Another day, as bright, as weary, and as long, and still there were no
tidings of Christian. Anne became alarmed. She sent out Jacky to make
inquiries; Jacky ascertained that Miss Lillie on the previous morning
had gone by the earliest coach to Edinburgh. The intelligence was some
relief, yet perplexed Anne painfully; the arrangements were going on,
but what could she do, if Christian remained absent, thus left alone
with the dead?
In the middle of the day, Miss Crankie brought her a letter from Mrs.
Catherine. Anne's conscience smote her; during Patrick's illness, she
had scarcely written to Mrs. Catherine at all; and her brief notes had
only intimated his illness, and her hope of obtaining some further
information through the Lillies. Mrs. Catherine's letter had an
enclosure.
"My Gowan,
"What has come over you? I have been marvelling these past mornings
whether it was success or failure--a light heart or a downcast one,
that made you forgetful of folk to whom all your doings are matters
of interest, and have been since you could use your own proper
tongue to testify of them. Think you this lad Lillie has any
further knowledge than you have yourself? I count it unlikely, or
else he is a pithless laggard, not worthy to call Norman Rutherford
friend, and Norman was not one to choose his friends lightly, or be
joined in near amity with a shallow head and a faint heart. So I
would have you build little on the hope of getting good tidings
from him, seeing that if he had known anything, he must have put it
to its fitting use before now. You say it gave him a fever? I like
not folk, child, who are thrown into fevers by sore trouble and
anguish, and make themselves a burden and a cumbrance, when they
ought to be quickened to keener life--the more helpful and strong,
the greater the extremity; it augurs a narrow vessel and a frail
spirit in most cases--it may be other in his. Certain he bore
himself like a man in the night you tell me of. Let me see his
sister, if you can bring her; there, seems--if ye draw like the
life--to be no soil in her for the cowardice of sickness to
flourish on, from which I take my certainty, that if she had kent
any good word concerning this dark mystery, she must have put it to
the proof before now.
"To speak about other matters, I send you a letter--worthy the
light-headed, undutiful fuil from whose vain hand it comes. You
will see she will have none of my counsel, and puts my offer of an
honorable roof over her, and a home dependent on no caprice or
strange woman's pleasure, in the light of a good meaning--will to
do kindness without power. If it were not for Archie's sake, and
for the good-fame of their broken house, she should never more say
light word to me. He has been but a month dead, this miserable man
of hers--that she left her mother's sick-bed for--and look at her
words! without so much as a decent shadow on them, to tell where
the sore gloom of death had fallen so late. I am growing testy in
my spirit, child; though truly sorrow would set me better than
anger, to look upon the like of a born fuil like this--her brother
ruined, and her man killed. Archie, a laboring wayfarer, with his
good name tarnished, and his father's inheritance, lost; the
husband for whose sake she brought down her mother's gray hairs
with sorrow to the grave, taken away suddenly from this world by
the red grip of a violent death, and the wanton fuil what can I
call her else?--as if she had not gotten enough to sober her for a
while, returning in haste to her vanities--feared to leave the
atmosphere of them--singing songs over the man's new grave, and
giving long nights to strangers, when she can but spare a brief
minute to say a kind word to her one brother--a kind word, said I!
I should say a bitter one, of folly and selfishness,--not comfort
to him in his labor, but records of her own sinful vanities.
"You will say I am bitter, child, at this fuil--so I am--the more
that I cannot be done with her, as I could with any other of her
kind. She is still the bairn of Isabel Balfour--in good or in evil
I am trysted to keep my eye upon her. I have been asking about the
household she is in. The mistress of it, her friend, is at least of
pure name; a scheming woman as I hear from one of their own vain
kind--who has a pride in yoking the fuils about her in the unstable
bands of marriage. Isabel has her mother's fair face; they will be
wedding her again for some passing fancy, or for dirt of siller. I
scarce know which is the worst. I will have no hand in it, however
it happens. Since she will be left to herself, she must. If deadly
peril ever comes, I must put forth the strong hand.
"You will come to me with all speed when you can win. If you have
any glimpse of good tidings, or if you have none--I am meaning when
you come to any certainty--let me know without delay, that I may
make ready for our home-going. To say the truth, I am weary at my
heart of this place, and sickened with anger at the fuil whose
letter I send you. Let me look upon you soon, lest the wrath settle
down, and I be not able to shake it off again; which evil
consequent, if you prevent it not, will be the worse for you all.
