The carriage of the Earl of Cairnforth, with its familiar and yet long
unfamiliar liveries, produced a keen sensation among the simple folk who
formed the congregation of Cairnforth. But they had too much habitual
respect for the great house and great folk of the place, mingled with
their national shyness and independence, to stare very much. A few
moved aside to make way for the two grand Edinburg footmen who leaped
down from their perch in order to render customary assistance to the
occupants of the carriage.
Mrs. Campbell and Mr. Menteith descended first, and then the two footmen
looked puzzled as to what they should do next.
But Malcolm was before them--Malcolm, who never suffered mortal man
but himself to render the least assistance to his young master; who
watched and tended him; waited on and fed him in the day, and slept in
his room at night; who, in truth, had now, for a year past, slipped into
all the offices of a nurse as well as servant, and performed them with a
woman's tenderness, care, and skill. Lord Cairnforth's eyes brightened
when he saw him; and, carried in Malcolm's arms--a few stragglers of
the congregation standing aside to let them pass--the young earl was
brought to the door of the kirk where his family had worshiped for
generations.
Two elders stood there beside the plate--white-headed farmers, who
remembered both the late lord and the one before him.
"You's the earl," whispered they, and came forward respectfully; then,
startled by the unexpected and pitiful sight, they shrank back; but
either the boy did not notice this, or was so used to it that he showed
no surprise.
"My purse, Malcolm," the small, soft voice was heard to say.
"Ay, my lord. What will ye put into the plate?"
"A guinea, I think, today, because I am so very happy."
This answer, which the two elders overheard, was told by them next day
to every body, and remembered along the loch-side for years.
Cairnforth Kirk, like most other Scotch churches of ancient date, is
very plain within and without, and the congregation then consisted
almost entirely of hillside farmers, shepherds, and the like, who
arrived in families--dogs, and all, for the dogs always came to
church, and behaved there as decorously as their masters. Many the
people walked eight, ten, and even twelve miles, from the extreme
boundary of the parish, and waited about in the kirk or kirk-yard on
fine Sundays, and in the Manse kitchen on wet ones--which were much
the most frequent--during the two hours' interval between sermons.
In the whole congregation there was hardly a person above the laboring
class except in the minister's pew and that belonging to the Castle,
which had been newly lined and cushioned, and in a corner of which,
safely deposited by Malcolm, the little earl now sat--sat always,
even during the prayer, at which some of the congregation looked
reprovingly round, but only saw the little figure wrapped in a plaid,
and the sweet, wan, childish, and yet unchild-like face, with the curly
dark hair, and large dark eyes.
Whatever in the earl was "no a'richt," it certainly could not be his
mind, for a brighter, more intelligent countenance was never seen. It
quite startled the minister with the intentness of its gaze from the
moment he ascended the pulpit; and though he tried not to look that way,
and was very nervous, he could not get over the impression it made. It
was to him almost like a face from the grave--this strange, eerie
child's face, so strongly resembling that of the dead countess, who,
despite the difference in rank, had, during the brief year she lived and
reigned at Cairnforth, been almost like an equal friend and companion to
his own dead wife. Their two faces--Lady Cairnforth's as she looked
the last time he saw her in her coffin, and his wife's as she lay in
hers--mingled together, and affected him powerfully.
The good minister was not remarkable for the brilliance of his sermons,
which he wrote and "committed"--that is, learned by heart, to deliver
in pseudo-extempore fashion, as was the weary custom of most Scotch
ministers of his time. But this Sunday, all that he had committed
slipped clean out of his memory. He preached as he had never been known
to preach before, and never preached again--with originality, power,
eloquence; speaking from his deepest heart, as if the words thence
pouring out had been supernaturally put into it; which, with a
superstition that approached to sublimest faith, he afterward solemnly
believe they had been.
The text was that verse about "all things working together for good to
them that love God;" but, whatever the original discourse had been, it
wandered off into a subject which all who knew the minister recognized
as one perpetually close to his heart--submission to the will of God,
whatever that will might be, and however incomprehensible it seemed to
mortal eyes.
"Not, my friends," said he, after speaking for a long time on this head
--speaking rather than sermonizing, which, like many cultivated but
not very original minds, he was too prone to do--"not that I would
encourage or excuse that weak yielding to calamity which looks like
submission, but is, in fact, only cowardice; submitting to all things as
to a sort of fatality, without struggling against them, or trying to
distinguish how much of them is the will of God, and how much our own
weak will; daunted by the first shadow of misfortune, especially
misfortunes in our worldly affairs, wherein so much often happens for
which we have ourselves only to blame. Submission to man is one thing,
submission to God another. The latter is divine, the former is often
merely contemptible. But even to the Almighty Father we should yield
not a blind, crushed resignation, but an open-eyed obedience, like that
we would fain win from our own children, desiring to make of them
children, not slaves.
