Walter arrived in Edinburgh on a wintry morning white and chill. A sort
of woolly shroud wrapped all the fine features of the landscape. He
thought the dingy turrets of the Calton Jail were the Castle, and was
much disappointed, as was natural. Arthur's Seat and the Crags were as
entirely invisible as if they had been a hundred miles away, and the
cold crept into his very bones after his night's journey, although it
had been made luxuriously, in a way very different from his former
journeyings. Also it struck him as strange and uncomfortable that nobody
was aware of the change in his position, and that even the railway
porter, to whom he gave a shilling (as a commoner he would have been
contented with sixpence), only called him "Sir," and could not perceive
that it would have been appropriate to say my lord. He went to an hotel,
as it was so early, and found only a dingy little room to repose himself
in, the more important part of the house being still in the hands of the
housemaids. And when he gave his name as Lord Erradeen, the attendants
stared at him with a sort of suspicion. They looked at his baggage
curiously, and evidently asked each other if it was possible he could be
what he claimed to be. Walter had a half-consciousness of being an
impostor, and trying to take these surprised people in. He thawed,
however, as he ate his breakfast, and the mist began to rise, revealing
the outline of the Old Town. He had never been in Edinburgh before; he
had rarely been anywhere before. It was all new to him, even the sense
of living in an inn. There was a curious freedom about it, and
independence of all restraint, which pleased him. But it was very
strange to be absolutely unknown, to meet the gaze of faces he had never
seen before, and to be obliged always to explain who he was. It was
clear that a servant was a thing quite necessary to a man who called
himself by a title, a servant not so much to attend upon him as to
answer for him, and be a sort of guarantee to the world. Now that he was
here in Edinburgh, he was not quite sure what to do with himself. It was
too early to do anything. He could not disturb old Milnathort at such an
hour. He must let the old man get to his office and read his letters
before he could descend upon him. So that on the whole Walter, though
sustained by the excitement of his new position, was altogether chilled
and not at all comfortable, feeling those early hours of grim daylight
hang very heavily on his hands. He went out after he had refreshed and
dressed--and strolled about the fine but foreign street. It looked quite
foreign to his inexperienced eyes. The Castle soared vaguely through
the grey mist; the irregular line of roofs and spires crowning the ridge
threw itself up vaguely against a darker grey behind. There was a river
of mist between him and that ridge, running deep in the hollow,
underneath the nearer bank, which was tufted with spectral bushes and
trees, and with still more spectral white statues glimmering through. On
the other side of the street, more cheerful and apparent, were the
jewellers' shops full of glistening pebbles and national ornaments.
Everybody knows that it is not these shops alone, but others of every
luxurious kind, that form the glory of Prince's Street. But Walter was a
stranger and foreigner; and in the morning mists the shining store of
cairngorms was the most cheerful sight that met his eye.
Mr. Milnathort's office was in a handsome square, with a garden in the
centre of it, and another statue holding possession of the garden. For
the first time since he left home, Walter felt a little thrill of his
new importance when he beheld the respectful curiosity produced among
the clerks by the statement of his name. They asked his lordship to step
in with an evident sensation. And for Walter himself to look into that
office where his mother had so strongly desired that he should find a
place, had the most curious effect. He felt for the moment as if he were
one of the serious young men peeping from beyond the wooden railing that
inclosed the office, at the fortunate youth whose circumstances were no
different from their own. He did not realise at that moment the
unfailing human complacency which would have come to his aid in such
circumstances, and persuaded him that the gifts of fortune had nothing
to do with real superiority. He thought of the possible reflections upon
himself of the other young fellows in their lowly estate as if he had
himself been making them. He was sorry for them all, for the contrast
they must draw, and the strange sense of human inequality that they must
feel. He was no better than they were--who could tell? perhaps not half
as good. He felt that to feel this was a due tribute from Lord Erradeen
in his good fortune to those who might have been Walter Methven's
fellow-clerks, but who had never had any chance of being Lord Erradeen.
And then he thought what a good thing it was that he had never written
that letter to Mr. Milnathort, offering himself for a desk in the
office. He had felt really guilty on the subject at the time. He had
felt that it was miserable of him to neglect the occasion thus put
before him of gaining a livelihood. Self-reproach, real and
unmistakable, had been in his mind; and yet what a good thing he had not
done it: and how little one knows what is going to happen! These were
very ordinary reflections, not showing much depth; but it must be
recollected that Walter was still in a sort of primary state of feeling,
and had not had time to reach a profounder level.