CATHERINE DOUGLAS."
Mrs. Duncombe's letter was enclosed.
"My dear Mrs. Catherine,
"It is so good of you to think of troubling yourself with me at the
Tower, and must have put you so much out of the way, coming to
Edinburgh, that I hasten to thank you. Poor dear Duncombe was taken
away very suddenly; you would be quite shocked to hear of it. I was
distracted. They had been quarrelling over their wine. Poor
Duncombe was always so very jealous; and it was all for the merest
word of admiration, which he might have heard from a thousand
people beside. So they fought, and he was wounded mortally. You may
think how dreadful it was, when they brought him home to me dying.
I went into hysterics directly, I believe I needed the doctor's
care more than he did: before he died I was just able to speak to
him, and he was so very penitent for having been sometimes rude to
me, and so sorry for his foolish jealousy. Poor dear Edward!--I
shall never forget him.
"I am staying here with a dear friend of mine, Mrs. Legeretie. She
has got a delightful house, quite out of town, and they have come
here just for my sake, to be quiet and away from the gay world,
which of course I could not bear just now. We have quite a nice
circle of friends, besides our visitors from London, and just with
quiet parties, and country amusements, get on delightfully. Dear
Eliza is so kind, and gives up her engagements in town, without a
murmur, just to let me have the soothing quietness of the country,
which the doctors order me--with cheerful society--for if it were
not for that, my poor heart would break, I am sure--I have suffered
so dreadfully.
"You will have heard that dear Archibald has arrived safely at that
horrid place in America. What could induce him to do such a thing,
when he might have gone into the army, or got into Parliament, or
something? and the friends of the family would have helped him, I
am sure. It's just like Archie; he's always so hot and extreme. I
thought he would have killed himself that dreadful time at Paris,
before he took the fever; and what a shocking thing that would have
been for me, with all my other misfortunes. To be sure, it was a
horrid, foolish business--that of losing the estate--and if it had
not been that dull old Strathoran, where papa and mamma managed to
vegetate all the year through, I don't know how--I should have been
broken-hearted. I am sure, considering that dear Archie was only my
brother, there was nothing I was not willing to do for him; but to
go away a common clerk, into a horrid mercantile office! I must say
he has shown very little regard for the feelings of his relatives,
especially as he knows how I detest these ogres of commercial
people. One can only bear with them if they are very rich, and I am
afraid dear Archie is not likely ever to become a moneyed man.
"They are so fond of me here, and dear Eliza has done so much to
make me comfortable, that I should be very ungrateful to run away,
else I should have been delighted to spend a week or two at the
Tower. Mr. Legeretie has a shooting-lodge in the Highlands, and
dear Eliza talks of going down with him this year to give me a
little change; if we do, we shall come by dear old dreary
Strathoran just to look at it again. I hope the Rosses, and all the
other old friends, are well. I used to think a good deal of Lewis.
I suppose Anne is never married yet; she must be getting quite
ancient now.
"My dear Mrs. Catherine,
"Very sincerely yours,
"ISABEL DUNCOMBE."
It was a strange contrast--with Christian Lillie's desolate life before
her--with her own heart throbbing so anxiously for the stranger, Norman,
whom, in her remembrance, she had never seen--to hear this Isabel, her
play-mate long ago, talking of Archie as "_only_" her brother. The
effect was very singular. What had become of the sad sufferer who lay
within these walls in the tranquil rest of death, if for Christian, and
Marion, and Norman there had been any "only" stemming the deep tide of
their self-denying tenderness?
Anne wrote a brief note to Mrs. Catherine, announcing Patrick Lillie's
death, and saying that her mission was now accomplished; and that in a
day or two she would return to Edinburgh to explain the further
particulars of this long mystery. The day was waning again; in weary
sadness and solitude she sat in Patrick Lillie's study. From the kitchen
she could hear the subdued voices of Marget and Jacky: above, the
stealthy step of Miss Crankie, as she arranged the sad preliminaries of
the funeral. The second evening had fallen since he departed to his
rest; and where was Christian?
A dark shadow flitted across the window. She heard a footstep enter, and
pass quickly up the stair. Anne rose and followed. The footstep was
quicker than Christian's, but it went steadily to the chamber of death.
