MRS STEWART’S CLAIM.
The weather became unsettled with the approach of winter, and the
marquis had a boat-house built at the west end of the Seaton: there
the little cutter was laid up, well wrapt in tarpaulins, like a
butterfly returned to the golden coffin of her internatal chrysalis.
A great part of his resulting leisure, Malcolm spent with Mr Graham,
to whom he had, as a matter of course, unfolded the trouble caused
him by Duncan’s communication.
The more thoughtful a man is, and the more conscious of what is
going on within himself, the more interest will he take in what
he can know of his progenitors, to the remotest generations; and a
regard to ancestral honours, however contemptible the forms which
the appropriation of them often assumes, is a plant rooted in the
deepest soil of humanity. The high-souled labourer will yield to
none in his respect for the dignity of his origin, and Malcolm had
been as proud of the humble descent he supposed his own, as Lord
Lossie was of his mighty ancestry. Malcolm had indeed a loftier
sense of resulting dignity than his master.
He reverenced Duncan both for his uprightness and for a certain
grandeur of spirit, which, however ridiculous to the common eye,
would have been glorious in the eyes of the chivalry of old; he
looked up to him with admiration because of his gifts in poetry
and music; and loved him endlessly for his unfailing goodness and
tenderness to himself. Even the hatred of the grand old man had
an element of unselfishness in its retroaction, of power in its
persistency, and of greatness in its absolute contempt of compromise.
At the same time he was the only human being to whom Malcolm’s
heart had gone forth as to his own; and now, with the knowledge of
yet deeper cause for loving him, he had to part with the sense of
a filial relation to him! And this involved more; for so thoroughly
had the old man come to regard the boy as his offspring, that he
had nourished in him his own pride of family; and it added a sting
of mortification to Malcolm’s sorrow, that the greatness of the
legendary descent in which he had believed, and the honourableness
of the mournful history with which his thoughts of himself had been
so closely associated, were swept from him utterly. Nor was this
all even yet: in losing these he had had, as it were, to let go his
hold, not of his clan merely, but of his race: every link of kin
that bound him to humanity had melted away from his grasp. Suddenly
he would become aware that his heart was sinking within him, and
questioning it why, would learn anew that he was alone in the world,
a being without parents, without sister or brother, with none to
whom he might look in the lovely confidence of a right bequeathed
by some common mother, near or afar. He had waked into being,
but all around him was dark, for there was no window, that is, no
kindred eye, by which the light of the world whence he had come,
entering might console him.
But a gulf of blackness was about to open at his feet, against
which the darkness he now lamented would show purple and gray.
One afternoon, as he passed through the Seaton from the harbour,
to have a look at the cutter, he heard the Partaness calling after
him.
“Weel, ye’re a sicht for sair een--noo ’at ye’re like to turn
oot something worth luikin’ at!” she cried, as he approached with
his usual friendly smile.
“What du ye mean by that, Mistress Findlay?” asked Malcolm, carelessly
adding: “Is yer man in?”
“Ay!” she went on, without heeding either question; “ye’ll be gran’
set up noo! Ye’ll no be haein’ ‘a fine day’ to fling at yer auld
freen’s, the puir fisher-fowk, or lang! Weel! it’s the w’y o’ the
warl! Hech, sirs!”
“What on earth’s set ye aff like that Mrs Findlay?” said Malcolm.
“It’s nae sic a feerious (_furious_) gran’ thing to be my lord’s
skipper--or henchman, as my daddy wad hae ’t--surely! It’s a
heap gran’er like to be a free fisherman, wi’ a boat o’ yer ain,
like the Partan.”
