Rolls went up-stairs and dressed himself in his best--his "blacks,"
which he kept for going to funerals and other solemnities--not the dress
in which he waited at table and did his ordinary business. The coat,
with its broad, square tails, gave him an appearance something between
that of a respectable farmer and a parish minister--a little too solemn
for the one, too secular for the other; and to show that he was "his own
man," and for to-day at least no man's servant, he enveloped his throat
in a large black silk neckerchief, square in shape, and folded like a
substantial bandage with a little bow in the front. His forehead was
lined with thought. When he had finished his toilet, he opened the large
wooden "kist" which stood in a corner of his room, and was the final
receptacle of all his worldly goods. Out of that he took a blue-spotted
handkerchief, in which a pocket-book was carefully wrapped up, and took
from it a few somewhat dirty pound-notes. Then restoring the
pocket-book, he locked the kist carefully, and went down-stairs with the
key--a very large one--in his hand. This he gave to Bauby, who still
hung about the door with her apron to her eyes. "You should go ben to
your work, my woman," said Rolls, "and no make the worst of what's
happened: in a' likelihood the master will be back afore the dinner's
ready." "Do you think that, Tammas? do you really think that?" cried
Bauby, brightening up and showing symptoms of an inclination to cry for
joy as she had done for sorrow. "I'm no' saying what I think. I'm
thinking mony things beyond the power o' a woman person to faddom," said
Rolls, solemnly. "And if the maister should be back, it's real possible
I mayna be back. You'll just behave conformably, and put forrit Marget.
If she wasna so frightened, she's no' a bad notion at a' of waiting at
table. And if there's ony question where I am, or what's become of
me----"
"Oh, Tammas, what will I say? It will be the second time in a week.
He'll no' like it," cried Bauby, diverted from one trouble to another.
The absence of her brother when the dinner was ready was almost as
extraordinary as her master's conveyance away to unknown dangers by the
functionaries of the law.
"If he's here to be angry, a' will be well," said Rolls, grimly; and
then he handed her the key. "If there should be any question about me,
when I'm no', here to answer for myself, you'll inform whoever it
concerns that the kist is yours and everything in it, in proof of which
you'll produce the key. That's no' to say but what you'll respect the
bits of things in it, and hand me back possession when I come, soon or
late," said Rolls. "You'll mind what I say to you, Bauby. It's yours in
the one case, but no' in the other. You'll take possession if there is
ony other claimant; but me being back, you'll respect my rights."
"I wuss I would ken what you meant first," said Bauby, gazing at him
wistfully. Rolls had an air of satisfaction on his face for the first
time: he was pleased to have puzzled her. His face relaxed almost into a
smile as he said, "According to a' probabilities, you'll soon understand
that."
With these words he set out from the hall-door, walking very
deliberately, and crushing the pebbles under his feet at every step. He
had taken his best silk umbrella, which, loosened from its habitual
folds, and used as a stick, made a sort of flapping accompaniment to his
progress, like a large bird walking by him. As he turned from the door
the solemnity of his aspect returned. He walked slowly, thinking as he
went--thinking so profoundly that he scarcely saw Peggy at the lodge,
and passed her, taking no notice of her in the gravity of his
preoccupation. She said afterwards that it was awfu' evident he had
something on his mind. She told Jean Tamson, who was in the lodge at the
moment--come for a crack, and talking of nothing else but this very
subject,--"I wouldna wonder," she said, "but Mr Rolls kens more about it
than any of us." This at least was what she informed the world she had
said to her gossip when all was known.
It was four miles to Dunearn; but old Rolls was a steady, good walker,
with no irregularity about him. Every step he took was just of the same
length as the step before. Yard for yard he did his four miles in the
regulated time, neither shorter nor longer. When he arrived at the
Town-house, there was a little flutter about the door as of people
dispersing; but there had not been any number of people, and though the
rumour of what had transpired had begun to blow about the place, there
were not as yet many gazers. By-and-by, as he stood outside, his master
came out, with one of the emissaries of the morning close by him, and
Beaufort behind. John Erskine was pale; but there was a sort of smile on
his face--a smile which had no pleasure in it, but some contempt, and
that sort of outward looking to heaven and earth, with the head held
high, and the nostrils somewhat dilated, which is so often the
aspect of a man unjustly accused. He was making light of it to
himself--persuading himself that it was nothing and meant nothing. He
saw Rolls standing by, and waved his hand to him. "What! have you walked
all this way," he said, "old Truepenny,"--with something of the same
levity of despair which dictated the same words to Hamlet,--"to see the
last of me?"