Anne paused at the door. The lonely dimness of the evening air gathered
shadowy and spiritual round the bed, a dark background, from which that
rigid marble face stood out in cold relief. A deadly stillness--a dim,
brooding, tremulous awe--which carried in it a vague conviction of
watching spirits, and presences mysteriously unseen, was hovering in the
room.
And kneeling at the bedside, her veil hanging round her white, thin
face, like a cloud over the tearful pallor of a wan November sky, was
Christian Lillie, the quivering smile upon her lip again, and the words
of sad thankfulness falling from her tongue.
"Ye are thanking God in His own heaven, Patrick, my brother; the justice
is done, the cloud is taken away. Henceforward, in the free light of
heaven, may Norman bear his own name; and now there remaineth nothing
but to lay you, with hope and solemn thanksgiving into your quiet
grave."
Anne stood still; there was a long pause. Christian knelt silently by
her dead brother's side, in darkness, in silence, in the presence of
death, thanking God.
At last she rose, and turned to leave the room. Anne's presence did not
seem to excite any wonder; she took her offered arm quietly and kindly.
"I have been very anxious," said Anne.
"Ay," said Christian; "did you think I could rest, and that blight
remaining on their name? Did you think there was any peace for me till
all my labor was accomplished? Now--you heard me speak--Norman
Rutherford may bear his own name, and return to his own country with
honor and blessing upon him, in the open sunshine of day. My work is
ended: I must but tarry for one look upon them, and then I wait the
Lord's pleasure. His call will not come too soon."
"You have taken no rest," said Anne, anxiously: "remember, there is one
trial yet remaining. Let me get you some refreshment, and then try to
sleep. This constant watching will kill you."
Christian suffered herself to be led down stairs. Into the little parlor
Anne hastily brought tea, and, considerably to Jacky's horror, insisted
upon rendering all needful services herself. It was evident that
Christian felt the delicacy which kept strange eyes from beholding her
grief. She took the tea eagerly, removed her cloak and bonnet, and met
Anne's anxious look with a tremulous, tender smile, inviting, rather
than deprecating, conversation now.
"Let me go with you to your own room," said Anne; "you have been in
Edinburgh, and are quite exhausted, I see. You will be better after you
have slept."
"Sit down, I need no sleep," said Christian: "I scarcely think now, after
my long watching, that I can begin to think of rest.--Sometimes--sometimes--"
She rose and stretched out her thin arms, like one who complains of some
painful void within, drawing them in again wearily to her breast.
"Sometimes, when I do not think of _them_, and mind that he is gone, I
could be content to bear it all again, were he but back once more. God
aid us, for we are weak. Patrick, my brother, are ye away at last? are
ye at peace? And I am ready to lament and pine, and not to thank God!
God be thanked! God be thanked! that he is away in blessedness at last."
She paced the room slowly for a while, and sitting down by the window,
drew the curtains aside, and looked out in silence upon the sea--the
placid, wakeful sea--with which so often in her misery she had taken
counsel.
"The morning after he went home," she said at last, turning to Anne
abruptly, "I saw you looking out upon the Firth, when I departed on my
needful errand. You mind the soft fall of the air, like the breath of a
young angel--a spirit in its first joy--the latest born of heaven? You
mind the joy and gentleness that were in the air?"
"Yes," said Anne.
"On such a morning--as soft, as joyous, and as bright--he came to me,
who is now in heaven at peace. There was no peace about him then. Within
his soul, and in his face, was an agony more bitter than death. You know
the reason. He had done the deed, for which, through eighteen lingering,
terrible years, Norman Rutherford has been a banished man.
"I took him in, and closed the door: he fell down upon the ground, at my
feet. From the terrible words of his first madness, I gleaned something
of the truth. Think of it--think of that.--The horror of great darkness
that fell on me that day has scarce ever been lightened for an hour,
from that time to this.
"I sent for him, for Norman, your brother, and mine. He came to me, into
the room where Patrick lay, in a burning fever of agony and madness. By
that time a breath of the terrible story was abroad. It was his gun it
was done with. He had parted from Arthur Aytoun in just anger. There
were but two ways--either to give up the frantic, fevered lad that lay
there before us, knowing neither him nor me, to a death of shame and
horror, or for him--him, in his honorable, upright, pure youth--to
sacrifice honor, and home, and name.
"He did not hesitate--the Lord bless him!--the Lord send the blessings
of the convenant upon him, promised and purchased!--he made up his mind.