“Hoots! Nane o’ yer clavers! Ye ken weel eneuch what I mean--as
weel ’s ilka ither creatit sowl o’ Portlossie. An’ gien ye dinna
chowse to lat on aboot it till an auld freen’ cause she’s naething
but a fisher-wife, it’s dune ye mair skaith a’ready nor I thocht it
wad to the lang last, Ma’colm--for it’s yer ain name I s’ ca’
ye yet, gien ye war ten times a laird!--didna I gie ye the breist
whan ye cud du naething i’ the wardle but sowk?--An’ weel ye
sowkit, puir innocent ’at ye _was_!”
“As sure ’s we’re baith alive,” asseverated Malcolm, “I ken nae mair
nor a sawtit herrin’ what ye’re drivin’ at.”
“Tell me ’at ye dinna ken what a’ the queentry kens--an’ hit
aboot yer ain sel’!” screamed the Partaness.
“I tell ye I ken naething; an’ gien ye dinna tell me what ye’re
efter direckly, I s’ haud awa’ to Mistress Allison--_she_ ’ll tell
me.”
This was a threat sufficiently prevailing.
“It’s no in natur’!” she cried. “Here’s Mistress Stewart o’ the
Gersefell been cawin’ (_driving_) like mad aboot the place, in her
cairriage an’ hoo mony horse I dinna ken, declarin’, ay, sweirin’,
they tell me, ’at ane cowmonly ca’d Ma’colm MacPhail is neither
mair nor less nor the son born o’ her ain body in honest wadlock!
--an’ tell me _ye_ ken naething aboot it!--What are ye stan’in’ like
that for--as gray-mou’d ’s a deein’ skate?”
For the first time in his life, Malcolm, young and strong as he was,
felt sick. Sea and sky grew dim before him, and the earth seemed
to reel under him.
“I dinna believe ’t,” he faltered--and turned away.
“Ye dinna believe what I tell ye!” screeched the wrathful Partaness.
“Ye daur to say the word!”
But Malcolm did not care to reply. He wandered away, half unconscious
of where he was, his head hanging, and his eyes creeping over the
ground. The words of the woman kept ringing in his ears; but ever
and anon, behind them as it were in the depth of his soul, he heard
the voice of the mad laird, with its one lamentation: “I dinna ken
whaur I cam’ frae.” Finding himself at length at Mr Graham’s door,
he wondered how he had got there.
It was Saturday afternoon, and the master was in the churchyard.
Startled by Malcolm’s look, he gazed at him in grave silent enquiry.
“Hae ye h’ard the ill news, sir?” said the youth.
“No; I’m sorry to hear there is any.”
“They tell me Mistress Stewart’s rinnin’ aboot the toon claimin’
me!”
“Claiming you!--How do you mean?”
“For her ain!”
“Not for her son?”
“Ay, sir--that’s what they say. But ye haena h’ard o’ ’t?”
“Not a word.”
“Then I believe it’s a’ havers!” cried Malcolm energetically. “It
was sair eneuch upo’ me a’ready to ken less o’ whaur I cam frae
than the puir laird himsel’; but to come frae whaur he cam frae,
was a thocht ower sair!”
“You don’t surely despise the poor fellow so much as to scorn to
have the same parents with him!” said Mr Graham.
“The verra contrar’, sir. But a wuman wha wad sae misguide the son
o’ her ain body, an’ for naething but that, as she had broucht him
furth, sic he was!--it’s no to be lichtly believed nor lichtly
endured. I s’ awa’ to Miss Horn an’ see whether _she_’s h’ard ony
sic leein’ clashes.”
But as Malcolm uttered her name, his heart sank within him, for
their talk the night he had sought her hospitality for the laird,
came back to his memory, burning like an acrid poison.
“You can’t do better,” said Mr Graham. “The report itself may be
false--or true, and the lady mistaken.”
“She’ll hae to pruv ’t weel afore I say _haud_,” rejoined Malcolm.
“And suppose she does?”
“In that case,” said Malcolm, with a composure almost ghastly, “a
man maun tak what mither it pleases God to gie him. But faith! she
winna du wi’ me as wi’ the puir laird. Gien she taks me up, she’ll
repent ’at she didna lat me lie. She’ll be as little pleased wi’
the tane o’ her sons as the tither--I can tell her, ohn propheseed!”