"My children--for I speak to the very youngest of you here, and do
try to understand me if you can, or as much as you can--it is right
--it is God's will--that you should resist, to the very last, any
trial which is not inevitable. There are in this world countless
sorrows, which, so far appears, we actually bring on ourselves and
others by our own folly, wickedness, or weakness--which is often as
fatal as wickedness; and then we blame providence for it, and sink into
total despair. But when, as sometimes happens, His heavy hand is laid
upon us in a visible, inevitable misfortune which we can not struggle
against, and from which no human aid can save us, then we ought to learn
His hardest lesson--to submit. To submit--yet still, while saying
'Thy will be done,' to strive, so far as we can, to do it. If He have
taken from us all but one talent, even that, my children, let us not
bury in a napkin. Let us rather put it out a usury, leaving to Him to
determine how much we shall receive again; for it is according to our
use of what we have, and not of what we have not, that He will call us
'good and faithful servants,' and at last, when the long struggle of
living shall be over, will bid us 'enter into the joy of our Lord.'"
When the minister sat down, he saw, as he had seen consciously or
unconsciously, all through the service, and above the entire
congregation, those two large intent eyes fixed upon him from the
Cairnforth pew.
Children of ten years old do not usually listen much to sermons, but the
little earl had heard very few, for it was difficult to take him to
church without so many people staring at him. Nevertheless, he listened
to this sermon, so plain and clear, suited to the capacity of ignorant
shepherds and little children, and seemed as if he understood it all.
If he did not then, he did afterward.
When service was over, he sat watching the congregation pass out,
especially noticing a family of boys who occupied the adjoining pew.
They had neither father nor mother with them, but an elder sister, as
she appeared to be--a tall girl of about fifteen. She marshaled them
out before her, not allowing them once to turn, as many of the other
people did, to look with curiosity at the poor little earl. But in
quitting the kirk she stopped at the vestry door, apparently to say a
word to the minister; after which Mr. Cardross came forward, his gown
over his arm, and spoke to Mr. Menteith--
"Where is Lord Cairnforth? I was so glad to see him here."
"Thank you, Mr. Cardross," replied a weak but cheerful voice from
Malcolm's shoulder, which so startled the good minister that he found
not another word for a whole minute. At last he said, hesitating,
"Helen has just been reminding me that the earl and countess used always
to come and rest at the Manse between sermons. Would Lord Cairnforth
like to do the same? It is a good way to the Castle--or perhaps he is
too fatigued for the afternoon service?"
"Oh no, I should like it very much. And, nurse, I do so want to see Mr.
Cardross's children; and Helen--who is Helen?"
"My daughter. Come here, Helen, and speak to the earl."
She came forward--the tall girl who had sat at the end of the pew, in
charge of the six boys--came forward in her serious, gentle, motherly
way--alas! She was the only mother at the Manse now--and put out
her hand, but instinctively drew it back again; for oh! what poor,
helpless, unnatural-looking fingers were feebly advanced an inch or so
to meet hers! They actually shocked her--gave her a sick sense of
physical repulsion; but she conquered it. Then, by a sudden impulse of
conscience, quite forgetting the rank of the earl, and only thinking of
the poor, crippled, orphaned baby--for he seemed no more than a baby
--Helen did what her warm, loving heart was in the habit of doing, as
silent consolation for every thing, to her own tribe of "motherless
bairns"--she stooped forward and kissed him.
The little earl was so astonished that he blushed up to the very brow.
But from that minute he loved Helen Cardross, and never ceased loving
her to the end of his days.
She led the way to the Manse, which was so close behind the kirk that
the back windows of it looked on the grave-yard. But in front there was
a beautiful lawn and garden--the prettiest Manse garden that ever was
seen. Helen stepped through it with her light, quick step, a child
clinging to each hand, often turning round to speak to Malcolm or to the
earl. He followed her with his eyes and thought she was like a picture
he had once seen of a guardian angel leading two children along, though
there was not a bit of the angel about Helen Cardross--externally at
least, she being one of those large, rosy, round-face, flaxen-haired
Scotch girls who are far from pretty even in youth, and in middle age
sometimes grow quite coarse and plain. She would not do so, and did
not; for any body so good, so sweet, so bright, must always carry about
with her, even to old age, something which, if not beauty's self, is
beauty's atmosphere, and which often creates, even around unlovely
people, a light and glory as perfect as the atmosphere round the sun.
She took her seat--her poor mother's that used to be--at the head
of the Manse table--which was a little quieter on Sundays than
week-days, and especially this Sunday, when the children were all awed
and shy before their new visitor. Helen had previously taken them all
aside, and explained to them that they were not to notice any thing in
the earl that was different from other people--that he was a poor
little crippled boy who had neither father, mother, brother, nor sister,
that they were to be very kind to him, but not to look at him much, and
to make no remarks upon him on any account whatever.
And so, even though he was placed on baby's high chair, and fed by
Malcolm almost as if he were a baby--he who, though no bigger than a
baby, was in reality a boy of ten years old, whom papa talked to, and
who talked with papa almost as cleverly as Helen herself--still the
Manse children were so well behaved that nothing occurred to make any
body uncomfortable.
