Many years ago, how many need not be recorded, there lived in his
ancestral castle, in the far north of Scotland, the last Earl of
Cairnforth.
You will not find his name in "Lodge's Peerage," for, as I say, he was
the last earl, and with him the title became extinct. It had been borne
for centuries by many noble and gallant men, who had lived worthily or
died bravely. But I think among what we call "heroic" lives--lives
the story of which touches us with something higher than pity, and
deeper than love--there never was any of his race who left behind a
history more truly heroic than he.
Now that it is all over and done--now that the soul so mysteriously
given has gone back unto Him who gave it, and a little green turf in the
kirk-yard behind Cairnforth Manse covers the poor body in which it dwelt
for more than forty years, I feel it might do good to many, and would do
harm to none, if I related the story--a very simple one, and more
like a biography than a tale--of Charles Edward Stuart Montgomerie,
last Earl of Cairnforth.
He did not succeed to the title; he was born Earl of Cairnforth, his
father having been drowned in the loch a month before, the wretched
countess herself beholding the sight from her castle windows. She lived
but to know she had a son and heir--to whom she desired might be
given his father's name: then she died--more glad than sorry to
depart, for she had loved her husband all her life, and had only been
married to him a year. Perhaps, had she once seen her son, she might
have wished less to die than to live, if only for his sake; however, it
was not God's will that this should be. So, at two days old, the "poor
little earl"--as from his very birth people began compassionately to
call him--was left alone in the world, without a single near relative
or connection, his parents having both been only children, but with his
title, his estate, and twenty thousand a year.
Cairnforth Castle is one of the loveliest residences in all Scotland.
It is built on the extremity of a long tongue of land which stretches
out between two salt-water lochs--Loch Beg, the "little," and Loch
Mhor, the "big" lake. The latter is grand and gloomy, shut in by bleak
mountains, which sit all round it, their feet in the water, and their
heads in mist and cloud. But Loch Beg is quite different. It has
green, cultivated, sloping shores, fringed with trees to the water's
edge, and the least ray of sunshine seems always to set it dimpling with
wavy smiles. Now and then a sudden squall comes down from the chain of
mountains far away beyond the head of the loch, and then its waters
begin to darken--just like a sudden frown over a bright face; the
waves curl and rise, and lash themselves into foam, and any little
sailing boat, which has been happily and safely riding over them five
minutes before, is often struck and capsized immediately. Thus it
happened when the late earl was drowned.
The minister--the Rev. Alexander Cardross--had been sailing with
him; had only just landed, and was watching the boat crossing back
again, when the squall came down. Though this region is a populous
district now, with white villas dotted like daisies all along the green
shores, there was then not a house in the whole peninsula of Cairnforth
except the Castle, the Manse, and a few cottages, called the "clachan."
Before help was possible, the earl and his boatman, Neil Campbell, were
both drowned. The only person saved was little Malcolm Campbell--
Neil's brother--a boy about ten years old.
In most country parishes of Scotland or England there is an almost
superstitious feeling that "the minister," or "the clergyman," must be
the fittest person to break any terrible tidings. So it ought to be.
Who but the messenger of God should know best how to communicate His
awful will, as expressed in great visitations of Calamity? In this case
no one could have been more suited for his solemn office than Mr.
Cardross. He went up to the Castle door, as he had done to that of many
a cottage bearing the same solemn message of sudden death, to which
there could be but one answer--"Thy will be done."
But the particulars of that terrible interview, in which he had to tell
the countess what already her own eyes had witnessed--though they
refused to believe the truth--the minister never repeated to any
creature except his wife. And afterward, during the four weeks that
Lady Cairnforth survived her husband, he was the only person, beyond her
necessary attendants, who saw her until she died.
The day after her death he was suddenly summoned to the castle by Mr.
Menteith, an Edinburg writer to the signet, and confidential agent, or
factor, as the office called in Scotland, to the late earl.
"They'll be sending for you to baptize the child. It's early--but
the pair bit thing may be delicate, and they may want it done at once,
before Mr. Menteith returns to Edinburg."
"Maybe so, Helen; so do not expect me back till you see me."
Thus saying, the minister quitted his sunshiny manse garden, where he
was working peacefully among his raspberry-bushes, with his wife looking
on, and walked, in meditative mood, through the Cairnforth woods, now
blue with hyacinths in their bosky shadows, and in every nook and corner
starred with great clusters of yellow primroses, which in this part of
the country grow profusely, even down to within a few feet of high-water
mark, on the tidal shores of the lochs. Their large, round, smiling
faces, so irresistibly suggestive of baby smiles at sight of them, and
baby fingers clutching at them, touched the heart of the good minister,
who had left two small creatures of his own--a "bit girlie" of five,
and a two-year-old boy--playing on his grass-plot at home with some
toys of the countess's giving: she had always been exceedingly kind to
the Manse children.