"It's not come to that, sir, I hope," said Rolls, with a seriousness
which was as solemn as if what John had said was real. The young man
laughed.
"You will pack my portmanteau and send it after me: I suppose I may be
allowed that?" he said. The officer who was in attendance bowed his
head. The people about gathered round, staring at John with too much
surprise to express any other emotion; and by-and-by the party drove off
again, nobody apparently divining exactly what it all meant. There were
a number of petty cases to be tried by the sheriff, who was in the
Town-house, as it was called, and as many different interests as there
were loungers about. Rolls went in with hesitating steps after his
master had disappeared. The old man had come, in full expectation of the
event which had happened; but fact is always different from
anticipation. When he saw what he had only looked for, the effect upon
him was something overwhelming. He stood staring and gaping in the
little crowd which gradually drew together, realising only after it was
over what had taken place before their eyes. "What's wrang with the
young maister, Mr Rolls?" said one of the bystanders. "Let me be!" cried
the old man, shaking himself free; and he went into the Town-house with
tottering steps. He had intended taking certain bold and immediate
steps, carrying out the project he had been framing in his mind; but his
nerves were shaken when the moment came. The law terrified him. If his
master, in all the strength and confidence of his youth, was thus
peremptorily dealt with, what aggravations might not he, an old and
humble individual--nothing but a servant--look for? He was cowed. He
stole up to an attendant and made faltering inquiries. "What will they
have settled about yon case?" he said. "About what case?--the
sheep-lifting, or the unlawfu' wounding, or the robbery at Willyam
Tamson's----" "Nane o' thae things--nane o' thae things," said old
Rolls. "It's about young Mr Erskine of Dalrulzian." "Oh, ay, ay," said
the attendant, shaking his head; "that's very serious. The circumstances
a' point to some agent mair than accident--that's what the sherra says,
and he canna see his way to discharging the panel." "The panel![1]--he's
nae panel!--mind what you're saying," cried Rolls. "Well, maybe that's
going owre fast. I would say the gentleman under suspicion. He maun just
bide the result of a mair formal examination--that's a' I can tell ye;
I have nae time to enter into particulars," the official said.
[Footnote 1: _Scotticè_, accused.]
Rolls, who had meant such heroic things, turned away tremulously. He
went out again, scarcely knowing where he was going, into the streets of
Dunearn. There everybody looked at him with curious eyes. The town had
at last become conscious of what had happened: from a public-house in
the environs a stone had been thrown at John Erskine as he went past,
and hootings had risen on his path. This roused the population fully,
and now the streets were full of groups discussing the matter. Torrance,
as has been said, was popular in his way, especially now in that warmth
of pity and charity which follows a sudden and unexpected death; and
John Erskine was comparatively unknown. The tide was strongly against
him, as a semi-foreigner--a man who had come from "abroad." "He'll find
here that gentle and simple must keep the laws alike," said one. "A man
daurna ride roughshod over his fellows here."
Old Rolls heard the growl of popular excitement, and it alarmed him
still more. "If it was me they would tear me in bits," he said to
himself. His alarm on this point, as much as his original intention,
drove him in at Mr Monypenny's door, which was in his way. He was afraid
of being recognised as the butler at Dalrulzian ("for everybody kens
me," he said to himself, with mingled pride and panic), and he was
anxious to consult the "man of business" who had Dalrulzian estate in
his hands.
Mr Monypenny was out; and Rolls requested permission to sit down and
wait. He had a long time of quiet to think over his plan again, and he
did think it over, and recovered his courage. After a time Mrs
Monypenny, hearing who it was, sent to request him to have some cold
beef in the kitchen, an offer of which Rolls availed himself at once.
