HANDS OF IRON.
The marquis was loved by his domestics, and his accident, with its
consequences, although none more serious were anticipated, cast a
gloom over Lossie House. Far apart as was his chamber from all the
centres of domestic life, the pulses of his suffering beat as it were
through the house, and the servants moved with hushed voice and gentle
footfall.
Outside, the course of events waited upon his recovery, for Miss Horn,
was too generous not to delay proceedings while her adversary was
ill. Besides, what she most of all desired was the marquis's free
acknowledgment of his son; and after such a time of suffering and
constrained reflection as he was now passing through he could hardly
fail, she thought, to be more inclined to what was just and fair.
Malcolm had of course hastened to the schoolmaster with the joy of his
deliverance from Mrs. Stewart, but Mr. Graham had not acquainted him
with the discovery Miss Horn had made, or her belief concerning his
large interest therein, to which Malcolm's report of the wrath-born
declaration of Mrs. Catanach had now supplied the only testimony
wanting, for the right of disclosure was Miss Horn's. To her he had
carried Malcolm's narrative of late events, tenfold strengthening
her position; but she was anxious in her turn that the revelation
concerning his birth should come to him from his father. Hence,
Malcolm continued in ignorance of the strange dawn that had begun to
break on the darkness of his origin.
Miss Horn had told Mr. Graham what the marquis had said about the
tutorship, but the schoolmaster only shook his head with a smile, and
went on with his preparations for departure.
The hours went by, the days lengthened into weeks, and the marquis's
condition did not improve. He had never known sickness and pain
before, and like most of the children of this world counted them the
greatest of evils; nor was there any sign of their having as yet begun
to open his eyes to what those who have seen them call truths--those
who have never even boded their presence count absurdities.
More and more, however, he desired the attendance of Malcolm, who was
consequently a great deal about him, serving with a love to account
for which those who knew his nature would not have found it necessary
to fall back on the instinct of the relation between them. The marquis
had soon satisfied himself that that relation was as yet unknown to
him, and was all the better pleased with his devotion and tenderness.
The inflammation continued, increased, spread, and at length the
doctors determined to amputate. But the marquis was absolutely
horrified at the idea--shrank from it with invincible repugnance.
The moment the first dawn of comprehension vaguely illuminated
their periphrastic approaches he blazed out in a fury, cursed them
frightfully, called them all the contemptuous names in his rather
limited vocabulary, and swore he would see them--uncomfortable first.
"We fear mortification, my lord," said the physician calmly.
"So do I. Keep it off," returned the marquis.
"We fear we cannot, my lord." It had, in fact, already commenced.
"Let it mortify, then, and be damned," said his lordship.
"I trust, my lord, you will reconsider it," said the surgeon. "We
should not have dreamed of suggesting a measure of such severity had
we not had reason to dread that the further prosecution of gentler
means would but lessen your lordship's chance of recovery."
"You mean, then, that my life is in danger?"
"We fear," said the physician, "that the amputation proposed is the
only thing that can save it."
"What a brace of blasted bunglers you are!" cried the marquis, and,
turning away his face, lay silent.
The two men looked at each other and said nothing.
Malcolm was by, and a pang shot to his heart at the verdict. The men
retired to consult. Malcolm approached the bed. "My lord!" he said
gently.
No reply came.
"Dinna lea 's oor lanes, my lord--no yet," Malcolm persisted. "What's
to come o' my leddy?"
The marquis gave a gasp. Still he made no reply.
"She has naebody, ye ken, my lord, 'at ye wad like to lippen her wi'."
"You must take care of her when I am gone, Malcolm," murmured the
marquis; and his voice was now gentle with sadness and broken with
misery.
"Me, my lord!" returned Malcolm. "Wha wad min' me? An' what cud I du
wi' her? I cudna even hand her ohn wat her feet. Her leddy's maid cud
du mair wi' her, though I wad lay doon my life for her, as I tauld ye,
my lord; an' she kens 't weel eneuch."
Silence followed. Both men were thinking.
"Gie me a richt, my lord, an' I'll du my best," said Malcolm, at
length breaking the silence.
"What do you mean?" growled the marquis, whose mood had altered.
"Gie me a legal richt, my lord, an' see gien I dinna."
"See what?"
"See gien I dinna luik weel efter my leddy."
"How am I to see? I shall be dead and damned."
"Please God, my lord, ye'll be alive an' weel--in a better place, if
no here to luik efter my leddy yersel'."
"Oh, I dare say," muttered the marquis.
"But ye'll hearken to the doctors, my lord," Malcolm went on, "an' no
dee wantin' time to consider o' 't."
"Yes, yes: to-morrow I'll have another talk with them. We'll see about
it. There's time enough yet. They're all coxcombs, every one of them.
They never give a patient the least credit for common sense."
"I dinna ken, my lord," said Malcolm doubtfully.
After a few minutes' silence, during which Malcolm thought he had
fallen asleep, the marquis resumed abruptly. "What do you mean by
giving you a legal right?" he said.