He thought of her, lying dead; and then of her poor little motherless
and fatherless baby, whom, if she had any consciousness in her
death-hour, it must have been a sore pang to her to leave behind. And
the tears gathered again and again in the good man's eyes, shutting out
from his vision all the beauty of the spring.
He reached the grand Italian portico, built by some former earl with a
taste for that style, and yet harmonizing well with the smooth lawn,
bounded by a circle of magnificent trees, through which came glimpses of
the glittering loch. The great doors used almost always to stand open,
and the windows were rarely closed--the countess like sunshine and
fresh air, but now all was shut up and silent, and not a soul was to be
seen about the place.
Mr. Cardross sighed, and walked round to the other side of the castle,
where was my lady's flower-garden, or what was to be made into one.
Then he entered by French windows, from a terrace overlooking it, my
lord's library, also incomplete. For the earl, who was by no means a
bookish man, had only built that room since his marriage, to please his
wife, whom perhaps he loved all the better that she was so exceedingly
unlike himself. Now both were away--their short dream of married
life ended, their plans and hopes crumbled into dust. As yet, no
external changes had been made, the other solemn changes having come so
suddenly. Gardeners still worked in the parterres, and masons and
carpenters still, in a quiet and lazy manner, went on completing the
beautiful room; but there was no one to order them--no one watched
their work. Except for workmen, the place seemed so deserted that Mr.
Cardross wandered through the house for some time before he found a
single servant to direct him to the person of whom he was in search.
Mr. Menteith sat alone in a little room filled with guns and fishing
rods, and ornamented with stag's heads, stuffed birds, and hunting
relics of all sorts, which had been called, not too appropriately, the
earl's "study." He was a little, dried-up man, about fifty years old,
of sharp but not unkindly aspect. When the minister entered, he looked
up from the mass of papers which he seemed to have been trying to reduce
into some kind of order--apparently the late earl's private papers,
which had been untouched since his death, for there was a sad and
serious shadow over what otherwise have been rather a humorous face.
"Welcome, Mr. Cardross; I am indeed glad to see you. I took the liberty
of sending for you, since you are the only person with whom I can
consult--we can consult, I should say, for Dr. Hamilton wished it
likewise--on this--this most painful occasion."
"I shall be very glad to be of the slightest service," returned Mr.
Cardross. "I had the utmost respect for those that are away." He had
the habit, this tender-hearted, pious man, who, with all his learning,
kept a religious faith as simple as a child's, as speaking of the dead
as only "away."
The two gentlemen sat down together. They had often met before, for
whenever there were guests at Cairnforth Castle the earl always invited
the minister and his wife to dinner, but they had never fraternized
much. Now, a common sympathy, nay, more, a common grief--for
something beyond sympathy, keen personal regret, was evidently felt by
both for the departed earl and countess--made them suddenly familiar.
"Is the child doing well?" was Mr. Cardross's first and most natural
question; but it seemed to puzzle Mr. Menteith exceedingly.
"I suppose so--indeed, I can hardly say. This is a most difficult
and painful matter."
"It was born alive, and is a son and heir, as I heard?"
"Yes."
"That is fortunate."
"For some things; since, had it been a girl, the title would have
lapsed, and the long line of Earls of Cairnforth ended. At one time Dr.
Hamilton feared the child would be stillborn, and then, of course, the
earldom would have been extinct. The property must in that case have
passed to the earl's distant cousins, the Bruces, of whom you may have
heard, Mr. Cardross?"
"I have; and there are few things, I fancy, which Lord Cairnforth would
have regretted more than such heir-ship."
"You are right," said the keen W.S., evidently relieved. "It was my
instinctive conviction that you were in the late earl's confidence on
this point, which made me decide to send and consult with you. We must
take all precautions, you see. We are placed in a most painful and
responsible position--both Dr. Hamilton and myself."
It was now Mr. Cardross's turn to look perplexed. No doubt it was a
most sad fatality which had happened, but still things did not seem to
warrant the excessive anxiety testified by Mr. Menteith.
"I do not quite comprehend you. There might have been difficulties as
to the succession, but are they not all solved by the birth of a
healthy, living heir--whom we must cordially hope will long continue
to live?"
