"My good friend, I advise you to yield up this affair into my hands as
the first law officer of Scotland. All chance of concealment of this
lady's case has been over for some time. Measures have been taken for
some months to compel you to resign the charge which you surely cannot
wish to retain--"
Sir Alexander broke in with curses on himself for having ever been
persuaded into involving himself in such a business.
"By the desire, I presume, of Lord Carse, Lord Lovat, Mr Forster, and
others, not now particularly distinguished for their loyalty."
"That is the cursed part of it," muttered Sir Alexander. "It was to
further their Jacobite plots that they put this vixen out of the way,
because she had some secrets in her power, and they laid it all on her
temper, which, they told me, caused my lord to go in fear of his
reputation and his life."
"There was truth in that, to my knowledge," observed the President; "and
there were considerations connected with the daughters--natural
considerations, though leading to unnatural cruelty."
"Politics were at the bottom, for all that," said the chief, "And now,
as she has been my prisoner for so long, I suppose they will throw the
whole responsibility upon me. The rebel leaders hate me for my loyalty
as they hate the devil. They hate me--"
"As they hate Lord Loudon and myself," interposed the President, "which
they do, I take it, much more bitterly than they ever did the devil.
But, Sir Alexander, let me point out to you that your course in regard
to this lady is now clear. If the rebellion succeeds, let the leaders
find that you have taken out of their hands this weapon, which they
might otherwise use for your destruction. Let them find you acting with
me in restoring the lady to her rights. If, as I anticipate, the
rebellion is yet to fail, this is still your only safe course. It will
afford you the best chance of impunity--which impunity, however, it is
not for me to promise--for the illegality and the guilt of your past
conduct to the victim. There is something in our friend's countenance
here," he continued, turning to the widow with a smile, "which I should
like to understand. I fear I have not her good opinion, as I could
wish."
Annie told exactly what she was thinking: that all this reasoning was
wrong, because wasteful of the right. Surely it was the shortest and
clearest thing to say that, late as it was, it was better for Sir
Alexander to begin doing right than persist in the wrong.
"I quite agree with you," said the President, "and if people generally
were like you, we should be saved most of the argumentation of our law
courts--if, indeed, we should need the courts at all, or, perhaps, even
any human law. Come, Sir Alexander, let me beg your company to call on
Lady Carse. One needs the countenance of the chief, who is always and
everywhere welcome in his own territory, to excuse so early a visit."
Sir Alexander positively declined going. He was, in truth, afraid of
the lady's tongue in the presence of a legal functionary, before whom he
could neither order nor threaten violence.
It was a great relief to Annie that he did not go. She needed the
opportunity of the walk to prepare the President to meet his old
acquaintance, and to speak wisely to her.
Even the President, with his habitual self-possession, could not conceal
his embarrassment at the change in Lady Carse. The light from the
window shone upon her face; yet he glanced at the widow, as in doubt
whether this could be the right person, before he made his complaints.
In the midst of her agitation at the meeting, Lady Carse said to herself
that the good man was losing his memory; and, indeed, it was time; for
he must be above sixty. She wondered whether it was a sign that her
husband might be losing his faculties too: but she feared Duncan Forbes
was a good deal the older of the two.
It would have astonished those who did not know Duncan Forbes to see him
now. He was a fugitive from the rebels, who might at the moment be
burning his house, and impoverishing his tenants; he had been wandering
in the mountains for many days, and had spent the last night upon the
sea; his clothes were weather-stained, his periwig damp, and his buckles
rusted; he was at the moment weary and aching with cold and hunger; he
was in the presence of a lady whom he had for years supposed dead and
buried; and he was under the shock of seeing a face once full of health
and animation now not only wasted, but alive with misery in every fibre:
yet he sat on a bench in this island dwelling--in his eyes a hovel--with
his gold-headed cane between his knees, talking with all the courtesy,
calmness, and measured cheerfulness, which Edinburgh knew so well.
Nothing could be better for Lady Carse than his manner. It actually
took away the sense of wonder at their meeting, and meeting thus. While
he had stood at the threshold, and she heard whom she was to see, her
brain had reeled, and her countenance had become such as it might well
dismay him to see; but such was the influence of his composure, and of
the associations which his presence revived, that she soon appeared in
Annie's eyes a totally altered person. As the two sat at breakfast,
Annie saw before her the gentleman and lady complete, in spite of every
disguise of dress and circumstance.
At the close of the meal, Annie slipped away to her own house: but it
was not long before she was sent for, at the desire, not of Lady Carse,
but of the President. He wished her to hear what he had to relate. He
told of Mr Hope's exertions in Edinburgh, and of his having at length
ventured upon an illegal proceeding for which only the disturbance of
the times could be pleaded in excuse. He had sent out a vessel,
containing a few armed men, and Mrs Ruthven, who had undertaken to act
as guide to Lady Carse's residence. It was understood that the captain
had set Mrs Ruthven ashore in Lorn, through some disagreement between
them; and that the vessel had proceeded as far as Barra, when the
captain was so certainly informed that the lady had been removed to the
mainland that he turned back; pleading, further, that there was such
evident want of sense in Mrs Ruthven, and such contradictory testimony
between her and her husband, that he doubted whether any portion of
their story was true. It was next believed that a commission of enquiry
would be soon sent to this and other islands: but this could not take
place until the public tranquillity should be in some degree restored.
"Before that, I shall be dead," sighed Lady Carse, impatiently.
"There is no need now to wait for the commission," said the President.
"Where I am, all violations of the law must cease. Your captivity is
now at an end, except in so far as you are subject to ill health, or,
like myself, to winter weather and most wintry fortunes."
"The day is come, then," said Annie, through shining tears. "You are
now delivered out of the hand of man, and have to wait only God's
pleasure."
"What matters it," murmured Lady Carse, "how you call my misfortunes?
Here I sit, a shivering exile--"
"So far like myself," observed the President, moving nearer the scanty
fire.
"You have not been heart-sick for years under insufferable wrongs,"
declared Lady Carse. "And you have not the grave open at your feet
while everything you care for is beckoning to you to come away. You--"
"Pardon me, my old friend," said he, mildly. "That is exactly my case.
I am old: the grave is open at my feet; and beyond it stands she who,
though early lost, has been the constant passion of my life. Perhaps my
heart may have pined under the privation of her society as sensibly as
yours under afflictions more strange in the eyes of the world. But it
is not wise--it does not give strength, but impair it--thus to compare
human afflictions. I should prefer cheerfully encouraging each other to
wait for release; I see little prospect of any release this day for us
exiles; so let me see what my memory is worth in my old age--let me see
what I can recall of our Janet. You know I always consider Janet my own
by favouritism; and she called me grandfather the last time we met, as
she used to do before she was able to spell so long a word."
He told so much of Janet, that Lady Carse changed her opinion about his
loss of memory. Again Annie stole home: and there did the President
seek her, after a long conversation with her neighbour.
"I wish to know," said he, "whether the great change that I observe in
this lady is recent."
"She is greatly changed within a few months," replied the widow: "and I
think she has sunk within a few days. I see, sir, that you look for her
release soon."
"If the change has been rapid of late," he replied, "it is my opinion
that she is dying."
"Is there anything that you would wish done?" asked Annie.
"What can we do? I perceive that she is in possession of what is
perhaps the only aid her case admits of--a friend who can at once soothe
her earthly life, and feed her heavenly one."