THE CRY FROM THE CHAMBER.
Brooding, if a man of his temperament may ever be said to brood,
over the sad history of his young wife and the prospects of his
daughter, the marquis rode over fields and through gates--he never
had been one to jump a fence in cold blood--till the darkness
began to fall; and the bearings of his perplexed position came
plainly before him.
First of all, Malcolm acknowledged, and the date of his mother’s death
known, what would Florimel be in the eyes of the world? Supposing
the world deceived by the statement that his mother died when he
was born, where yet was the future he had marked out for her? He
had no money to leave her, and she must be helplessly dependent on
her brother.
Malcolm, on the other hand, might make a good match, or, with the
advantages he could secure him, in the army, still better in the
navy, well enough push his way in the world.
Miss Horn could produce no testimony; and Mrs Catanach had asserted
him the son of Mrs Stewart. He had seen enough, however, to make
him dread certain possible results if Malcolm were acknowledged
as the laird of Kirkbyres. No; there was but one hopeful measure,
one which he had even already approached in a tentative way--
an appeal, namely, to Malcolm himself--in which, acknowledging
his probable rights, but representing in the strongest manner
the difficulty of proving them, he would set forth, in their full
dismay, the consequences to Florimel of their public recognition,
and offer, upon the pledge of his word to a certain line of conduct,
to start him in any path he chose to follow.
Having thought the thing out pretty thoroughly, as he fancied, and
resolved at the same time to feel his way towards negotiations with
Mrs Catanach, he turned and rode home.
After a tolerable dinner, he was sitting over a bottle of the port
which he prized beyond anything else his succession had brought him,
when the door of the dining-room opened suddenly, and the butler
appeared, pale with terror.
“My lord! my lord!” he stammered, as he closed the door behind him.
“Well? What the devil’s the matter now? Whose cow’s dead?”
“Your lordship didn’t hear it then?” faltered the butler.
“You’ve been drinking, Bings,” said the marquis, lifting his seventh
glass of port.
“_I_ didn’t say I heard it, my lord.”
“Heard what--in the name of Beelzebub?”
“The ghost, my lord.”
“The what?” shouted the marquis.
“That’s what they call it, my lord. It’s all along of having that
wizard’s chamber in the house, my lord.”
“You’re a set of fools,” said the marquis, “--the whole kit of you!”
“That’s what I say, my lord. I don’t know what to do with them,
stericking and screaming. Mrs Courthope is trying her best with
them; but it’s my belief she’s about as bad herself.”
The marquis finished his glass of wine, poured out and drank another,
then walked to the door. When the butler opened it, a strange sight
met his eyes. All the servants in the house, men and women, Duncan
and Malcolm alone excepted, had crowded after the butler, every one
afraid of being left behind; and there gleamed the crowd of ghastly
faces in the light of the great hall-fire. Demon stood in front,
his mane bristling, and his eyes flaming. Such was the silence, that
the marquis heard the low howl of the waking wind, and the snow
like the patting of soft hands against the windows. He stood for a
moment, more than half-enjoying their terror, when from somewhere
in the building a far-off shriek, shrill and piercing, rang in
every ear. Some of the men drew in their breath with a gasping sob,
but most of the women screamed outright, and that set the marquis
cursing.
Duncan and Malcolm had but just entered the bedroom of the latter,
when the shriek rent the air close beside, and for a moment deafened
them. So agonized, so shrill, so full of dismal terror was it, that
Malcolm stood aghast, and Duncan started to his feet with responsive
outcry. But Malcolm at once recovered himself.
“Bide here till I come back,” he whispered, and hurried noiselessly
out.
In a few minutes he returned--during which all had been still.
“Noo, daddy,” he said, “I’m gaein’ to drive in the door o’ the
neist room. There’s some deevilry at wark there. Stan’ ye i’ the
door, an’ ghaist or deevil ’at wad win by ye, grip it, an’ haud on
like Demon the dog.”
“She will so, she will so!” muttered Duncan in a strange tone. “Ochone!
that she’ll not pe hafing her turk with her! Ochone! Ochone!”
Malcolm took the key of the wizard’s chamber from his chest, and
his candle from the table, which he set down in the passage. In a
moment he had unlocked the door, put his shoulder to it, and burst
it open. A light was extinguished, and a shapeless figure went
gliding away through the gloom. It was no shadow, however, for,
dashing itself against a door at the other side of the chamber, it
staggered back with an imprecation of fury and fear, pressed two
hands to its head, and, turning at bay, revealed the face of Mrs
Catanach.
In the door stood the blind piper, with outstretched arms, and
hands ready to clutch, the fingers curved like claws, his knees
and haunches bent, leaning forward like a rampant beast prepared
to spring. In his face was wrath, hatred, vengeance, disgust--an
enmity of all mingled kinds.