For the little earl, he seemed to enjoy himself amazingly. He sat in
his high chair, and looked round the well-filled table with mingled
curiosity and amusement; inquired the children's names, and was greatly
interested in the dog, the cat, a rabbit, and two kittens, which after
dinner they successively brought to amuse him. And then he invited them
all to the Castle next day, and promised to take them over his garden
there.
"But how can you take us?" said the youngest, in spite of Helen's frown.
"We can run about, but you--"
"I can't run about, that is true; but I have a little carriage, and
Malcolm draws it, or Malcolm carries me, and then I can see such a deal.
I used to see nothing--only lie on a sofa all day, and have doctors
coming about me and hurting me," added the poor little earl, growing
confidential, as one by one the boys slipped away, leaving him alone
with Helen.
"Did they hurt you very much:" asked she.
"Oh, terribly; but I never told. You see, there was no use in telling;
it could not be helped, and it would only have made nurse cry--she
always cries over me. I think that is why I like Malcolm; he always
helps me, and he never cries. And I am getting a great boy now; I was
ten years old last week."
Ten years old, though he seemed scarcely more than five, except by the
old look of his face. But Helen took no notice, only saying "that she
hoped the doctors did not hurt him now."
"No, that is all over. Dr Hamilton says I am to be left to Nature,
whatever that is; I overheard him say it one day. And I begged of Mr.
Menteith not to shut me up any longer, or take me out only in my
carriage, but to let me go about as I like, Malcolm carrying me--
isn't he a big, strong fellow? You can't think how nice it is to be
carried about, and see every thing--oh, it makes me so happy!"
The tone in which he said "so happy" made the tears start to Helen's
eyes. She turned away to the window, where she saw her own big
brothers, homely-featured, and coarsely clad, but full of health, and
strength, and activity, and then looked at this poor boy, who had every
thing that fortune could give, and yet--nothing! She thought how
they grumbled and squabbled, those rough lads of hers; how she herself
often felt the burden of the large narrow household more than she could
bear, and lost heart and temper; then she thought of him--poor,
helpless soul!--you could hardly say body--who could neither move
hand nor foot--who was dependent as an infant on the kindness or
compassion of those about him. Yet he talked of being "so happy!" And
there entered into Helen Cardross's good heart toward the Earl of Cairn
forth a deep tenderness, which from that hour nothing ever altered or
estranged.
It was not pity--something far deeper. Had he been fretful,
fractious, disagreeable, she would still have been very sorry for him
and very kind to him. But now, to see him as he was--cheerful,
patient; so ready with his interest in others, so utterly without
envying and complaining regarding himself--changed what would
otherwise have been mere compassion into actual reverence. As she sat
beside him in his little chair, not looking at him much, for she still
found it difficult to overcome the painful impression of the sight of
that crippled and deformed body, she felt a choking in her throat and a
dimness in her eyes--a longing to do any thing in the wide world that
would help or comfort the poor little earl.
"Do you learn any lessons?" asked she, thinking he seemed to enjoy
talking with her. "I thought at dinner today that you seemed to know a
great many things."
"Did I? That is very odd, for I fancied I knew nothing; and I want to
learn every thing--if Mr. Cardross will teach me. I should like to
sit and read all day long. I could do it by myself, now that I have
found out a way of holding the book and turning over the leaves without
nurse's helping me. Malcolm invented it--Malcolm is so clever and so
kind."
"Is Malcolm always with you?"
"Oh yes; how could I do without Malcolm? And you are quite sure your
father will teach me every thing I want to learn?" pursued the little
earl, very eagerly.
Helen was quite sure.
"And there is another thing. Mr. Menteith says I must try, if possible,
to learn to write--if only so as to be able to sign my name. In
eleven more years, when I am a man, he says I shall often be required to
sign my name. Do you think I could manage to learn?"
Helen looked at the poor, twisted, powerless fingers, and doubted it
very much. Still she said cheerfully, "It would anyhow be a good thing
to try."
"So it would--and I'll try. I'll begin tomorrow. Will you"--with
a pathetic entreaty in the soft eyes--"it might be too much trouble
for Mr. Cardross--but will you teach me?"
"Yes, my dear!" said Helen, warmly, "that I will."
"Thank you. And"--still hesitating--"please would you always call
me 'my dear' instead of 'my lord;' and might I call you Helen?"
So they "made a paction 'twixt them twa"--the poor little helpless,
crippled boy, and the bright, active, energetic girl--the earl's son
and minister's daughter--one of those pactions which grow out of an
inner similitude which counteracts all outward dissimilarity; and they
never broke it while they lived.
"Has my lamb enjoyed himself?" inquired Mrs. Campbell, anxiously and
affectionately, when she reappeared from the Manse kitchen. Then, with
a sudden resumption of dignity, "I beg your pardon, Miss Cardross, but
this is the first time his lordship has ever been out to dinner."
"Oh, nurse, how I wish I might go out to dinner every Sunday! I am sure
this has been the happiest day of all my life."