"For what is the use of punishing yourself?" he said. "A man's more
qualified for everything when he has eaten his dinner." He was very
serious, and unlike his usual cheerfully communicative mood, in Mr
Monypenny's kitchen. The maids did not know what had come over him. To
have such a grand subject of discourse as his master's arrest, and yet
to be so silent, struck them with astonishment; but they, too, remarked
his perturbed countenance afterwards, and said to one another, "I told
you there was mair in him than met the eye."
Meanwhile Miss Barbara and her young companion had been driving up and
down in the pony-carriage in a state of great excitement. They had
passed the Town-house half-a-dozen times, always looking for the
reappearance of John; but he, as was to be expected, had come out and
gone away in the interval between. Miss Barbara had maintained during
the whole time a lively monologue, scarcely interrupted by her young
companion. "I've heard what they daured to say," Miss Barbara cried; "as
if one of my family would stoop to soil his fingers with any Tinto of
them all! What were the Torrances but bonnet-lairds till old Torrance
married the railway man's daughter? But I never thought they would have
dared to do anything against an Erskine. Times are changed. (Go round by
the Stone Bridge, Nora; it's an easier road for the pony.) What would my
father have said if he had heard a descendant of his evened with one of
that race? That's what your Radicalism comes to."
"But death is the same, whether it comes to a saint or--a bully; and
life has to be protected," said Nora, fired with political ardour.
"Life--and death. They're grand words to use: a drunk man falling over a
steep bank that it was the wonder of the whole country-side he had not
gone over years and years before."
Nora did not say any more. She was not so warm a partisan as Miss
Barbara's companion ought to have been. She drove along quietly, taking
no further part in the talk, which the old lady maintained alone. "How
can I go in to my peaceful house and eat my comfortable dinner, not
knowing but my own flesh and blood may be shut up in a jail?" she said.
Then she added quickly, "There's that lad, young Rintoul. I'm not fond
of any of his family; but I suppose he's a gentleman. He'll go in and
ask what has happened. Fast--to your right hand, Nora. Now draw up. He
sees what I mean. Lord Rintoul," added Miss Barbara, "I have a favour to
ask of you. You may have heard my nephew John Erskine's name bandied
about these late days. He's been in the Town-house before the sheriff
and the procurator-fiscal this hour and a half or more. It's not for me
to ask the town-bodies about what has happened. Will you go and bring me
word?"
Rintoul stood silent for a moment before he made any reply. Her voice
seemed to have called him from painful reflections of his own, the chain
of which he could not in a moment break. He gave her a half-bewildered
look, then turned to Nora, who looked at him more gently, with
sympathetic eyes. How haggard he looked, and worn!--he who had been so
ruddy and manly, only too much flesh and blood, almost too little
inclination to be moved by emotion or sentiment,--was all this because
of the sudden death of his brother-in-law, a man for whom he cared
nothing? Nora was extraordinarily impressed by Rintoul's changed
appearance. Miss Barbara, preoccupied by her own anxieties, scarcely
noticed him at all.
"In the Town-house with the sheriff? What does that mean?"
"I forgot you were English," said Miss Barbara with a touch of contempt.
"It means some examination of witnesses anent the death of Pat Torrance,
your brother-in-law. What my nephew should have to do with it, I cannot
tell you. It's just that I would have you inquire."
"He can have nothing to do with it," said Rintoul; and then he stopped
short, and the momentary animation died out of his face. He shivered as
he stood in the sunshine, which was as warm as September ever is in
Scotland. "It must be a mistake; we have heard nothing of this," he
said. "I am sure Carry--would be averse to any fuss. It was such a thing
for her that there was no coroner's inquest. I made sure we were all
safe. You must be mistaken," he said.
"Lord Rintoul," said Nora, who was given to opposition, "though there is
no coroner's inquest, there must be justice; and if they think Mr
Erskine has anything to do with it----"
"He has nothing to do with it," said Rintoul, with petulant impatience.
Miss Barbara stretched her hand over Nora to grasp his, but this gesture
seemed to drive him back into himself. He withdrew a little from the
side of the pony-carriage, and made a pretence of not seeing the old
lady's outstretched hand. Miss Barbara was shocked, and gave him a
curious look; but she was not prepared for disrespect, and did not
expect it. She went on more eagerly than before--
"And here I am helpless," she said. "I cannot go in myself. I will not
send Nora. Will you do my errand, Lord Rintoul? Bring me word, not here,
but to my house. I am going home."