"I hardly know if we ought to hope it," said the lawyer, very seriously.
"But we must 'keep a calm sough' on that matter for the present--so
far, at least, Dr. Hamilton and I have determined--in order to
prevent the Bruces from getting wind of it. Now, then, will you come
and see the earl?"
"The earl!" re-echoed Mr. Cardross, with a start; then recollected
himself, and sighed to think how one goes and another comes, and all the
world moves on as before--passing, generation after generation, into
the awful shadow which no eye except that of faith can penetrate. Life
is a little, little day--hardly longer, in the end, for the man in
his prime than for the infant of an hour's span.
And the minister, who was of meditative mood, thought to himself much as
a poet half a century later put into words--thoughts common to all
men, but which only such a man and such a poet could have crystallized
into four such perfect lines:
"Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why;
He thinks he was not made to die,
And Thou hast made him--Thou are just."
Thus musing, Mr. Cardross followed up stairs toward the magnificent
nursery, which had been prepared months before, with a loving eagerness
of anticipation, and a merciful blindness to futurity, for the expected
heir of the Earls of Cairnforth. For, as before said, the only hope of
the lineal continuance of the race was in this one child. It lay in a
cradle resplendent with white satin hangings and lace curtains, and
beside it sat the nurse--a mere girl, but a widow already--Neil
Campbell's widow, whose first child had been born only two days after
her husband was drowned. Mr. Cardross knew that she had been suddenly
sent for out of the clachan, the countess having, with her dying breath,
desired that this young woman, whose circumstances were so like her own,
should be taken as wet-nurse to the new-born baby.
So, in her widow's weeds, grave and sad, but very sweet-looking--she
had been a servant at the Castle, and was a rather superior young woman
--Janet Campbell took her place beside her charge with an expression
in her face as if she felt it was a charge left her by her lost
mistress, which must be kept solemnly to the end of her days--as it
was.
The minister shook hands with her silently--she had gone through sore
affliction--but the lawyer addressed her in his quick, sharp,
business tone, under which he often disguised more emotion than he liked
to show.
"You have not been dressing the child? Dr. Hamilton told you not to
attempt it."
"Na, na, sir, I didna try," answered Janet, sadly and gently.
"That is well. I'm a father of a family myself," added Mr. Menteith,
more gently: "I've six of them; but, thank the Lord, ne'er a one of them
like this. Take it on your lap, nurse, and let the minister look at it!
Ay, here comes Dr. Hamilton!"
Mr. Cardross knew Dr. Hamilton by repute--as who did not? Since at
that period it was the widest-known name in the whole medical profession
in Scotland. And the first sight of him confirmed the reputation, and
made even a stranger recognize that his fame was both natural and
justifiable. But the minister had scarcely time to cast a glance on the
acute, benevolent, wonderfully powerful and thoughtful head, when his
attention was attracted by the poor infant, whom Janet was carefully
unswathing from innumerable folds of cotton wool.
Mrs. Campbell was a widow of only a month, and her mistress, to whom she
had been much attached, lay dead in the next room, yet she had still a
few tears left, and they were dropping like rain over her mistress's
child.
No wonder. It lay on her lap, the smallest, saddest specimen of
infantile deformity. It had a large head--larger than most infants
have--but its body was thin, elfish, and distorted, every joint and
limb being twisted in some way or other. You could not say that any
portion of the child was natural or perfect except the head and face.
Whether it had the power of motion or not seemed doubtful; at any rate,
it made no attempt to move, except feebly turning its head from side to
side. It lay, with its large eyes wide open, and at last opened its
poor little mouth also, and uttered a loud pathetic wail.
"It greets, doctor, ye hear," said the nurse, eagerly; "'deed, an' it
greets fine, whiles."
"A good sign," observed Dr. Hamilton. "Perhaps it may live after all,
though one scarcely knows whether to desire it."
"I'll gar it live, doctor," cried Janet, as she rocked and patted it,
and at last managed to lay it to her motherly breast; "I'll gar it live,
ye'll see! That is God willing."
"It could not live, it could never have lived at all, if He were not
willing," said the minister, reverently. And then, after a long pause,
during which he and the two other gentlemen stood watching, with sad
pitying looks, the unfortunate child, he added, so quietly and naturally
that, though they might have thought it odd, they could hardly have
thought it out of place or hypocritical, "Let us pray."