“But think what you might do between mother and son,” suggested
the master, willing to reconcile him to the possible worst.
“It’s ower late for that,” he answered. “The puir man’s thairms
(_fiddle-strings_) are a’ hingin’ lowse, an’ there’s no grip eneuch
i’ the pegs to set them up again. He wad but think I had gane ower
to the enemy, an’ haud oot o’ _my_ gait as eident (_diligently_) as he
hauds oot o’ hers. Na, it wad du naething for him. Gien ’t warna
for what I see in _him_, I wad hae a gran’ rebutter to her claim;
for hoo cud ony wuman’s ain son hae sic a scunner at her as I hae
i’ my hert an’ brain an’ verra stamach? Gien she war my ain mither,
there bude to be some nait’ral drawin’s atween ’s, a body wad think.
But it winna haud, for there’s the laird! The verra name o’ mither
gars him steik his lugs an’ rin.”
“Still, if she be your mother, it’s for better for worse as much
as if she had been your own choice.”
“I kenna weel hoo it cud be for waur,” said Malcolm, who did not
yet, even from his recollection of the things Miss Horn had said,
comprehend what worst threatened him.
“It does seem strange,” said the master thoughtfully, after a
pause, “that some women should be allowed to be mothers!-- that through
them sons and daughters of God should come into the world--thief-babies,
say! human parasites, with no choice but feed on the social
body!”
“I wonner what God thinks aboot it a’! It gars a body spier whether
he cares or no,” said Malcolm gloomily.
“It does,” responded Mr Graham solemnly.
“Div _ye_ alloo that, sir?” returned Malcolm aghast. “That soon’s as
gien a’thing war rushin’ thegither back to the auld chaos.”
“I should not be surprised,” continued the master, apparently
heedless of Malcolm’s consternation, “if the day should come when
well-meaning men, excellent in the commonplace, but of dwarfed
imagination, refused to believe in a God on the ground of apparent
injustice in the very frame and constitution of things. Such would
argue, that there might be either an omnipotent being who did not
care, or a good being who could not help; but that there could not
be a being both all-good and omnipotent, for such would never have
suffered things to be as they are.”
“What wad the clergy say to hear ye, sir?” said Malcolm, himself
almost trembling at the words of his master.
“Nothing to the purpose, I fear. They would never face the
question. I know what they would do if they could,--burn me, as
their spiritual ancestor, Calvin, would have done--whose shoe-latchet
they are yet not worthy to unloose. But mind, my boy, you’ve
not heard me speak _my_ thought on the matter at all.”
“But wadna ’t be better to believe in twa Gods nor nane ava’?”
propounded Malcolm;--“ane a’ guid, duin’ the best for ’s he cud,
the ither a’ ill, but as pooerfu’ as the guid ane--an’ forever
an’ aye a fecht atween them, whiles ane gettin’ the warst o’ ’t, an
whiles the ither? It wad quaiet yer hert ony gait, an’ the battle
o’ Armageddon wad gang on as gran’ ’s ever.”
“Two Gods there could not be,” said Mr Graham. “Of the two beings
supposed, the evil one must be called _devil_, were he ten times the
more powerful.”
“Wi’ a’ my hert!” responded Malcolm.
“But I agree with you,” the master went on, “that Manicheism
is unspeakably better than atheism, and _unthinkably_ better than
believing in an unjust God. But I am not driven to such a theory.”
“Hae ye ane o’ yer ain ’at’ll fit, sir?”
“If I knew of a theory in which was never an uncompleted arch
or turret, in whose circling wall was never a ragged breach, that
theory I should know but to avoid: such gaps are the eternal windows
through which the dawn shall look in. A complete theory is a vault
of stone around the theorist--whose very being yet depends on
room to grow.”