He gave a little bow of assent, and stood on the pavement looking after
them as they drove away. He stood longer than was necessary for that,
till they had disappeared round the corner of the High Street, till the
children about--of whom there was always a large supply in
Dunearn--began to gape at him with expectations of amusement. "Look at
the man glowering frae him," these spectators cried, and a small pebble
tumbled along the flags where he stood--a harmless experiment to see if
there was any fun in him. He did not notice this, nor any other outside
occurrence, but after a while got slowly under way again, as if the
operation was difficult, and went on to the Town-house. When he got
there, he went in reluctantly, with evident disinclination. The
attendant who had talked to Rolls made way for him respectfully. The
other people about opened the doors and took off their hats to the young
potentate. A small case which was going on at the time was even
suspended while the sheriff, not nearly so great a man, answered his
lordship's questions in his own person. "Yes, there has been an
examination," the sheriff said. "The circumstances are very suspicious.
I have thought it best to order that young Erskine should be detained
till there can be a more complete investigation. That, it is to be
hoped, will clear the matter up; but if not----"
Lord Rintoul's fair and ruddy countenance was dark with anxiety and
pain. "You cannot mean," he said, "that you believe Erskine----"
"I believe nothing but what there is evidence for," the sheriff said.
"We are not men of theories, Lord Rintoul. Experience shows every day
that men do the most unlikely things. I hear he's shown an
_animus_,--and there are two or three points very strange. I saw it my
duty to give orders that he should be detained----"
"You have sent him to prison, do you mean?" There was a sharp tone as of
personal anguish in Rintoul's voice. "But you'll admit him to bail? My
father, I, Millefleurs, any gentleman in the country----"
"Will be his bail? I doubt if it's a bailable offence: but if Lord
Lindores were willing to do that, no doubt it would have a good effect.
However, nothing can be done before the investigation," said the
sheriff; "a day or two will do the young man no harm."
This was all he could elicit. The sheriff was a man who had a great idea
of his office, and it was not often that he had a case so interesting
and important. The attendants thought Lord Rintoul had been drinking, as
he stumbled out. He went along the quiet street with an uncertain step,
now and then taking off his hat that the air might refresh him. He, too,
stopped at Mr Monypenny's door, as Rolls had done a very short time
before. It was afternoon now, and the shadows were lengthening as he
reached Miss Barbara's house. What a sunny glimpse there was from door
to door, across the little hall to the garden, where the brightness of
the autumn flowers made a flush of colour! Rintoul saw a figure against
the light which was not Miss Barbara's. There was in him a forlorn
desire for consolation. "Don't tell Miss Barbara I am here just yet," he
said hastily to the maid, and opened the glass-door, beyond which Nora
stood among all the geraniums and mignonette. There was no agitation
about her. She was not sufficiently interested in John Erskine to be
deeply troubled by the idea of annoyance to him as his old aunt was, or
alarmed by a passing shadow upon his name. She was serene and calm in
this quiet world of flowers and greenness where no trouble was. She
welcomed him with a smile. "Miss Barbara is very anxious," she said.
"She has gone up-stairs to rest, but I am to let her know when you
come."
"Wait a little," he said, glad of the interval; "_you_ are not anxious."
"Not so much. Of course I am interested in my friends' friends--but I
don't know very much of Mr Erskine," said Nora, unable to divest herself
altogether of the imaginative offence that lay between John and her.
"And it cannot do him much harm, can it? It will only be
disagreeable--till the facts are known. Young men," she said, with a
smile, "have a right to have something unpleasant happen to them now and
then; they have so much the best of it in other ways."
"Do you think so," he said, with a seriousness which put her levity to
shame. "To be sent to prison--to have a stigma put upon you--perhaps to
be tried for your life!--that is rather worse than mere unpleasantness."
Nora was greatly impressed, not only by the gravity of what he said, but
the air with which he said it. "It surely cannot be so bad as that: and
he--is innocent, Lord Rintoul?"