It was a habit, long familiar to this good Presbyterian minister, who
went in and out among his parishioners as their pastor and teacher,
consoler and guide. Many a time, in many a cottage, had he knelt down,
just as he did here, in the midst of deep affliction, and said a few
simple words, as from children to a father--the Father of all men.
And the beginning and end of his prayer was, now as always, the
expression and experience of his own entire faith--"Thy will be
done."
"But what ought we to do?" said the Edinburg writer, when, having
quitted, not unmoved, the melancholy nursery, he led the way to the
scarcely less dreary dining-room, where the two handsome, bright-looking
portraits of the late earl and countess still smiled down from the wall
--giving Mr. Cardross a start, and making him recall, as if the
intervening six weeks had been all a dream, the last day he and Mr.
Menteith dined together at that hospitable table. They stole a look at
one another, but, with true Scotch reticence, neither exchanged a word.
Yet perhaps each respected the other the more, both for the feeling and
for its instant repression.
"Whatever we decide to do, ought to be decided now," said Dr. Hamilton,
"for I must be in Edinburg tomorrow. And, besides, it is a case in
which no medical skill is of much avail, if any; Nature must struggle
through--or yield, which I can not help thinking would be the best
ending. In Sparta, now, this poor child would have been exposed on
Mount--what was the place? to be saved by any opportune death from
the still greater misfortune of living."
"But that would have been murder--sheer murder," earnestly replied
the minister. "And we are not Spartans, but Christians, to whom the
body is not every thing, and who believe that God can work out His
wonderful will, if He chooses, through the meanest means--through the
saddest tragedies and direst misfortunes. In one sense, Dr. Hamilton,
there is no such thing as evil--that is, there is no actual evil in
the world except sin."
"There is plenty of that, alas!" said Mr. Menteith. "But as to the
child, I wished you to see it--both of you together--if only to
bear evidence as to its present condition. For the late earl, in his
will, executed, by a most providential chance, the last time I was here,
appointed me sole guardian and trustee to a possible widow or child. On
me, therefore, depends the charge of this poor infant--the sole bar
between those penniless, grasping, altogether discreditable Bruces, and
the large property of Cairnforth. You see my position, gentlemen?"
It was not an easy one, and no wonder the honest man looked much
troubled.
"I need not say that I never sought it--never thought it possible it
would really fall to my lot; but it has fallen, and I must discharge it
to the best of my ability. You see what the earl is--born alive,
anyhow--though we can hardly wish him to survive."
The three gentlemen were silent. At length Mr. Cardross said,
"There is one worse doubt which has occurred to me. Do you think, Dr.
Hamilton, that the mind is as imperfect as the body? In short, is it
not likely that the poor child may turn out to be an idiot?"
"I do not know; and it will be almost impossible to judge for months
yet."
"But, idiot or not," cried Mr. Menteith--a regular old Tory, who
clung with true conservative veneration to the noble race which he, his
father, and grandfather had served faithfully for a century and more
---"idiot or not, the boy is undoubtedly Earl of Cairnforth."
"Poor child!"
The gentlemen then sat down and thoroughly discussed the whole matter,
finally deciding that, until things appeared somewhat plainer, it was
advisable to keep the earl's condition as much as possible from the
world in general, and more especially from his own kindred. The Bruces,
who lived abroad, would, it was naturally to be concluded--or Mr.
Menteith, who had a lawyer's slender faith in human nature, believed so
--would pounce down, like eagles upon a wounded lamb, the instant they
heard what a slender thread of life hung between them and these great
possessions.
Under such circumstances, for the infant to be left unprotected in the
solitudes of Loch Beg was very unadvisable; and, besides, it was the
guardian's duty to see that every aid which medical skill and surgical
science could procure was supplied to a child so afflicted, and upon
whose life so much depended. He therefore proposed and Dr. Hamilton
agreed, that immediately after the funeral the little earl should be
taken to Edinburg, and placed in the house of the latter, to remain
there a year or two, or so long as might be necessary.
Janet Campbell was called in, and expressed herself willing to take her
share--no small one--in the responsibility of this plan, if the
minister would see to her "ain bairn;" that was, if the minister really
thought the scheme a wise one.
"The minister's opinion seems to carry great weight here," said Dr.
Hamilton, smiling.
And it was so; not merely because of his being a minister, but because,
with all his gentle, unassuming ways, he had an excellent judgment--
the clear, sound, unbiased judgment which no man can ever attain to
except a man who thinks little of himself; to whom his own honor and
glory come ever second, and his Master's glory and service first.
