Although an old, consistent exile, the editor of the following pages
revisits now and again the city of which he exults to be a native; and
there are few things more strange, more painful, or more salutary, than
such revisitations. Outside, in foreign spots, he comes by surprise and
awakens more attention than he had expected; in his own city, the
relation is reversed, and he stands amazed to be so little recollected.
Elsewhere he is refreshed to see attractive faces, to remark possible
friends; there he scouts the long streets, with a pang at heart, for the
faces and friends that are no more. Elsewhere he is delighted with the
presence of what is new, there tormented by the absence of what is old.
Elsewhere he is content to be his present self; there he is smitten with
an equal regret for what he once was and for what he once hoped to be.
He was feeling all this dimly, as he drove from the station, on his last
visit; he was feeling it still as he alighted at the door of his friend
Mr. Johnstone Thomson, W.S., with whom he was to stay. A hearty welcome,
a face not altogether changed, a few words that sounded of old days, a
laugh provoked and shared, a glimpse in passing of the snowy cloth and
bright decanters and the Piranesis on the dining-room wall, brought him
to his bed-room with a somewhat lightened cheer, and when he and Mr.
Thomson sat down a few minutes later, cheek by jowl, and pledged the past
in a preliminary bumper, he was already almost consoled, he had already
almost forgiven himself his two unpardonable errors, that he should ever
have left his native city, or ever returned to it.
‘I have something quite in your way,’ said Mr. Thomson. ‘I wished to do
honour to your arrival; because, my dear fellow, it is my own youth that
comes back along with you; in a very tattered and withered state, to be
sure, but—well!—all that’s left of it.’
‘A great deal better than nothing,’ said the editor. ‘But what is this
which is quite in my way?’
‘I was coming to that,’ said Mr. Thomson: ‘Fate has put it in my power to
honour your arrival with something really original by way of dessert. A
mystery.’
‘A mystery?’ I repeated.
‘Yes,’ said his friend, ‘a mystery. It may prove to be nothing, and it
may prove to be a great deal. But in the meanwhile it is truly
mysterious, no eye having looked on it for near a hundred years; it is
highly genteel, for it treats of a titled family; and it ought to be
melodramatic, for (according to the superscription) it is concerned with
death.’
‘I think I rarely heard a more obscure or a more promising annunciation,’
the other remarked. ‘But what is It?’
‘You remember my predecessor’s, old Peter M‘Brair’s business?’
‘I remember him acutely; he could not look at me without a pang of
reprobation, and he could not feel the pang without betraying it. He was
to me a man of a great historical interest, but the interest was not
returned.’
‘Ah well, we go beyond him,’ said Mr. Thomson. ‘I daresay old Peter knew
as little about this as I do. You see, I succeeded to a prodigious
accumulation of old law-papers and old tin boxes, some of them of Peter’s
hoarding, some of his father’s, John, first of the dynasty, a great man
in his day. Among other collections were all the papers of the
Durrisdeers.’
‘The Durrisdeers!’ cried I. ‘My dear fellow, these may be of the
greatest interest. One of them was out in the ’45; one had some strange
passages with the devil—you will find a note of it in Law’s _Memorials_,
I think; and there was an unexplained tragedy, I know not what, much
later, about a hundred years ago—‘
‘More than a hundred years ago,’ said Mr. Thomson. ‘In 1783.’
‘How do you know that? I mean some death.’
‘Yes, the lamentable deaths of my lord Durrisdeer and his brother, the
Master of Ballantrae (attainted in the troubles),’ said Mr. Thomson with
something the tone of a man quoting. ‘Is that it?’
‘To say truth,’ said I, ‘I have only seen some dim reference to the
things in memoirs; and heard some traditions dimmer still, through my
uncle (whom I think you knew). My uncle lived when he was a boy in the
neighbourhood of St. Bride’s; he has often told me of the avenue closed
up and grown over with grass, the great gates never opened, the last lord
and his old maid sister who lived in the back parts of the house, a
quiet, plain, poor, hum-drum couple it would seem—but pathetic too, as
the last of that stirring and brave house—and, to the country folk,
faintly terrible from some deformed traditions.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Thomson. Henry Graeme Durie, the last lord, died in
1820; his sister, the Honourable Miss Katherine Durie, in ’27; so much I
know; and by what I have been going over the last few days, they were
what you say, decent, quiet people and not rich. To say truth, it was a
letter of my lord’s that put me on the search for the packet we are going
to open this evening. Some papers could not be found; and he wrote to
Jack M‘Brair suggesting they might be among those sealed up by a Mr.
Mackellar. M‘Brair answered, that the papers in question were all in
Mackellar’s own hand, all (as the writer understood) of a purely
narrative character; and besides, said he, “I am bound not to open them
before the year 1889.” You may fancy if these words struck me: I
instituted a hunt through all the M‘Brair repositories; and at last hit
upon that packet which (if you have had enough wine) I propose to show
you at once.’
In the smoking-room, to which my host now led me, was a packet, fastened
with many seals and enclosed in a single sheet of strong paper thus
endorsed:—
Papers relating to the lives and lamentable deaths of the late Lord
Durisdeer, and his elder brother James, commonly called Master of
Ballantrae, attainted in the troubles: entrusted into the hands of
John M‘Brair in the Lawnmarket of Edinburgh, W.S.; this 20th day of
September Anno Domini 1789; by him to be kept secret until the
revolution of one hundred years complete, or until the 20th day of
September 1889: the same compiled and written by me,
EPHRAIM MACKELLAR,
_For near forty years Land Steward on the_
_estates of His Lordship_.
As Mr. Thomson is a married man, I will not say what hour had struck when
we laid down the last of the following pages; but I will give a few words
of what ensued.
‘Here,’ said Mr. Thomson, ‘is a novel ready to your hand: all you have to
do is to work up the scenery, develop the characters, and improve the
style.’
‘My dear fellow,’ said I, ‘they are just the three things that I would
rather die than set my hand to. It shall be published as it stands.’
‘But it’s so bald,’ objected Mr. Thomson.
‘I believe there is nothing so noble as baldness,’ replied I, ‘and I am
sure there is nothing so interesting. I would have all literature bald,
and all authors (if you like) but one.’
‘Well, well,’ said Mr. Thomson, ‘we shall see.’
* * * * *
Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press