Mr. Milnathort made haste to receive him, coming out of his own room on
purpose, and giving him the warmest welcome.
"I might have thought you would come by the night train. You are not old
enough to dislike night travelling as I do; but I will take it ill, and
so will my sister, if you stay in an hotel, and your room ready for you
in our little place. I think you will be more comfortable with us,
though we have no grandeur to surround you with. My sister has a great
wish to make your acquaintance, my Lord Erradeen. She has just a
wonderful acquaintance with the family, and it was more through her than
any one that I knew just where to put my hand upon you, when the time
came."
"I did not like to disturb you so early," Walter said.
"Well, perhaps there is something in that. We are not very early birds:
and as a matter of fact, Alison did not expect you till about seven
o'clock at night. And here am I in the midst of my day's work. But I'll
tell you what I'll do for you. We'll go round to the club, and there
your young lordship will make acquaintance with somebody that can show
you something of Edinburgh. You have never been here before? It is a
great pity that there is an easterly haar, which is bad both for you and
the objects you are wanting to see. However, it is lifting, and we'll
get some luncheon, and then I will put you in the way. That is the best
thing I can do for you. Malcolm, you will send down all the documents
relative to his lordship's affairs to Moray Place, this afternoon; and
you can tell old Symington to be in attendance in case Lord Erradeen
should wish to see him. That is your cousin the late lord's body
servant. He is a man of great experience, and you might wish--; but all
that can be settled later on. If Drysdales should send over about that
case of theirs, ye will say, Malcolm, that I shall be here not later
than three in the afternoon; and if old Blairallan comes fyking, ye can
say I am giving the case my best attention; and if it's that big
north-country fellow about his manse and his augmentation----"
"I fear that I am unpardonable," said Walter, "in interfering with your
valuable time."
"Nothing of the sort. It is not every day that a Lord Erradeen comes
into his inheritance; and as there are, may be, things not over-cheerful
to tell you at night, we may as well make the best of it in the
morning," said the old lawyer. He got himself into his coat as he spoke,
slowly, not without an effort. The sun was struggling through the mist
as they went out again into the streets, and the mid-day gun from the
Castle helped for a moment to disperse the haar, and show the noble
cliff on which it rears its head aloft. Mr. Milnathort paused to look
with tender pride along the line--the houses and spires lifting out of
the clouds, the sunshine breaking through, the crown of St. Giles's
hovering like a visible sign of rank over the head of the throned city,
awakened in him that keen pleasure and elation in the beauty of his
native place which is nowhere more warmly felt than in Edinburgh. He
waved his hand towards the Old Town in triumph. "You may have seen a
great deal, but ye will never have seen anything finer than that," he
said.
"I have seen very little," said Walter; "but everybody has heard of
Edinburgh, so that it does not take one by surprise."
"Ay, that is very wisely said. If it took you by surprise, and you had
never heard of it before, the world would just go daft over it. However,
it is a drawback of a great reputation that ye never come near it with
your mind clear." Having said this the old gentleman dismissed the
subject with a wave of his hand, and said, in a different tone, "You
will be very curious about the family secrets you are coming into, Lord
Erradeen."
Walter laughed.
"I am coming to them with my mind clear," he said. "I know nothing about
them. But I don't believe much in family secrets. They belong to the
middle ages. Nowadays we have nothing to conceal."
Mr. Milnathort listened to this blasphemy with a countenance in which
displeasure struggled with that supreme sense that the rash young man
would soon know better, which disarms reproof. He shook his head.
"You may say we can conceal but little," he said, "which is true enough,
but not altogether true either. Courage is a fine thing, Lord Erradeen,
and I am always glad to see it; and if you have your imagination under
control, that will do ye still better service. In most cases it is not
only what we see, but what we think we are going to see, that daunts us.
Keep you your head cool, that is your best defence in all emergencies.
It is better to be too bold than not to be bold enough, notwithstanding
the poet's warning to yon warrior-maid of his."
These last words made Walter stare, for he was not very learned in
poetry at the best, and was totally unprepared to hear Spenser from the
lips of the old Scottish lawyer. He was silent for a little in mere
perplexity, and then he said, with a laugh--
"You speak of danger as if we were on the eve of a battle. Are there
giants to encounter or magicians? One would think we were living in the
dark ages," Walter cried with a little impatience.
Mr. Milnathort said nothing more. He led the young man into one of the
great stone palaces which form the line of Prince's Street, and which
was then the seat of the old original club of Edinburgh society. Here
Walter found himself in the midst of a collection of men with marked and
individual faces, each one of whom ought to be somebody, he thought.