Therefore, both as a man and a minister, Mr. Cardross was equally and
wholly reliable: charitable, because he felt his own infirmities;
placing himself at no higher level than his neighbor, he was always
calmly and scrupulously just. Though a learned, he was not exactly a
clever man: probably his sermons, preached every Sunday for the last ten
years in Cairnforth Kirk, were neither better nor worse than the
generality of country sermons; but that matters little. He was a wise
man and a good man, and all his parishioners, scattered over a parish of
fourteen Scotch miles, deeply and dearly loved him.
"I think," said Mr. Cardross, "that this plan has many advantages, and
is, under the circumstances, the best that could have been devised.
True, I should like to have had the poor babe under my own eye and my
wife's, that we might try to requite in some degree the many kindnesses
we have received from his poor father and mother; but he will be better
off in Edinburg. Give him every possible chance of life and health, and
a sound mind, and then we must leave the rest to Him, who would not have
sent this poor little one into the world at all if He had not had some
purpose in so doing, though what that purpose is we can not see. I
suppose we shall see it, and many other dark things, some time."
The minister lifted his grave, gentle eyes, and sat looking out upon the
familiar view--the sunshiny loch, the green shore, and the far-away
circle of mountains--while the other two gentlemen discussed a few
other business matters. Then he invited them both to return with him
and dine at the Manse, where he and his wife were accustomed to offer to
all comers, high and low, rich and poor, "hospitality without grudging."
So the three walked through Cairnforth woods, now glowing with full
spring beauty, and wandered about the minister's garden till
dinner-time. It was a very simple meal--just the ordinary family
dinner, as it was spread day after day, all the year round: they could
afford hospitality, but show, with the minister's limited income was
impossible, and he was too honest to attempt it. Many a time the earl
himself had dined, merrily and heartily, at that simple table, with the
mistress--active, energetic, cheerful, and refined--sitting at the
head of it, and the children, a girl and boy, already admitted to take
their place there, quiet and well-behaved--brought up from the first
to be, like their parents, gentlemen and gentlewomen. The Manse table
was a perfect picture of family sunshine and family peace, and, as such,
the two Edinburg guests carried away the impression of it in their
memories for many a day.
In another week a second stately funeral passed out of the Castle doors,
and then they were closed to all comers. By Mr. Menteith's orders,
great part of the rooms were shut up, and only two apartments kept for
his own use when he came down to look after the estates. It was now
fully known that he was the young earl's sole guardian; but so great was
the feudal fidelity of the neighborhood, and so entire the respect with
which, during an administration of many years, the factor had imbued the
Cairnforth tenantry, that not a word was said in objection either to him
or to his doings. There was great regret that the poor little earl--
the representative of so long and honored a race--was taken away from
the admiration of the country-side before even a single soul in the
parish, except Mr. and Mrs. Cardross, had set eyes upon him; but still
the disappointed gossips submitted, considering that if the minister
were satisfied all must be right.
After the departure of Mr. Mentieth, Mrs. Campbell, and her charge, a
few rumors got abroad that the little earl was "no a'richt"--if an
earl could be "no a' richt"--which the simple folk about Loch Beg and
Loch Mhor, accustomed for generations to view the Earls of Cairnforth
much as the Thibetians view their Dali Lama, thought hardly possible.
But what was wrong with him nobody precisely knew. The minister did, it
was conjectured; but Mr. Cardross was scrupulously silent on the
subject; and, with all his gentleness, he was the sort of man to whom
nobody ever could address intrusive or impertinent questions.
So, after a while, when the Castle still remained shut up, curiosity
died out, or was only roused at intervals, especially at Mr. Menteith's
periodical visits. And to all questions, whether respectfully anxious
or merely inquisitive, he never gave but one answer--that the earl was
"doing pretty well," and would be back at Cairn forth "some o' these
days".
However, that period was so long deferred that the neighbors at last
ceased to expect it, or to speculate concerning it. They went about
their own affairs, and soon the whole story about the sad death of the
late earl and countess, and the birth of the present nobleman, began to
be told simply as a story by the elder folk, and slipped out of the
younger ones' memories--as, if one only allows it time, every tale,
however sad, wicked, or strange, will very soon do. Had it not been for
the silent, shut-up castle, standing summer and winter on the loch-side,
with its flower-gardens blossoming for none to gather, and its woods--
the pride of the whole country--budding and withering, with scarcely
a foot to cross, or an eye to notice their wonderful beauty, people
would ere long have forgotten the very existence of the last Earl of
Cairnforth.