"I have no doubt of it," cried Rintoul, eagerly,--"no doubt of it! If
there is any one to blame, it is some one--whom most likely nobody
suspects. What would you think of the man who had done it, and yet said
nothing, but let John Erskine suffer for his fault?"
"I do not believe," said Nora, like Desdemona, "that there could be any
such man. It is impossible. You think too badly of human nature. How
can you suppose another would do what you know you would not do
yourself? Oh no, no, never! Lord Rintoul----" She paused after this
little outburst, and drawing a step nearer to him, asked in a low and
horror-stricken tone--"Do you really think that poor Mr Torrance
was--murdered?"
"No, no!" he cried almost violently--"no, no!" He stopped short, with a
dryness in his throat, as if he could not speak; then resumed, in a
quieter tone--"But I think in all likelihood there was, as people
imagine, a quarrel, a scuffle--and that somebody--took hold of the
mare's bridle----"
"Some tramp, no doubt," said Nora, sympathetically, much affected by his
emotion, "who perhaps doesn't even know----"
"That is it," said Rintoul, eagerly--"who perhaps never dreamt at the
moment. And even if he knows now, such a man might think, as you did,
that it would come to nothing with Erskine. I believe it will come to
nothing--a day, or two days, in prison."
"But if it should turn out more serious," said Nora, "even a
tramp--would give himself up, surely--would never let an innocent man
suffer?"
"We must hope so, at least," said Lord Rintoul. His countenance had
never relaxed all this time. It was almost solemn, set, and rigid--the
muscles about his mouth unmoving. "There should not be any question
about right and wrong, I know," he said, "but such a man might say to
himself--he might think--Young Erskine is a gentleman, and I'm only a
common fellow--they will treat him better than they would treat me. He
might say to himself----"
"I cannot believe it," cried Nora. "In such a case there could be no
question of what any one would do. It is like A B C. What! let another
man suffer for something you have done! Oh no, no--even in the nursery
one knows better than that!"
"I don't think," said Rintoul, "that you ever can understand all the
excuses a man will make for himself till you've been in the same
position. Things look so different when you've done it--from what they
do when some one else has done it. There are so many things to be taken
into consideration. Punishment is not the same to all; it might ruin
one, and not do much harm to another. A man might feel justified, or at
least there would be excuses for him, if he let another bear the
punishment which would not hurt _him_ much, but would be destructive to
himself. Of course it would be his business to make it up somehow."
"Lord Rintoul, this is dreadful doctrine!" said Nora; "if it were
carried out, then you might do any wickedness you wished, and hire
somebody to be punished instead of you." She laughed half nervously,
shaking off the graver turn the conversation had taken. "But this is
absurd," she said; "of course you don't mean that. I think I know what
you mean;--but I must not delay longer, I must tell Miss Barbara."
"Don't disturb her now," said Rintoul, eagerly. "Besides, I really have
not time. If you would say that it is unfortunately true--that Erskine
is--detained till there can be a full investigation. I am hurrying off
to get bail for him, for of course they must accept bail--and it will
only be for a few days. The investigation--at which we shall all be
examined," he said, with a nervous tremor,--"will clear up everything, I
hope."
"I hope so, with all my heart," said Nora, waving her hand to him as he
hurried away. Rintoul had reached the garden door on his way out, when
he suddenly paused, and came back to her, and took that hand, holding it
for a moment between his own.
"All this is very hard upon me," he said, incoherently; "it gives me a
great deal of misery. Feel for me--stand by me. Will you, Nora? I don't
care for the rest, if you----"
And he wrung her hand almost violently, dropped it, and hurried away.
The girl stood looking after him with wonder and dismay, and yet with a
gush of a different kind of feeling, which filled her heart with a
confusing warmth. "A great deal of misery!" Was it the tenderness of his
heart for his sister, for the unfortunate man who had been summoned out
of the world so abruptly--though he did not love him--and for his friend
who was unjustly accused, which made Rintoul say this? But anyhow, Nora
was not capable of resisting such an appeal. Poor Rintoul: though he did
not show it to any one, how tender he was, how full of sympathy! John
Erskine (against whom she could not help entertaining a little grudge)
died out of her mind altogether. She was so much more sorry for the
other, who felt it so deeply though it was not his concern.