Malcolm was busied with something in the bed, and when she turned,
Mrs Catanach saw only the white face of hatred gleaming through
the darkness.
“Ye auld donnert deevil!” she cried, with an addition too coarse
to be set down, and threw herself upon him.
The old man said never a word, but with indrawn breath hissing
through his clenched teeth, clutched her, and down they went together
in the passage, the piper undermost. He had her by the throat, it
is true, but she had her fingers in his eyes, and kneeling on his
chest, kept him down with a vigour of hostile effort that drew the
very picture of murder. It lasted but a moment, however, for the
old man, spurred by torture as well as hate, gathered what survived
of a most sinewy strength into one huge heave, threw her back into
the room, and rose, with the blood streaming from his eyes--just
as the marquis came round the near end of the passage, followed by
Mrs Courthope, the butler, Stoat, and two of the footmen. Heartily
enjoying a _row_, he stopped instantly, and signing a halt to his
followers, stood listening to the mud-geyser that now burst from
Mrs Catanach’s throat.
“Ye blin’ abortion o’ Sawtan’s soo!” she cried, “didna I tak ye to
du wi’ ye as I likit. An’ that deil’s tripe ye ca’ yer oye (_grandson_)
--he! he!--_him_ yer gran’son! He’s naething but ane o’ yer hatit
Cawm’ells!”
“A teanga a’ diabhuil mhoir, tha thu ag dèanamh breug (_O tongue of
the great devil, thou art making a lie_)!” screamed Duncan, speaking
for the first time.
“God lay me deid i’ my sins gien he be onything but a bastard
Cawm’ell!” she asseverated with a laugh of demoniacal scorn. “Yer
dautit (_petted_) Ma’colm’s naething but the dyke-side brat o’ the
late Grizel Cawm’ell, ’at the fowk tuik for a sant ’cause she grat
an’ said naething. I laid the Cawm’ell pup i’ yer boody (_scarecrow_)
airms wi’ my ain han’s, upo’ the tap o’ yer curst scraighin’ bag-pipes
’at sae aften drave the sleep frae my een. Na, ye wad nane o’ me!
But I gae ye a Cawm’ell bairn to yer hert for a’ that, ye auld,
hungert, weyver-leggit (_spider-legged_), worm-aten idiot!”
A torrent of Gaelic broke from Duncan, into the midst of which
rushed another from Mrs Catanach, similar, but coarse in vowel and
harsh in consonant sounds.
The marquis stepped into the room.
“What is the meaning of all this?” he said with dignity. The tumult
of Celtic altercation ceased. The piper drew himself up to his full
height, and stood silent. Mrs Catanach, red as fire with exertion
and wrath, turned ashy pale. The marquis cast on her a searching
and significant look.
“See here, my lord,” said Malcolm.
Candle in hand, his lordship approached the bed. The same moment
Mrs Catanach glided out with her usual downy step, gave a wink as
of mutual intelligence to the group at the door, and vanished.
On Malcolm’s arm lay the head of a young girl. Her thin, worn
countenance was stained with tears, and livid with suffocation.
She was recovering, but her eyes rolled stupid and visionless.
“It’s Phemy, my lord--Blue Peter’s lassie ’at was tint,” said
Malcolm.
“It begins to look serious,” said the marquis. “Mrs Catanach!--
Mrs Courthope!”
He turned towards the door. Mrs Courthope entered, and a head or two
peeped in after her. Duncan stood as before, drawn up and stately,
his visage working, but his body motionless as the statue of a
sentinel.
“Where is the Catanach woman gone?” cried the marquis.
“Cone!” shouted the piper. “Cone! and her huspant will pe waiting
to pe killing her! Och nan ochan!”
“Her husband!” echoed the marquis.
“Ach! she’ll not can pe helping it, my lort--no more till one
will pe tead--and tat should pe ta woman, for she’ll pe a paad
woman--ta worstest woman efer was married, my lort.”
“That’s saying a good deal,” returned the marquis.
“Not one worrt more as enough, my lort,” said Duncan. “She was only
pe her next wife, put, ochone! ochone! why did she’ll pe marry
her? You would haf stapt her long aco, my lort, if she’ll was your
wife, and you was knowing the tamned fox and padger she was pe.
Ochone! and she tidn’t pe have her turk at her hench nor her sgian[9]
in her hose.”
[9] another spelling of _skene dhu_.
He shook his hands like a despairing child, then stamped and wept
in the agony of frustrated rage.
Mrs Courthope took Phemy in her arms, and carried her to her own
room, where she opened the window, and let the snowy wind blow full
upon her. As soon as she came quite to herself, Malcolm set out to
bear the good tidings to her father and mother.
