
profitable! That's sound evangelical doctrine! Ha, ha, ha!"
These words rang forth in a discordant voice from a neighbouring
window, the Venetians of which were now pushed open.
The ladies gasped and turned round in dismay. As they had grown
earnest in their conversation their voices had been rising to the
pitch at which they could not but be heard without eaves-dropping, and
they had been overheard.
Within the window, which was open, stood the "Gerald" of whom they had
been discoursing--a tall square-framed man, but sadly wasted and
collapsed under prolonged attacks of malarial fever. He was between
fifty and sixty years of age, with features which had once been stern
and resolute, but now, under the stress of continued ill-health, had
grown querulous and peevish in their expression. He had gone to
Louisiana some thirty years before to push his fortune. From
French-speaking Lower Canada to French-understanding Louisiana seemed
less of an expatriation than to English New York or California, and
such Frenchness as he was able to bring--he was English-born after
all, and only Canadian by education--had prepossessed the Louisianians
in his favour. He had pushed his fortune--married the heiress of a
valuable plantation near Natchez, where he had resided ever since--and
amassed wealth. He had lost, however, his wife, his child, and
latterly his good-health; and at last had been compelled to return to
his friends in the North to give his shattered constitution a last
chance to shake off the creeping agues which were dragging him to the
grave. He had been a year already under his sisters' roof, greatly to
his own worriment; for between his fever fits and the prostration
which followed them, there would intervene hours of restless
irritability, when it seemed to him that his affairs were entangling
themselves into a knot of hopeless confusion, deprived as they were of
the master's eye which alone sees clearly.
"What do you think of that, major?" Gerald continued, turning to his
companion who was gnawing the end of a very large cigar--a tall sallow
man with a much waxed and pointed black moustache and goatee, and an
exuberant display of jewellery in his shirt front. "Who in Natchez
would expect to find me summering in a nest of blazing abolitionists?
Better say nothing when you get home, or I may have to settle with the
vigilance committee when I go back."
"I did not expect it, colonel," said the major, pulling down his
waistcoat and looking dignified. "Among fanatical Yankees I reckon on
hearing the institootions of my country vilified, and so I give sech
cattle a wide berth; but here, on British terri-tory, I expected some
liberality. Bless my soul! trying to corrupt your servant under your
very nose!"
The ladies had withdrawn in confusion under their brother's first
attack, or civility to his hostesses must have kept the major silent.
At the same time he felt outraged. To think that he, one of the most
"high-toned" men of his neighbourhood, and with the very soundest
Southern principles, should have been trapped into a den of
lowlived--it was always "lowlived"--abolitionism! His friend Herkimer
too, had always passed for a "high-toned gentleman" of sound
principles when in Natchez, and to find him the member of such a
family was inexpressibly shocking.
"Yes," said Herkimer, "it is bad--shows what fools women can be when
they don't know, and swallow all the rant that gets into print. After
that they think they know so much that they won't believe a word those
who could tell them can say. If my boy, Cato, now, had not been an
extra good nigger, these sisters of mine would have made him leave me
long ago. When his mother, Amanda, died, I promised her I would always
keep him about myself--and he does, I will say, understand my little
ways--or I never would have ventured to bring him to Canada; but the
fact is, the boy's fond of me, and won't leave me, say what they like.
Still it provokes a man to see his property being tampered with. Then,
too, my sister Judith feels it her dooty, she says, to speak to me
about the sinfulness of having property in human beings. I ask her to
prove that they _are_ human, but she just rolls her eyes and looks
solemn. She calls her talk 'a word in season,' but she chooses the
most unseasonable times to hold forth; generally when my chill is
coming on, and the long yawn creeping up my back that we all know,
when I don't feel man enough to say 'bo' to a goose. My wig! If I
could I'd say more than 'bo' to Judith. She holds on steady till I
begin to grow blue and my teeth chatter, then I pull the bell for Cato
to bring more blankets, and he--good lad--always sends her away, first
tiling. Susan bothers too--money, generally--but I'm free to allow she
has more gumption than Judith. Old maids both. That's a sort of
critter we don't have down Natchez way. There they marry. Reckon you
never saw any before, major? Pecoolier, ain't they?"
"The ladies are your sisters, colonel. Estimable, I doubt not; but
they do not understand our Southern institootions."
"Talking of understanding, major, do you see much of my nephew, Ralph?
When he went down to the plantation I gave him a letter to you, as
being my nearest neighbour, and a good friend. I told him he might
place implicit reliance on your opinion in any case of doubt which
might arise. The overseers are men whom I could trust to make a crop
if I was on the spot myself; but of course the young man had to learn,
and circumstances were sure to arise in which your advice would be
most val'able. Do you see him often?"
Major Considine--I omitted to mention his name earlier, and I may now
add by way of making amends for the neglect, that the "_major_" was a
prefix of courtesy conferred by his neighbours to describe his social
status and the extent of his possessions; Herkimer's colonelcy was of
the same kind, but the higher rank implied a larger holding in land
and negroes--Major Considine coughed dryly, drew himself up, and
looked sallower if possible than his wont, while his eyes sought the
ground.
"I have seen your nephew, sir," he said, "frequently. When he came
down first I invited him to come and see me, and treated him in all
respects as I would any other gentleman, your friend; but I am bound
to own that lately we have not met;" and he gave the waxed points of
his moustache a further twirl with something of an aggrieved air, as
if to intimate that while he had done _his_ part unimpeachably, he had
reason to complain of the way in which his advances had been met.
