--Reputation?--that's man's idol set up against God, the
Maker of all laws, Who hath commanded us we should not
kill, And yet we say we must, for Reputation! What honest
man can either fear his own, Or else will hurt another's
reputation? Fear to do base unworthy things is valour; If
they be done to us, to suffer them Is valour
too.-- BEN JONSON,
The Colonel was walking pensively up and down the parlour, when the
officious landlady re-entered to take his commands. Having given
them in the manner he thought would be most acceptable "for the
good of the house," he begged to detain her a moment.
"I think," he said, "madam, if I understood the good people right,
Mr. Bertram lost his son in his fifth year?"
"Oh ay, sir, there's nae doubt o' that, though there are mony idle
clashes [* Tittle-tattle], about the way and manner, for it's an
auld story now, and everybody tells it, as we were doing, their ain
way by the ingleside. But lost the bairn was in his fifth year, as
your honour says, Colonel; and the news being rashly tell'd to the
leddy, then great with child, cost her her life that samyn
night--and the Laird never throve after that day, but was just
careless of everything--though, when his daughter Miss Lucy grew
up, she tried to keep order within doors--but what could she do,
poor thing so now they're out of house and hauld."
"Can you recollect, madam, about what time of the year the child
was lost?" The landlady, after a pause, and some recollection,
answered, "she was positive it was about this season and added
some local recollections that fixed the date in her memory, as
occurring about the beginning of November, 17-."
The stranger took two or three turns round the room in silence, but
signed to Mrs. Mac-Candlish not to leave it.
Did I rightly apprehend," he said, "that the estate of Ellangowan
is in the market?"
"In the market?--it will be sell'd the morn to the highest
bidder--that's no the morn, Lord help me! which is the Sabbath, but
on Monday, the first free day; and the furniture and stocking is to
be roupit [*Auctioned] at the same time on the ground--it's the
opinion of the haill country, that the sale has been shamefully
forced on at this time, when there's sae little money stirring in
Scotland wi' this weary American war, that somebody may get the
land a bargain--Deil be in them, that I should say sae!"--the good
lady's wrath rising at the supposed injustice.
"And where will the sale take place?"
"On the, premises, as the advertisement says--that's at the house
of Ellangowan, your honour, as I understand it."
"And who exhibits the title-deeds, rent-roll, and plan?"
"A very decent man, sir; the Sheriff-substitute of the county, who
has authority from the Court of Session. He's in the town just
now, if your honour would like to see hint; and he can tell you
mair about the loss of the bairn than onybody, for the
Sheriff-depute (that's his principal, like) took much pains to come
at the truth o' that matter, as I have heard."
"And this gentleman's name is--"
"Mac-Morlan, sir,--he's a man o' character, and weel spoken o'."
"Send my compliments--Colonel Mannering's compliments to him, and I
would be glad he would do me the pleasure of supping with me, and
bring these papers with him--and I beg, good madam, you will say
nothing of this to any one else."
"Me, sir? ne'er a word shall I say--I wish your honour (a curtsey),
or ony honourable gentleman that's fought for his country (another
curtsey), had the land, since the auld family maun quit (a sigh),
rather than that wily scoundrel, Glossin, that's risen on the ruin
of the best friend he ever had--and now I think on't, I'll slip on
my hood and pattens, and gang to Mr. Mac-Morlan mysell--he's at
hame e'en now-it's hardly a step."
"Do so, my good landlady, and many thanks--and bid my servant step
here with my portfolio in the meantime."
In a minute or two, Colonel Mannering was quietly seated with his
writing materials before him. We have the privilege of looking
over his shoulder as he writes, and we willingly communicate its
substance to our readers. The letter was addressed to Arthur
Mervyn, Esq., of Mervyn Hall, Llanbraithwaite, Westmoreland. It
contained some account of the writer's previous journey since
parting with him, and then proceeded as follows:-
"And now, why will you still upbraid me with my melancholy,
Mervyn?--Do you think, after the lapse of twenty-five years,
battles, wounds, imprisonment, you, who have remained in the bosom
of domestic happiness, experience little change, that your step is
as light, and your fancy as full of sunshine, is a blessed effect
of health and temperament, co-operating with content and a smooth
current down the course of life. But my career has been one of
difficulties, and doubts, and errors. From my infancy I have been
the sport of accident, and though the wind has often borne me into
harbour, it has seldom been into that which the pilot destined. Let
me recall to you--but the task must be brief--the odd and wayward
fates of my youth, and the misfortunes or my manhood.