And to us, as we stood there in our first agony, with Patrick stricken
down before us, there was no consolation of innocence. We knew not but
what the blood had been wilfully shed: we thought the torture he was in
was the just meed of a murderer.
"I gave him a line to Marion: she was at a friend's house, between
Edinburgh and Glasgow. She had gone, a joyous light-hearted girl, with
as fair a lot before her as ever lay at mortal feet, to get apparel for
her bridal. I bade her go with Norman. When I wrote that, I was calmer
than I am now. I, that was parting with them both--that was left here
alone with this stricken man and his blood-guiltiness.
"They went away, and he was still lying unconscious on my hands. Then I
had to hear the unjust stain thrown upon the noble and brave heart that
was bearing the burden. I had to hear it all--to listen to the
certainties of his guilt--to hear them tell how he had done it like a
coward; and with my heart burning within me, I dared not say to them
that he was pure and guiltless as ever was righteous man. I turned from
the scorching summer light, and the false accusation, in to the bedside
of my raving, maddened brother, and he was the man. Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!
how did I live?
"Then there came the word that they were lost; and a calm, like what you
will see in storms, came over the miserable heart within me. I defied my
misery: I dared it to add to me another pang.
"Then I said that Marion was dead--my bird--my light--my little sister!
When I said that, I knew not it was false; I believed she was gone out
of her new grief; I believed I was alone in the world.
"Then the secret news came to me that they were safe, and then the life
struggled through that time of horror, and Patrick rose from his bed.
One solemn still night I told him all, and in his agony he said he was
innocent. Since that time through all this life of desolation, he has
repeated that at times, when his mind was clear; but his soul was frozen
within him in terror. When I spoke of justice to Norman, he shrank and
trembled, and bade me wait. What could I do? I could not give him up as
a shedder of blood--he was in my hand. To my own heart, and to my Father
in heaven, I had to answer for him; and when I dared hope that he had
shed this blood unawares, I became strong."
She paused. She had been speaking rapidly, without stop or hesitation,
almost without breath. Anne endeavored to soothe and calm her.
"Last year, they sent me their child. He had called her Lilie. He
himself, whom our unhappy name had blighted. The child was pining under
the hot sun of yon strange land. I could not keep her in our desolate
house. I took her to Norman's country. I was to place her with his
nurse, near to his old home. When we got there, I feared to enter; I
trembled to betray the secret I was burdened with. I thought a heart
that he was dear to, could not fail to discover his bairn, and so I took
her to a stranger.
"When I left her there--you mind?--I met you, and we looked upon each
other face to face: I did not need to hear the name that the blue-eyed
girl by your side was saying. I knew you were Norman's sister--I felt
that his spirit was within you, and that we would meet again.
"Now we have met, and you know it all. The history is public now. The
ban is off Norman's name--your brother and mine. I will see them
again--my bird Marion--my bairn, that my own hands nurtured!"
"Christian," said Anne, "for her sake, and for us all, you must rest.
There are quiet days in store--tranquil days of household peace and
honor. You have done your work nobly and bravely, as few could have
done; for Marion's sake, who is my sister as well as yours, and for the
sake of the dead, for whom you have watched so long, take rest now. Your
work is over."
Christian drew the curtain aside again, and gazed out upon the sea. "For
him--for Marion--for Norman; for Thy mercy's sake, O, Lord! and for Thy
beautiful world, which Thou hast given to calm us, I will be calm--give
me now what Thou willest, and Thy rest in Thine own heaven, when Thy
good time shall come."
And so peacefully, in chastened hope and with gentle tears, refreshing
with their milder sorrow the weary eyes that had burned in tearless
agony so long, they laid the innocent shedder of blood in his quiet
grave.
On the evening after the funeral, Christian wandered out alone. "She
goeth unto the grave to weep there," said Anne, as it was said of the
Mary of the Lord's time; and she made no attempt either to detain or to
accompany her. To Christian, the balm of Anne's sisterly care and
sympathy was evidently very dear; but she was not wont to lean upon any
mortal arm, and it was best that she should be left with her sorrow
alone.
The house had the exhausted, worn-out look which is common after such a
solemn departure. Marget sat, dressed in her new mourning, in the
kitchen, in languid despondent state, telling Jacky traits of the dead
Master, whom, now that all excitement was over, she began to miss and
lament, and weep some natural tears for. Jacky was half-listening to
these, half-buried in an old volume of "Quarles' Emblems," which she had
recently brought from the study. Anne had opened the low projecting
window, and sat in the recess with one of those devout contemplative
books in her hand; she was reading little, and thinking much--feeling
herself affected by the listless weariness that reigned around her.