Only a few nights before had Phemy been taken to the room where
they found her. She had been carried from place to place, and had
been some time, she believed, in Mrs Catanach’s own house. They had
always kept her in the dark, and removed her at night, blindfolded.
When asked if she had never cried out before, she said she had been
too frightened; and when questioned as to what had made her do so
then, she knew nothing of it: she remembered only that a horrible
creature appeared by the bedside, after which all was blank. On
the floor they found a hideous death-mask, doubtless the cause of
the screams which Mrs Catanach had sought to stifle with the pillows
and bedclothes.
When Malcolm returned, he went at once to the piper’s cottage, where
he found him in bed, utterly exhausted, and as utterly restless.
“Weel, daddy,” he said, “I doobt I daurna come near ye noo.”
“Come to her arms, my poor poy!” faltered Duncan. “She’ll pe sorry
in her sore heart for her poy! Nefer you pe minding, my son; you
couldn’t help ta Cam’ell mother, and you’ll pe her own poy howefer.
Ochone! it will pe a plot upon you aal your tays, my son, and she’ll
not can help you, and it’ll pe preaking her old heart!”
“Gien God thoucht the Cam’ells worth makin’, daddy, I dinna see
’at I hae ony richt to compleen ’at I cam’ o’ them.”
“She hopes you’ll pe forgifing ta plind old man, however. She
couldn’t see, or she would haf known at once petter.”
“I dinna ken what ye’re efter noo, daddy,” said Malcolm.
“That she’ll do you a creat wrong, and she’ll be ferry sorry for
it, my son.”
“What wrang did ye ever du me, daddy?”
“That she was let you crow up a Cam’ell, my poy. If she tid put know
ta paad plood was pe in you, she wouldn’t pe tone you ta wrong as
pring you up.”
“That’s a wrang no ill to forgie, daddy. But it’s a pity ye
didna lat me lie, for maybe syne Mistress Catanach wad hae broucht
me up hersel’, an’ I micht hae come to something.”
“Ta duvil mhor (_great_) would pe in your heart and prain and poosom,
my son.”
“Weel, ye see what ye hae saved me frae.”
“Yes; put ta duvil will pe to pay, for she couldn’t safe you from
ta Cam’ell plood, my son! Malcolm, my poy,” he added after a pause,
and with the solemnity of a mighty hate, “ta efil woman herself
will pe a Cam’ell--ta woman Catanach will pe a Cam’ell, and her
nainsel she’ll not know it pefore she’ll be in ta ped with the
worsest Cam’ell tat ever God made--and she pecks his pardon, for
she’ll not pelieve he wass making ta Cam’ells.”
“Divna ye think God made me, daddy?” asked Malcolm.
The old man thought for a little.
“Tat will tepend on who was pe your father, my son,” he replied.
“If he too will pe a Cam’ell--ochone! ochone! Put tere may pe
some coot plood co into you, more as enough to say God will pe make
you, my son. Put ton’t pe asking, Malcolm. Ton’t you’ll pe asking.”
“What am I no to ask, daddy?”
“Ton’t pe asking who made you--who was ta father to you, my poy.
She would rather not pe knowing, for ta man might pe a Cam’ell
poth. And if she couldn’t pe lofing you no more, my son, she would
pe tie pefore her time, and her tays would pe long in ta land under
ta crass, my son.”
But the memory of the sweet face whose cold loveliness he had once
kissed, was enough to outweigh with Malcolm all the prejudices of
Duncan’s instillation, and he was proud to take up even her shame.
To pass from Mrs Stewart to her, was to escape from the clutches
of a vampire demon to the arms of a sweet mother angel.
Deeply concerned for the newly-discovered misfortunes of the old
man to whom he was indebted for this world’s life at least, he
anxiously sought to soothe him; but he had far more and far worse
to torment him than Malcolm even yet knew, and with burning cheeks
and bloodshot eyes, he lay tossing from side to side, now uttering
terrible curses in Gaelic, and now weeping bitterly. Malcolm took
his loved pipes, and with the gentlest notes he could draw from
them tried to charm to rest the ruffled waters of his spirit; but
his efforts were all in vain, and believing at length that he would
be quieter without him, he went to the House, and to his own room.
The door of the adjoining chamber stood open, and the long-forbidden
room lay exposed to any eye. Little did Malcolm think as he gazed
around it, that it was the room in which he had first breathed the
air of the world; in which his mother had wept over her own false
position and his reported death; and from which he had been carried,
by Duncan’s wicked wife, down the ruinous stair, and away to the
lip of the sea, to find a home in the arms of the man whom he had
just left on his lonely couch, torn between the conflicting emotions
of a gracious love for him, and the frightful hate of her.