Many of them were bound about the throat with white ties, like
clergymen, but they did not belong to that profession. It gave the
young man a sense of his own importance, which generally deserted him in
Mr. Milnathort's presence, and of which he felt himself to stand in
need, to perceive that he excited a great deal of interest among these
grave and potent signors. There was a certain desire visible to make his
acquaintance and to ascertain his political opinions, of which Walter
was scarcely aware as yet whether he had any. It was suggested at once
that he should be put up for the club, and invitations to dinner began
to be showered upon him. He was stopped short in his replies to those
cordial beginnings of acquaintance by Mr. Milnathort, who calmly assumed
the guidance of his movements. "Lord Erradeen," he said, "is on his way
West. Business will not permit him to tarry at this moment. We hope he
will be back ere long, and perhaps stay a while in Edinburgh, and see
what is to be seen in the way of society." This summary way of taking
all control of his own movements from him astounded Walter so much that
he merely stared at his old tyrant or vizier, and in his confusion of
surprise and anger did not feel capable of saying anything, which, after
all, was the most dignified way; for, he said to himself, it was not
necessary to yield implicit obedience even if he refrained from open
protest upon these encroachments on his liberty. In the mean time it was
evident that the old lawyer did not intend him to have any liberty at
all. He produced out of the recesses of the club library a beaming
little man in spectacles, to whom he committed the charge of the young
stranger.
"Mr. Bannatyne," he said, "knows Edinburgh as well as I know my
chambers, and he will just take you round what is most worth seeing."
When Walter attempted to escape with a civil regret to give his new
acquaintance trouble he was put down by both with eagerness.
"The Old Town is just the breath of my nostrils," said the little
antiquary.
"It cannot be said that it's a fragrant breath," said old Milnathort;
"but since that is so, Lord Erradeen, you would not deprive our friend
of such a pleasure: and we'll look for you by five or six at Moray
Place, or earlier if you weary, for it's soon dark at this time of the
year."
To find himself thus arrested in the first day of his emancipation and
put into the hands of a conductor was so annoying yet so comic that
Walter's resentment evaporated in the ludicrous nature of the situation
and his consciousness that otherwise he would not know what to do with
himself. But sight-seeing requires a warmer inspiration than this, and
even the amusement of beholding his companion's enthusiasm over all the
dark entries and worn-out inscriptions was not enough to keep Walter's
interest alive. His own life at this moment was so much more interesting
than anything else, so much more important than those relics of a past
which had gone away altogether out of mortal ken. When the blood is at
high pressure in our veins, and the future lying all before us, it is
very difficult to turn back, and force our eager eyes into contemplation
of scenes with which we ourselves have little or no connection. The
antiquary, however, was not to be baulked. He looked at his young
companion with his head on one side like a critical bird. "You are
paying no attention to me," he said half pathetically; "but 'cod, man (I
beg your pardon, my lord!), ye _shall_ be interested before I'm done."
With this threat he hurried Walter along to the noisiest and most
squalid part of that noble but miserable street which is the pride of
Edinburgh, and stopped short before a small but deep doorway, entering
from a short flight of outside stairs. The door was black with age and
neglect, and showed a sort of black cave within, out of which all kind
of dingy figures were fluttering. The aspect of the muddy stairs and
ragged wayfarers was miserable enough, but the mouldings of the lintel,
and the spiral staircase half visible at one side, were of a grim
antiquity, and so was the lofty tenement above, with its many rows of
windows and high-stepped gable.
"Now just look here," said Mr. Bannatyne, "these arms will tell their
own story."
There was a projecting boss of rude, half-obliterated carving on the
door.
"I cannot make head nor tail of it," said the young man; his patience
was beginning to give way.
"Lord Erradeen," cried the other with enthusiasm, "this is worth your
fattest farm; it is of more interest than half your inheritance; it is
as historical as Holyrood. You are just awfully insensible, you young
men, and think as little of the relics that gave you your consequences
in the world--!" He paused a little in the fervour of his indignation,
then added--"But there are allowances to be made for you as you were
bred in England, and perhaps are little acquainted--My lord, this is
Me'even's Close, bearing the name even now in its decay. It was my Lord
Methven's lodging in the old time. Bless me! can your young eyes not
read the motto that many people have found so significant? Look here,"
cried Walter's cicerone, tracing with his stick the half-effaced
letters, "Baithe Sune and Syne."
Young Lord Erradeen began, as was natural, to feel ashamed of himself.