She saw a lad come in at the gate, without observing who he was. In a
minute after Jacky entered the study.
"If ye please, Miss Anne, it's Johnnie Halflin."
Anne started.
"Has he come from Mrs. Catherine?"
"If ye please, Miss Anne, Mrs. Catherine's at Miss Crankie's."
Anne rose immediately, and proceeded up the lane to Miss Crankie's
house. Mrs. Catherine's carriage stood at the door. Mrs. Catherine
herself was in the parlor, where Miss Crankie stood in deferential
conversation with her--keenly observant of all the particulars of her
plain, rich dress and stately appearance, and silently exulting over the
carriage at the door--the well-appointed, wealthy carriage, which all
the neighborhood could see.
"Anne!" exclaimed Mrs. Catherine, as Anne in her deep mourning dress
entered the room. "What is the matter?"
Miss Crankie sensibly withdrew.
"He is dead, Mrs. Catherine," said Anne.
"Who is dead? Who is this lad?"
"The brother of Marion--the brother of Norman's wife."
"Anne," said Mrs. Catherine, "you have not dealt ingenuously and frankly
with me in this matter. Who is this lad, I ask you? Have you a certainty
that Norman's wife was his sister, that you are thus mourning for a
fremd man?"
Anne sat down beside her.
"What I knew formerly was so dim and indistinct that I feared to tell
you. They avoided me--they went away from their own home to shun my
presence. In the confusion of my imperfect knowledge, I felt that I
could not speak of them. Now I am sure. There is a most sad story to
tell you, Mrs. Catherine--Patrick Lillie is Marion's brother--he is more
than that."
"Speak out, child. Who is he?"
"He is the man for whom Norman sacrificed all--he is the slayer of Alice
Aytoun's father."
Mrs. Catherine started--in her extreme wonder she could say nothing.
"An innocent man, Mrs. Catherine; this dreadful deed was done unawares,
and in a life of agony has it been avenged."
Mrs. Catherine remained silent for a moment.
"And he let Norman, the honorable, generous, just lad, suffer a death
for him--suffer the death of a lifetime? Anne--Anne, is it a coward like
this you are mourning for? A faint heart and a weak spirit--what could
it be other that would let a righteous man bear this for him?"
"There is justice done," said Anne, "it is over now. I acknowledge the
weakness, Mrs. Catherine; but he has suffered dreadfully. A gentle,
delicate, pensive spirit, unfit for storms and trials--altogether unfit
for doing any great thing: one to be supported and tenderly upheld--not
to take any bold step alone."
"Suffered!" Mrs. Catherine rose and walked through the room, till the
boards, less solid than those of the Tower, quaked and sounded below her
feet. "Wherefore did he not come forth in the light of day, and bear his
own burden? Good fame and honor--land and home--what was he that a just
man should lay down these for him?"
"He was a feeble, delicate, dependant spirit," said Anne: "one of those
whom it is our natural impulse to defend and suffer for. That was his
only claim; but you know how strong that is."
Mrs. Catherine did know, but she felt no sympathy for the shrinking
weakness which could suffer another to bear its own just punishment.
"I know? Yes, I know; but what claim has the like of such a weakling to
call himself a man? Eighteen years--eighteen long, slow years--all Alice
Aytoun's lifetime. Anne, I marvel you can bear with his memory, or lift
up your face to me, and speak of him as kindred. He shed this blood
unawares, said you? Did he doom Norman to this death unawares? was it
without his knowledge that he laid this blight upon the two that have
borne banishment for him? Speak not to me of this coward, child. I say,
mention not his name to me."
"Mrs. Catherine," said Anne, "bear with me till you hear his story. If
you had seen him as I have seen--if you had listened to Christian as I
have listened, you too would mourn over this blighted, broken man, less
in his death than in his life. When Norman fled, he was in an agony of
fever and madness, unconscious of what was passing round him--only aware
in his burning horror and grief that he had shed blood. When he
recovered--and most strange it was that he should have recovered--most
strange the tenacious life and strength of his feebleness--he heard of
Norman's sacrifice; and then I acknowledge he ought to have done
justice, had not his weakness overpowered him. He dared not face the
terror and the shame; perhaps the dreadful death due to his
blood-guiltiness, and so he lived on--such a life as few have ever lived
in this world--a life of despair, and gloom, and misery: terrible to
hear of--more terrible to see."