“Weel, I wad like to hear what ye hae agane Manicheism!”
“The main objection of theologians would be, I presume, that it did
not present a God perfect in power as in goodness; but I think it
a far more objectionable point that it presents evil as possessing
power in itself. My chief objection, however, would be a far deeper
one--namely, that its good being cannot be absolutely good; for,
if he knew himself unable to insure the well-being of his creatures,
if he could not avoid exposing them to such foreign attack, had
he a right to create them? Would he have chosen such a doubtful
existence for one whom he meant to love absolutely?--Either,
then, he did not love like a God, or he would not have created.”
“He micht ken himsel’ sure to win i’ the lang rin.”
“Grant the same to the God of the Bible, and we come back to where
we were before.”
“Does that satisfee yersel’, Maister Graham?” asked Malcolm, looking
deep into the eyes of his teacher.
“Not at all,” answered the master.
“Does onything?”
“Yes: but I will not say more on the subject now. The time may come
when I shall have to speak that which I have learned, but it is not
yet. All I will say now is, that I am at peace concerning the question.
Indeed, so utterly do I feel myself the offspring of the One, that
it would be enough for my peace now--I don’t say it would have been
always--to know my mind troubled on a matter: what troubled me would
trouble God: my trouble at the seeming wrong must have its being in the
right existent in him. In him, supposing I could find none, I should
yet say there _must_ lie a lucent, harmonious, eternal, not merely
consoling, but absolutely satisfying solution.”
“Winna ye tell me a’ ’at’s in yer hert aboot it, sir?”
“Not now, my boy. You have got one thing to mind now--before all
other things--namely, that you give this woman--whatever she
be--fair play: if she be your mother, _as_ such you must take her,
that is, as such you must treat her.”
“Ye’re richt, sir,” returned Malcolm, and rose.
“Come back to me,” said Mr Graham, “with whatever news you gather.”
“I will, sir,” answered Malcolm, and went to find Miss Horn. He was
shown into the little parlour, which, for all the grander things
he had been amongst of late, had lost nothing of its first charm.
There sat Miss Horn.
“Sit doon, Ma’colm,” she said gruffly.
“Hae ye h’ard onything, mem?” asked Malcolm, standing.
“Ower muckle,” answered Miss Horn, with all but a scowl. “Ye been
ower to Gersefell, I reckon.”
“Forbid it!” answered Malcolm. “Never till this hoor--or at maist
it’s nae twa sin’ I h’ard the first cheep o’ ’t, an’ that was frae
Meg Partan. To nae human sowl hae I made mention o’ ’t yet ’cep’
Maister Graham: to him I gaed direck.”
“Ye cudna hae dune better,” said the grim woman, with relaxing
visage.
“An’ here I am the noo, straucht frae him, to beg o’ you, Miss
Horn, to tell me the trowth o’ the maitter.”
“What ken I aboot it?” she returned angrily. “What _sud_ I ken?”
“Ye micht ken whether the wuman’s been sayin’ ’t or no.”
“Wha has ony doobt aboot that?”
“Mistress Stewart _has_ been sayin’ she’s my mither, than?”
“Ay--what for no?” returned Miss Horn, with a piercing _glower_ at
the youth.
“Guid forfen’!” exclaimed Malcolm.
“Say ye that, laddie?” cried Miss Horn, and, starting up, she
grasped his arm and stood gazing in his face.
“What ither sud I say?” rejoined Malcolm, surprised.
“God be laudit!” exclaimed Miss Horn. “The limmer may say ’at she
likes noo.”
“_Ye_ dinna believe ’t than, mem?” cried Malcolm. “Tell me ye dinna,
an’ haud me ohn curst like a cadger.”
“I dinna believe ae word o’ ’t, laddie,” answered Miss Horn eagerly.
“Wha _cud_ believe sic a fine laad come o’ sic a fause mither?”