He felt a pang of discomfort too, for this certainly bore no resemblance
to the trim piece of modern Latin about the conquering power of virtue
which was on his father's seal. The old possibility that he might turn
out an impostor after all gleamed across his mind. "Does this belong to
me?" he added with some eagerness, to veil these other and less easy
sentiments.
"I know nothing about that," said Mr. Bannatyne with a slight tone of
contempt. "But it was the Lord of Methven's lodging in the days when
Scots lords lived in the Canongate of Edinburgh." Then he added, "There
is a fine mantelpiece up-stairs which you had better see. Oh nobody will
have any objection, a silver key opens every door hereabout. If it
should happen to be yours, my lord, and I were you," said the eager
little man, "I would clear out the whole clanjamfry and have it
thoroughly cleaned, and make a museum of the place. You would pick up
many a curious bit as the auld houses go down. This way, to the right,
and mind the hole in the wall. The doors are all carved, if you can see
them for the dirt, and you'll not often see a handsomer room."
It was confusing at first to emerge out of the gloom of the stairs into
the light of the great room, with its row of windows guiltless of either
blind or curtain, which was in possession of a group of ragged children,
squatting about in front of the deep, old-fashioned chimney, over which
a series of elaborate carvings rose to the roof. The room had once been
panelled, but half of the woodwork had been dragged down, and the rest
was in a deplorable state. The contrast of the squalor and wretchedness
about him, with the framework of the ancient, half-ruined grandeur, at
once excited and distressed Walter. There was a bed, or rather a heap of
something covered with the bright patches of an old quilt, in one
corner, in another an old corner cupboard fixed into the wall, a rickety
table and two chairs in the middle of the room. The solemn, unsheltered
windows, like so many hollow, staring eyes, gazed out through the cold
veil of the mist upon the many windows of an equally tall house on the
other side of the street, the view being broken by a projecting pole
thrust forth from the middle one, upon which some dingy clothes were
hanging to dry. The children hung together, getting behind the biggest
of them, a ragged, handsome girl, with wild, elf locks, who confronted
the visitors with an air of defiance. The flooring was broken in many
places, and dirty beyond description. Walter felt it intolerable to be
here, to breathe the stifling atmosphere, to contemplate this hideous
form of decay. He thought some one was looking at him from behind the
torn panels. "This is horrible," he said. "I hope I have nothing to do
with it." Disgust and a shivering, visionary dread was in his voice.
"Your race has had plenty to do with it," said the antiquary. "It was
here, they say, that the warlock-lord played most of his pliskies. It
was his 'warm study of deals' like that they made for John Knox on the
other side of the street. These walls have seen strange sights: and if
you believe in witchcraft, as one of your name ought----"
"Why should one of my name believe in witchcraft? It appears," he said,
with petulance, "that I know very little about my name."
"So I should have said," said the antiquary, dryly. "But no doubt you
have heard of your great ancestor, the warlock-lord? I am not saying
that I admire the character in the abstract; but an ancestor like that
is fine for a family. He was mixed up in all the doings of the time, and
he made his own out of every one of them. And then he's a grand
historical problem to the present day, which is no small distinction.
You never heard of that? Oh, my lord, that's just not possible! He was
the one whose death was never proved nor nothing about him, where he was
buried, or the nature of his end, or if he ever came to an end at all;
his son would never take the title, and forbade _his_ son to do it: but
by the time you have got to the second generation you are not minding so
much. I noticed that the late lord would never enter into conversation
on the subject. The family has always been touchy about it. It was the
most complete disappearance I can recollect hearing of. Most historical
puzzles clear themselves up in time: but this never was cleared up. Of
course it has given rise to legends. You will perhaps be more interested
in the family legends, Lord Erradeen?"
"Not at all," said Walter, abruptly. "I have told you I know very little
about the family. What is it we came to see?--not this wretched place
which makes me sick. The past should carry off its shell with it, and
not leave these old clothes to rot here."
"Oh!" cried little Mr. Bannatyne, with a shudder. "I never suspected I
was bringing in an iconoclast. That mantelpiece is a grand work of art,
Lord Erradeen. Look at that serpent twisted about among the
drapery--you'll not see such work now; and the ermine on that mantle
just stands out in every hair, for all the grime and the smoke. It is
the legend beneath the shield that is most interesting in the point of
view of the family. It's a sort of rhyming slogan, or rather it's an
addition to the old slogan, 'Live, Me'even,' which everybody knows."