Mrs. Catherine seated herself again.
"And the sister and the righteous man, his friend, bearing a dark name
for him over the sea; and the sad woman at home, that you have told me
of, wearing out her days for him. Was his miserable life worth that,
think you? Should that not have been worse than any death?"
"Should have been," said Anne; "but I do not speak of what should be,
Mrs. Catherine. Why this shrinking, feeble spirit was conjoined with
such a lot, who can tell? It had a strange, feverish, hysteric strength,
too. When he battled through yon dark waves to save the perishing
seamen, you would not have said that Patrick Lillie was a coward."
There was a pause. Mrs. Catherine's manner softened. Anne took
advantage of it to repeat to her Christian Lillie's story. The stern,
stately old lady was moved to very tears.
"And so at last justice is done," she said. "Anne, it is meet that this
worn woman, after her travail, should have light in her evening-time. If
she will come with you, bid her come to my house. The like of her would
do honor to any dwelling, were it a king's. And she left him at his
grave's brink, whenever he was at rest, to render what was just to the
banished man? She did well. It behoves that all who known this history
should render reverence. I say she did well."
There was again a momentary pause.
"And where is he?" asked Mrs. Catherine. "Where, and in what condition
is Norman Rutherford?"
"I have never asked yet," said Anne. "I was anxious to soothe her; she
has been so worn out with watching and grief. I will ask her now, when
all excitement is over, and she has only to bear her gentle sorrow for
Patrick's death."
"Ay--ay," said Mrs. Catherine, slowly; "ay--and yet you do not know,
Gowan, the terrible, dreary calm that is left by that shadow of death. I
speak of the death that carries home a godly, honorable, righteous man,
whose life was a joy and a blessing.--This is a grief sorer than mine. I
bow my head to this tribulation. I cannot fathom all the depths of its
bitterness; it is greater than mine."
And with her large gray eyelid swelling full, Mrs. Catherine Douglas
bowed her stately head. Yes! the solitary, desolate, dumb might of
anguish with which her strong spirit quivered, when she left all that
remained of Sholto Douglas sleeping peacefully in his calm island grave,
overwhelming as it was, became a gentle sorrow in presence of the life
of wakeful agony which Christian Lillie had borne silently within the
desolate walls of Schole.
Mrs. Catherine began to speak of the possibility of remaining for the
night. It was a very strange idea for her, who had not slept under a
strange roof for more than thirty years. Since Patrick's death, Anne had
passed both night and day at Schole, and the pretty little clean
bed-room behind was unoccupied. Miss Crankie herself was called in to be
consulted on the subject.
Miss Crankie had scarcely entered the room, when there was a rush in the
passage. The door flew violently open, and Mrs. Yammer, her head bound
up with mighty rolls of flannel, and a newspaper trembling in her eager
hand, stood before them.
"Eh, Johann!--Eh, Miss Ross!" she could articulate no more.
"What in the world has come ower the woman now?" exclaimed Miss Crankie,
peevishly. "If ye will be a puling, no-weel fuil, ye may keep your
ailments to yoursel at least. For guid sake, Tammie, haud your tongue;
dinna deave the ladies."
"Eh, Miss Ross!--Eh, Johann!" exclaimed the aroused and excited Mrs.
Yammer, "if it wasna for the stitch in my side, I wad read it to ye
mysel. Look at this."
Anne took the paper wonderingly. She glanced down a long paragraph,
headed "Romance in real life," with hurried half attention, and little
interest. Her eyes were arrested by the concluding words: they seemed to
shine out from a mist. Unconsciously, in her sudden excitement, she read
them aloud: "This most honorable vindication of Norman Rutherford, of
Redheugh--"
"Gowan," exclaimed Mrs. Catherine, hastily, taking the paper from her
powerless hand, "what is that you say?"
"Ye see," said Mrs. Yammer, following up briskly her unwonted
independent movement, "we get it atween us. Mr. Currie, the saddler, and
Mrs. Clippie, the captain's widow, and Robert Carritch, the
session-clerk, and Johann and me; and I was just sitting ower the fire,
trying if the heat would do ony guid to my puir head, when I saw that
about young Redheugh--and I'll be out o' my wits the morn wi the draft
frae that open door."