"The former, you will say, had nothing very appalling. All was not
for the best; but all was tolerable. My father, the eldest son of
an ancient but reduced family, left me with little, save the name
of the head of the house, to the protection of his more fortunate
brothers. They were so fond of me that they almost quarrelled
about me. My uncle, the bishop, would have had me in orders, and
offered me a living--my uncle, the merchant, would have put me into
a counting-house, and proposed to give me a share in the thriving
concern of Mannering and Marshall, in Lombard' Street--So, between
these two stools, or rather these two soft, easy, well-stuffed
chairs of divinity and commerce, my unfortunate person slipped
down, and pitched upon a dragoon saddle. Again, the bishop wished
me to marry the niece and heiress of the Dean of Lincoln; and my
uncle, the alderman, proposed to me the only daughter of old
Sloethorn, the great wine-merchant, rich enough to play at
span-counters with moidores, and make thread-papers of bank
notes--and somehow I slipped my neck out of both nooses, and
married--poor--poor Sophia Wellwood.
"You will say, my military career in India, when I followed my
regiment there, should have given me some satisfaction; and so it
assuredly has. You will remind me also, that if I disappointed the
hopes of my guardians, I did not incur their displeaslure--that the
bishop, at his death, bequeathed me his blessing, his manuscript
sermons, and a curious portfolio, containing the heads of eminent
divines of the Church of England; and that my uncle, Sir Paul
Mannering, left me sole heir and executor to his large fortune.
"Yet this availeth me nothing--I told you I had that upon my mind
which I should carry to my grave with me, a perpetual aloes in the
draught of existence. I will tell you the cause more in detail
than I had the heart to do while under your hospitable roof. You
will often hear it mentioned, and perhaps with different and
unfounded circumstances. I will, therefore, speak it out; and then
let the event itself, and the sentiments of melancholy with which
it has impressed me, never again be subject of discussion between
us.
"Sophia, as you well know, followed me to India. She was as
innocent as gay; but, unfortunately for us both, as gay as
innocent. My own manners were partly formed by studies I had
forsaken, and habits of seclusion, not quite consistent with my
situation as commandant of a regiment in a country, where universal
hospitality is offered and expected by every settler claiming the
rank of a gentleman. In a moment of peculiar pressure (you know
how hard we were sometimes run to obtain white faces to countenance
our line-of-battle), a young man, named Brown, joined our regiment
as a volunteer, and finding the military duty more to his fancy
than commerce, in which he had been engaged, remained with us as a
cadet. Let me do my unhappy victim justice--he behaved with such
gallantry on every occasion that offered, that the first vacant
commission was considered as his due. I was absent for some weeks
upon a distant expedition; when I returned, I found this young
fellow established quite as the friend of the house, and habitual
attendant of my wife and daughter. It was an arrangement which
displeased me in many particulars, though no objection could be
made to his manners or character--Yet I might have been reconciled
to his familiarity in my family, but for the suggestions of
another. If you read over--what I never dare open--the play of
Othello, you will have some idea of what followed--I mean of my
motives--my actions, thank God! were less reprehensible. There was
another cadet ambitious of the vacant situation. He called my
attention to what he led me to term coquetry between my wife and
this young man. Sophia was virtuous, but proud of her virtue; and,
irritated by my jealousy, she was so imprudent as to press and
encourage an intimacy which she saw I disapproved and regarded with
suspicion. Between Brown and me there existed a sort of internal
dislike. He made an effort or two to overcome my prejudice; but,
prepossessed as I was, I placed them to a wrong motive. Feeling
himself repulsed, and with scorn, he desisted; and as he was
without family and friends, he was naturally more watchful of the
deportment of one who had both.
"It is odd with what torture I write this letter, I feel inclined,
nevertheless, to protract the operation, just as if my doing so
could put off the catastrophe which has so long embittered my
life. But--it must he told, and it shall be told briefly.
"My wife, though no longer young, was still eminently handsome,
and--let me say thus far in my own justification--she was fond of
being thought so--I am repeating what I said before--In a word, of
her virtue I never entertained a doubt; but, pushed by the artful
suggestions of Archer, I thought she cared little for my peace of
mind, and that the young fellow, Brown, paid his attentions in my
despite, and in defiance of me. He perhaps considered me, on his
part, as an oppressive aristocratic man, who made my rank in
society, and in the army, the means of galling those whom
circumstances placed beneath me. And if he discovered my silly
jealousy, he probably considered the fretting me in that sore point
of my character, as one means of avenging the petty indignities to
which I had it in my power to subject him. Yet an acute friend of
mine gave a more harmless, or at least a less offensive,
construction to his attentions, which he conceived to be meant for
my daughter Julia, though immediately addressed to propitiate the
influence of her mother. This could have been no very flattering
or pleasing enterprise on the part of an obscure and nameless young
man; but I should not have been offended at this folly, as I was at
the higher degree of presumption I suspected. Offended, however, I
was, and in a mortal degree.