Herkimer frowned and threw away his cigar. "Fact is, major," he said,
"I have a letter from Taine. Taine has been my overseer for a good
many years, as you know, and I have found him a good man. He talks of
leaving my employment at the end of the year, and asks me to send him
a letter stating my satisfaction with him during the years he has been
overseeing for me. I can well do that, but I'd hate to lose him. Good
overseers are scarce. He complains that Ralph has discharged one of
the assistant overseers against his wish, that he interferes with the
field work, and has damaged ten of the hands to the extent of two or
three hundred dollars apiece, and the crop prospect is reduced by
forty or fifty bales. He says that his character for getting more
bales to the hand than any other overseer in the section is at stake,
and he has concluded, if I feel unable to return to the plantation,
that he will leave. What do you think of it?"
"Not at all surprised, sir; Taine is not to be blamed. Mr. Ralph
Herkimer came to me shortly after he had discharged that assistant you
mention, to ask my advice. It seems they had met accidentally
immediately after the discharge, in some saloon, and Mister Ralph
Herkimer being ignorant, it appears, that in our glorious land of
freedom all white men are equal, had put on some of his plantation
airs. He has those plantation airs mighty strong, having, as you say
yourself, knocked three or four thousand dollars off the value of your
field gangs, by nothing but whipping--clear unmerciful whipping, they
do say around Natchez. Waal, his tale was a good deal mixed, and I
don't pretend to know the rights, but it seems the discharged overseer
asked him to drink, to show he bore no spite. Mr. Ralph Herkimer
refused, said something about white trash, and flung the liquor in his
face. The overseer drew his pistol, and would have fired, but the
folks in the bar-room interfered to protect an unarmed man, and so Mr.
Ralph Herkimer rode safe home, and shortly after arriving there
received a hostile message. He rode over to see me with the letter in
his hand, and that is how I come to know the circumstance, colonel.
And let me add, sir, that though I fear no man living, I would not
have pained your feelin's by alluding to it, if you had not made it
necessary yourself, by bringing up the subject. The young man showed
me his letter of defiance, and I spoke to him, as an older man and a
gentleman, I hope, colonel, should speak to your nephew on such an
occasion. He said he was indignant at being addressed in that style by
a common fellow, and that where there was no equality there could be
no claim to satisfaction. I pointed out to him that under the
constitootion of our State all white men are equal, and that we, the
first families, were always scrupulously courteous to our poorer
neighbours, that being the only way to hold the community together. We
want their help often, I told him, as at election times, in case of
jury trials, when their goodwill goes farther to gain a verdict than
all the blathering of the lawyers; and in case of serious trouble with
the hands we can always depend on a white man, and it is well worth
our while to accord him such equality as he can understand. Our first
families, I told him, yield all that cheerfully, and find they can
still be exclusive enough. As he had gone so far, I assured him he
must fight, which after all would be a high compliment to the poor
devil, and would make him--your nephew--popular with the meaner sort,
which he would find profitable at an election, if by-and-by he were to
naturalize and go into politics. I offered to undertake the management
of the whole affair, and you are aware, colonel, I have some
experience. I even showed him my French case of spring triggers, and
my new patent Colt's revolvers, in case he had any preference as to
arms, the choice resting with him; and--would you believe it,
sir?--but really, really I dare not call up the blush of shame
on your honourable features. The--this young man--declined my offer
with thanks! He said it did not become him as a gentleman to go
cut-throating with common fellows. I suggested that it was often
nothing but a reverse of fortune which turned a gentleman into an
assistant overseer. Then he said that bloodshed on account of a
trifling misunderstanding was against his principles, when I replied
that he must have mistaken Mississippi for Pennsylvania, and warned
him that if he did not fight when it was put upon him, he would be
insulted every time he appeared outside his own plantation. Then he
asked me to use my good offices to accommodate things, but I explained
to him that I could only meet the class to which his adversary
belonged, either to fight them or to order them what they should do.
After that Mr. Ralph Herkimer grew sulky--I thought at one time he was
going to be offensive--but the pistol cases stood open on the table,
and the gentleman don't like firearms I think; anyhow, he simmered
down. I believe he ended by apologizing to the assistant overseer for
not drinking his liquor; but I do know, I have never spoken to Mr.
Ralph Herkimer since."
"I don't blame you, major," said Herkimer. "The young man is not what
my father's grandson ought to be. He won't do for Mississippi, that's
clear; and I ain't going to let Taine leave me on account of him. I
was wise to let him go down for the first year alone, leaving his wife
and child here till he knew how he liked it. He had better come home
again, for _I_ don't like it, whether he does or no. I had meant him
to succeed me down there, major; but the man who first pays off
overseers and then apologizes to them cannot do that. He is my only
brother Stephen's only son. It is disappointing. My two sisters, whom
you have seen, would not do for planteresses in Mississippi; but I
have another sister yet--young, major, and handsome--my half-sister;
just about the age of Ralph. She might be made my heiress, and if she
marries as I would wish, she shall! I need not conceal the truth from
myself, major. The doctors have as good as told me I shall never
return to Mississippi. You have not seen her yet, Considine, this
sister of mine, Mary. She is just about the age of Jeanne de Beaulieu
when I married her--poor Jeanne!--not unlike her, and quite as
handsome. Strange, would it not be, if Beaulieu went with an heiress
again? Here comes Cato to call us into the drawing-room for tea. We'll
go, Considine, if you have finished your cigar; and--who knows?--we
may see Mary."