"Gae way to your fireside again, and haud your tongue," said Miss
Crankie, bundling her sister unceremoniously out of the door before her.
"Wits!--woman, if ye had as muckle judgment as wad lie on a sixpence, ye
wad see that the ladies have mair concern in that than either you or
me."
Anne had been looking at them vacantly with a vague, unconscious smile
upon her lip. Now, when the door was shut, she suddenly knelt down at
Mrs. Catherine's knees, scarce knowing what she did, and leaning there,
burst into tears. She was conscious of Mrs. Catherine's hand laid
caressingly upon her hair; she was conscious of an indistinct mist of
joy and thankfulness. It overpowered and weakened her; she could not
stay these tears.
In the meantime, Mrs. Catherine read:
"We have just had communicated to us the particulars of a very
moving story, another of the many examples that truth is strange,
stranger than fiction. We believe that many of our readers, who are
acquainted with the neighborhood of our city, may have remarked a
desolate house, standing in the midst of a very rich country,
within sight of the Firth, and presenting a very singular contrast,
in its utter neglect and ruin, to the prosperous and flourishing
appearance of everything about it. The story current in the
neighborhood is, that its last proprietor perished miserably in the
sea, while flying from the doom of a murderer, with the blood of a
friend shed deliberately and in cowardice on his hand. Other more
ghostly rumors of sights seen and sounds heard in its immediate
neighborhood are of course current also.--The account we have now
to give of this dark transaction reveals something almost as
strange as the re-appearance on this earthly scene of spirits long
ago departed. It seems the very triumph and perfection of generous
self-sacrifice and 'godlike amity,' and as such we are happy to
have an opportunity of presenting it to our readers.
"A few days since, the Lord Advocate received from a lady a full
exculpation of Mr. Rutherford, of Redheugh, in the shape of a
confession made by the real criminal upon his death-bed. We do
wrong in applying the name of criminal to this unhappy
man.--According to his death-bed declaration, made in the presence
of witnesses, and to which full credence may be given, the death of
the late Arthur Aytoun, Esq., of Aytoun, so long regarded as a
murder, falls under the lighter title of an accident. A dreamy
student had been spending an hour of a brilliant summer morning
shooting upon the sands, and on his return home fired an
inadvertent shot, while resting in a wood, when, instead of the
bird which he fancied he aimed at, the unhappy young man heard a
cry of mortal agony, and beheld the death of a fellow-man.
Distracted and maddened, he rushed home; made some wild confession
to his sister of the fact alone, without telling her that it was
accidental, and immediately fell into the wild delirium of fever.
Mr. Rutherford, of Redheugh, was the most intimate friend of the
family, and betrothed to the younger sister. The fowling-piece,
which had fallen from the young man's hand when he discovered the
fatal effects of the shot, belonged to Mr. Rutherford. Mr. Aytoun
and Mr. Rutherford had parted the night before in anger: every
circumstance directed suspicion to the Laird of Redheugh. In her
first terror, the sister of the unhappy shedder of blood, naturally
sought counsel from the friend who was so shortly to enter into the
most intimate relation with the family; and Mr. Rutherford, with a
generosity never in our knowledge paralleled, resolved at once to
divert attention from his helpless friend by his own flight. The
younger sister accompanied him, after a secret marriage. By
universal consent he was pronounced guilty: the fact of his flight
settled that beyond dispute in the judgment of the world.
"The vessel he sailed in was lost; himself in it, as has to this
hour been universally believed. But the strange eventful history of
this unfortunate gentleman has not had so abrupt a termination. He
still lives, and will long live, we trust, to expend in a larger
circle the rare generosity of which he has given so remarkable a
proof.
"The unhappy man, by whose inadvertent hand Mr. Aytoun fell, and
for whom Mr. Rutherford has suffered, is lately dead.--Without a
moment's delay, after his death, his sister immediately brought his
confession to the proper quarter, so that now there remains nothing
but to give to the world this most honorable vindication of Norman
Rutherford, of Redheugh. In the consciousness of an act of singular
goodness, bravely done, and in the universal applause of all good
men, our heroic countryman, on his return to his own land, will, we
doubt not, find himself abundantly rewarded."
And thus it was made known to the world--the work of the two
sisters was accomplished. Free from all stain and disgrace, radiant
in the honor and blessing of generous work and life, the sentence
of justice, and the universal voice of good men, should welcome to
his long-lost home and country Norman Rutherford, of Redheugh.