Walter felt a mingled attraction and repulsion which held him there
undecided in front of the great old fireplace, like Hercules or any
other hero between the symbolical good and evil. He had a great
curiosity to know what all this meant mingled with an angry
disinclination impossible to put into words. Mr. Bannatyne, who of
course knew nothing of what was going on in his mind, took upon himself
the congenial task of tracing the inscription out. It was doggerel, bad
enough to satisfy every aspiration of an antiquary. It was as follows:--
"Né fleyt atte Helle, né fond for Heeven,
Live, Me'even."
"You will see how it fits in with the other motto," cried the
enthusiast. "'Baithe Sune and Syne,' which has a grand kind of
indifference to time and all its changes that just delights me. And the
other has the same sentiment, 'Neither frightened for hell nor keen
about heaven.' It is the height of impiety," he said, with a subdued
chuckle; "but that's not inappropriate--it's far from inappropriate; it
is just, in fact, what might have been expected. The warlock lord----"
"I hope you won't think me ungrateful," cried Walter, "but I don't think
I want to know any more about that old ruffian. There is something in
the place that oppresses me." He took out from his pocket a handful of
coins. (It was with the pleasure of novelty that he shook them together,
gold and silver in one shining heap, and threw half a dozen of them to
the little group before the fire.) "For heaven's sake let us get out of
this!" he said, nervously. He could not have explained the sentiment of
horror, almost of fear, that was in his mind. "If it is mine," he said,
as they went down the spiral stair, groping against the black humid
wall, "I shall pull it down and let in some air and clear the filth
away."
"God bless me!" cried the antiquary in horror and distress, "you will
never do that. The finest street in Christendom, and one of the best
houses! No, no, Lord Erradeen, you will never do that!"
When Mr. Bannatyne got back to the club, he expressed an opinion of Lord
Erradeen, which we are glad to believe further experience induced him to
modify. He declared that old Bob Milnathort had given him such a handful
as he had not undertaken for years. "Just a young Cockney!" he said, "a
stupid Englishman! with no more understanding of history, or even of the
share his own race has had in it, than that collie dog--indeed, Yarrow
is far more intelligent, and a brute that is conscious of a fine
descent. I am not saying that there are not fine lads among some of
those English-bred young men, and some that have the sense to like
old-fashioned things. But this young fellow is just a Cockney, he is
just a young cynic. Pull down the house, said he? Spoil the first street
in Europe! We'll see what the Town Council--not to say the Woods and
Forests--will say to that, my young man! And I hope I have Bailie Brown
under my thumb!" the enraged antiquary cried.
Meantime Walter made his way through the dark streets in a tremor of
excitement and dislike of which he could give no explanation to himself.
Why should the old house have affected him so strongly! There was no
reason for it that he knew. Perhaps there was something in the
suddenness of the transition from the comfortable English prose of
Sloebury to all these old world scenes and suggestions which had a
disenchanting effect upon him. He had not been aware that he was more
matter of fact than another, less likely to be affected by romance and
historical associations. But so it had turned out. The grimy squalor of
the place, the bad atmosphere, the odious associations, had either
destroyed for him all the more attractive prejudices of long family
descent, and a name which had descended through many generations--or
else, something more subtle still, some internal influence, had
communicated that loathing and sickness of the heart. Which was it? He
could not tell. He said to himself, with a sort of scorn at himself,
that probably the bourgeois atmosphere of Sloebury had made him
incapable of those imaginative flights for which the highest and the
lowest classes have a mutual aptitude. The atmosphere of comfort and
respectability was against it. This idea rather exasperated him, and he
dwelt upon it with a natural perversity because he hated to identify
himself as one of that stolid middle class which is above or beneath
fanciful impulses. Then he began to wonder whether all this might not be
part of a deep-laid scheme on the part of old Milnathort to get him,
Walter, under his power. No doubt it was arranged that he should be
brought to that intolerable place, and all the spells of the past called
forth to subdue him by his imagination if never through his intellect.
What did they take him for? He was no credulous Celt, but a sober-minded
Englishman, not likely to let his imagination run away with him, or to
be led by the nose by any _diablerie_, however skilful. They might make
up their minds to it, that their wiles of this kind would meet with no
success. Walter was by no means sure who he meant by _they_, or why they
should endeavour to get him into their power; but he wanted something to
find fault with--some way of shaking off the burden of a mental weight
which he did not understand, which filled him with discomfort and new
sensations which he could not explain. He could almost have supposed
(had he believed in mesmerism, according to the description given of it
in fiction--) that he was under some mesmeric influence, and that some
expert, some adept, was trying to decoy him within some fatal circle of
impression. But he set his teeth and all his power of resistance against
it. They should not find him an easy prey.