"A very slight spark will kindle a flame where everything lies open
to catch it. I have absolutely forgot the proximate cause of
quarrel, but it was some trifle which occurred at the card-table,
which occasioned high words and a challenge. We met in the morning
beyond the walls and esplanade of the fortress which I then
commanded, on the frontiers of the settlement. This was arranged
for Brown's safety, had he escaped. I almost wish he had, though
at my own expense but he fell by the first fire. We strove to
assist him but some of these Loolies, a species of native banditti
who were always on the watch for prey, poured in upon us. Archer
and I gained our horses with difficulty, and cut our way through
them after a hard conflict, in the course of which he received some
desperate wounds. To complete the misfortunes of this miserable
day, my wife, who suspected the design with which I left the
fortress, had ordered her palanquin to follow me, and was alarmed
and almost made prisoner by another troop of these plunderers. She
was quickly released by a party of our cavalry; but I cannot
disguise from myself, that the incidents of this fatal morning gave
a severe shock to health already delicate. The confession of
Archer, who thought himself dying, that he had invented some
circumstances, and, for his purposes, put the worst construction
upon others, and the full explanation and exchange of forgiveness
with me which this produced, could not check the progress of her
disorder. She died within about eight months after this incident,
bequeathing me only the girl, of whom Mrs. Mervyn is so good as to
undertake the temporary charge. Julia was also extremely ill; so
much so, that I was induced to throw up my command and return to
Europe, where her native air, time, and the novelty of the scenes
around her, have contributed to dissipate her dejection, and
restore her health.
"Now that you know my story, you will no longer ask me the reason
of my melancholy, but permit me to brood upon it as I may. There
is, surely, in the above narrative, enough to embitter, though not
to poison, the chalice, which the fortune and fame you so often
mention had prepared to regale my years of retirement.
"I could add circumstances which our old tutor would have quoted as
instances of day fatality,--you would laugh were I to mention such
particulars, especially as you know I put no faith in them. Yet,
since I have come to the very house from which I now write, I have
learned a singular coincidence, which, if I find it truly
established by tolerable evidence, will serve us hereafter for
subject of curious discussion. But I will spare you at present, as
I expect a person to speak about a purchase of property now open in
this part of the country. It is a place to which I have a foolish
partiality, and I hope my purchasing may be convenient to those
who are parting with it, as there is a plan for buying it under
the value. My respectful compliments to Mrs. Mervyn, and I will
trust you, though you boast to be so lively a young gentleman, to
kiss Julia for me.--
"Adieu, dear Mervyn.--
Mr. Mac-Morlan now entered the room. The well-known character of
Colonel Mannering at once disposed this gentleman, who was a man of
intelligence and probity, to be open and confidential. He
explained the advantages and disadvantages of the property. "It
was settled," he said, "the greater part of it at least, upon
heirs-male, and the purchaser would have the privilege of retaining
in his hands a large proportion of the price, in case of the
reappearance, within a certain limited term, of the child who had
disappeared."
"To what purpose, then, force forward a sale?" said Mannering.
Mac-Morlan smiled. "Ostensibly," he answered, "to substitute the
interest of money, instead of the ill-paid and precarious rents of
an unimproved estate; but chiefly, it was believed, to suit the
wishes and views of a certain intended purchaser, who had become a
principal creditor, and forced himself into the management of the
affairs by means best known to himself, and who, it was thought,
would find it very convenient to purchase the estate without paying
down the price."
Mannering consulted with Mr. Mac-Morlan upon the steps for
thwarting this unprincipled attempt. They then conversed long on
the singular disappearance of Harry Bertram upon his fifth
birthday, verifying thus the random prediction of Mannering, of
which, however, it will readily be supposed he made no beast. Mr.
Mac-Morlan was not himself in office when that incident took place;
but he was well acquainted with all the circumstances, and promised
that our hero should have them detailed by the Sheriff-depute
himself, if, as he proposed, he should become a settler in that
part of Scotland. With this assurance they parted, well satisfied
with each other, and with the evening's conference.
On the Sunday following, Colonel Mannering attended the parish
church with great decorum. None of the Ellangowan family were
present; and it was understood that the old Laird was rather worse
than better. Jock Jabos, once more despatched for him, returned
once more without his errand; but, on the following day, Miss
Bertram hoped he might be removed.