“She micht be ony body’s mither, an’ fause tu,” said Malcolm
gloomily.
“That’s true laddie; and the mair mither the fauser! There’s a warl’
o’ witness i’ your face ’at gien she be yer mither, the markis, an
no puir honest hen-peckit John Stewart, was the father o’ ye.--
The Lord forgie me! what am I sayin’!” adjected Miss Horn, with
a cry of self-accusation, when she saw the pallor that overspread
the countenance of the youth, and his head drop upon his bosom: the
last arrow had sunk to the feather. “It’s a’ havers, ony gait,” she
quickly resumed. “I div not believe ye hae ae drap o’ her bluid i’
the body o’ ye, man. But,” she hurried on, as if eager to obliterate
the scoring impression of her late words--“that she’s been sayin’
’t, there can be no mainner o’ doot. I saw her mysel’ rinnin’ aboot
the toon, frae ane till anither, wi’ her lang hair doon the lang
back o’ her, an’ fleein’ i’ the win’, like a body dementit. The
only queston is, whether or no she believes ’t hersel’.”
“What cud gar her say ’t gien she didna believe ’t?”
“Fowk says she expecs that w’y to get a grip o’ things oot o’ the
han’s o’ the puir laird’s trustees: ye wad be a son o’ her ain,
cawpable o’ mainagin’ them. But ye dinna tell me she’s never been
at yersel’ aboot it?”
“Never a blink o’ the ee has passed atween ’s sin’ that day I gaed
till Gersefell, as I tellt ye, wi’ a letter frae the markis. I
thoucht I was ower mony for her than: I wonner she daur be at me
again.”
“She’s daurt her God er’ noo, an’ may weel daur you.--But what
says yer gran’father till ’t, no?”
“He hasna hard a chuckie’s cheep o’ ’t.”
“What are we haverin’ at than! Canna he sattle the maitter aff
han’?”
Miss Horn eyed him keenly as she spoke.
“He kens nae mair aboot whaur I come frae, mem, nor your Jean, wha’s
hearkenin’ at the keyhole this verra meenute.”
The quick ear of Malcolm had caught a slight sound of the handle,
whose proximity to the keyhole was no doubt often troublesome to
Jean.
Miss Horn seemed to reach the door with one _spang_. Jean was ascending
the last step of the stair with a message on her lips concerning
butter and eggs. Miss Horn received it, and went back to Malcolm.
“Na; Jean wadna du that,” she said quietly.
But she was wrong, for, hearing Malcolm’s words, Jean had retreated
one step down the stair, and turned.
“But what’s this ye tell me aboot yer gran’father, honest man,”
Miss Horn continued.
“Duncan MacPhail’s nae bluid o’ mine--the mair’s the pity!” said
Malcolm sadly--and told her all he knew.
Miss Horn’s visage went through wonderful changes as he spoke.
“Weel, it _is_ a mercy I hae nae feelin’s!” she said when he had
done.
“Ony wuman can lay a claim till me ’at likes, ye see,” said Malcolm.
“She may lay ’at she likes, but it’s no ilka egg laid has a chuckie
intill ’t,” answered Miss Horn sententiously. “Jist ye gang hame
to auld Duncan, an’ tell him to turn the thing ower in ’s min’ till
he’s able to sweir to the verra nicht he fan’ the bairn in ’s lap.
But no ae word maun he say to leevin’ sowl aboot it afore it’s
requiret o’ ’im.”
“I wad be the son o’ the puirest fisher-wife i’ the Seaton raither
nor hers,” said Malcolm gloomily.
“An’ it shaws ye better bred,” said Miss Horn. “But she’ll be at
ye or lang--an’ tak ye tent what ye say. Dinna flee in her face;
lat her jaw awa’, an’ mark her words. She may lat a streak o’ licht
oot o’ her dirk lantren oonawaurs.”
Malcolm returned to Mr Graham. They agreed there was nothing for
it but to wait. He went next to his grandfather and gave him Miss
Horn’s message. The old man fell a thinking, but could not be
certain even of the year in which he had left his home. The clouds
hung very black around Malcolm’s horizon.
Since the adventure in the Baillies’ Barn, Lady Florimel had been
on a visit in Morayshire: she heard nothing of the report until
she returned.
“So you’re a gentleman after all, Malcolm!” she said, the next time
she saw him.
The expression in her eyes appeared to him different from any
he had encountered there before. The blood rushed to his face; he
dropped his head, and saying merely, “It maun be a’ as it maun,”
pursued the occupation of the moment.
But her words sent a new wind blowing into the fog. _A gentleman_
she had said! Gentlemen married ladies! Could it be that a glory
it was madness to dream of, was yet a possibility? One moment,
and his honest heart recoiled from the thought: not even for Lady
Florimel could he _consent_ to be the son of that woman! Yet the
thought, especially in Lady Florimel’s presence, would return,
would linger, would whisper, would tempt.
In Florimel’s mind also, a small demon of romance was at work.
Uncorrupted as yet by social influences, it would not have seemed
to her absurd that an heiress of rank should marry a poor country
gentleman; but the thought of marriage never entered her head: she
only felt that the discovery justified a nearer approach from both
sides. She had nothing, not even a flirtation in view. Flirt she
might, likely enough, but she did not foremean it.
Had Malcolm been a schemer, he would have tried to make something
of his position. But even the growth of his love for his young
mistress was held in check by the fear of what that love tempted
him to desire.
Lady Florimel had by this time got so used to his tone and dialect,
hearing it on all sides of her, that its quaintness had ceased to
affect her, and its coarseness had begun to influence her repulsively.
There were still to be found in Scotland old-fashioned gentlefolk
speaking the language of the country with purity and refinement;
but Florimel had never met any of them, or she might possibly have
been a little less repelled by Malcolm’s speech.
Within a day or two of her return, Mrs Stewart called at Lossie
House, and had a long talk with her, in the course of which she
found no difficulty in gaining her to promise her influence with
Malcolm. From his behaviour on the occasion of their sole interview,
she stood in a vague awe of him, and indeed could not recall it
without a feeling of rebuke--a feeling which must either turn her
aside from her purpose or render her the more anxious to secure his
favour. Hence it came that she had not yet sought him: she would
have the certainty first that he was kindly disposed towards her
claim--a thing she would never have doubted but for the glimpse
she had had of him.
One Saturday afternoon, about this time, Mr Stewart put his head
in at the door of the schoolroom, as he had done so often already,
and seeing the master seated alone at his desk, walked in, saying
once more, with a polite bow,--
“I dinna ken whaur I cam frae: I want to come to the school.”
Mr Graham assured him of welcome as cordially as if it had been
the first time he came with the request, and yet again offered him
a chair; but the laird as usual declined it, and walked down the
room to find a seat with his companion-scholars. He stopped midway,
however, and returned to the desk, where, standing on tip-toe, he
whispered in the master’s ear: “I canna come upo’ the door.” Then
turning away again, he crept dejectedly to a seat where some of
the girls had made room for him. There he took a slate, and began
drawing what might seem an attempt at a door; but ever as he drew
he blotted out, and nothing that could be called a door was the
result. Meantime, Mr Graham was pondering at intervals what he had
said.
School being over, the laird was modestly leaving with the rest,
when the master gently called him, and requested the favour of a
moment more of his company. As soon as they were alone, he took a
Bible from his desk, and read the words:
“I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and
shall go in and out, and find pasture.”
Without comment, he closed the book, and put it away. Mr Stewart
stood staring up at him for a moment, then turned, and gently
murmuring, “I canna win at the door,” walked from the school-house.
It was refuge the poor fellow sought--whether from temporal
or spiritual foes will matter little to him who believes that the
only shelter from the one is the only shelter from the other also.