"There's some w'y o' makin' ae body guairdian till anither, sae 'at
the law 'll uphaud him--isna there, my lord?"
"Yes, surely. Well! Rather odd--wouldn't it be?--a young fisher-lad
guardian to a marchioness! Eh? They say there's nothing new under the
sun, but that sounds rather like it, I think."
Malcolm was overjoyed to hear him speak with something like his old
manner. He felt he could stand any amount of chaff from him now, and
so the proposition he had made in seriousness he went on to defend in
the hope of giving amusement, yet with a secret wild delight in the
dream of such full devotion to the service of Lady Florimel.
"It wad soon' queer eneuch, my lord, nae doobt, but fowk maunna min'
the soon' o' a thing gien 't be a' straucht an' fair, an' strong
eneuch to stan'. They cudna lauch me oot o' my richts, be they 'at
they likit--Lady Bellair or ony o' them--na, nor jaw me oot o' them
aither."
"They might do a good deal to render those rights of little use," said
the marquis.
"That wad come till a trial o' brains, my lord," returned Malcolm:
"an' ye dinna think I wadna hae the wit to speir advice; an', what's
mair, to ken whan it was guid, an' tak it. There's lawyers, my lord."
"And their expenses?"
"Ye cud lea' sae muckle to be waured (_spent_) upo' the cairryin' oot
o' yer lordship's wull."
"Who would see that you applied it properly?"
"My ain conscience, my lord, or Mr. Graham gien ye likit."
"And how would you live yourself?"
"Ow! lea' ye that to me, my lord. Only dinna imagine I wad be behauden
to yer lordship. I houp I hae mair pride nor that. Ilka poun'-not',
shillin' an' bawbee sud be laid oot for _her_, an' what was left
hainet (_saved_) for her."
"By Jove! it's a daring proposal!" said the marquis; and, which seemed
strange to Malcolm, not a single thread of ridicule ran through the
tone in which he made the remark.
The next day came, but brought neither strength of body nor of mind
with it. Again his professional attendants besought him, and he heard
them more quietly, but rejected their proposition as positively as
before. In a day or two he ceased to oppose it, but would not hear of
preparation. Hour glided into hour, and days had gathered to a week,
when they assailed him with a solemn and last appeal.
"Nonsense!" answered the marquis. "My leg is getting better. I feel no
pain--in fact, nothing but a little faintness. Your damned medicines,
I haven't a doubt."
"You are in the greatest danger, my lord. It is all but too late even
now."
"To-morrow, then, if it must be. To-day I could not endure to have my
hair cut, positively; and as to having my leg off--pooh! the thing's
preposterous."
He turned white and shuddered, for all the nonchalance of his speech.
When to-morrow came there was not a surgeon in the land who would have
taken his leg off. He looked in their faces, and seemed for the first
time convinced of the necessity of the measure.
"You may do as you please," he said: "I am ready."
"Not to-day, my lord," replied the doctor--"your lordship is not equal
to it to-day."
"I understand," said the marquis, and paled frightfully and turned his
head aside.
When Mrs. Courthope suggested that Lady Florimel should be sent for,
he flew into a frightful rage, and spoke as it is to be hoped he had
never spoken to a woman before. She took it with perfect gentleness,
but could not repress a tear. The marquis saw it, and his heart was
touched. "You mustn't mind a dying man's temper," he said.
"It's not for myself, my lord," she answered.
"I know: you think I'm not fit to die; and, damn it! you are right.
Never one was less fit for heaven or less willing to go to hell."
"Wouldn't you like to see a clergyman, my lord?" she suggested,
sobbing.
He was on the point of breaking out into a still worse passion, but
controlled himself. "A clergyman!" he cried: "I would as soon see the
undertaker. What could he do but tell me I was going to be damned--a
fact I know better than he can? That is, if it's not all an invention
of the cloth, as, in my soul, I believe it is. I've said so any time
these forty years."
"Oh, my lord! my lord! do not fling away your last hope."
"You imagine me to have a chance, then? Good soul! you don't know any
better."
"The Lord is merciful."
The marquis laughed--that is, he tried, failed, and grinned.
"Mr. Cairns is in the dining-room, my lord."
"Bah! A low pettifogger, with the soul of a bullock. Don't let me hear
the fellow's name. I've been bad enough, God knows, but I haven't sunk
to the level of _his_ help yet. If he's God Almighty's factor, and the
saw holds, 'Like master, like man,' well, I would rather have nothing
to do with either."
"That is, if you had the choice, my lord," said Mrs. Courthope, her
temper yielding somewhat, though in truth his speech was not half so
irreverent as it seemed to her.
"Tell him to go to hell. No, don't: set him down to a bottle of port
and a great sponge-cake, and you needn't tell him to go to heaven,
for he'll be there already. Why, Mrs. Courthope, the fellow isn't a
gentleman. And yet all he cares for the cloth is that he thinks it
makes a gentleman of him--as if anything in heaven, earth or hell
could work that miracle!"
In the middle of the night, as Malcolm sat by his bed, thinking
him asleep, the marquis spoke suddenly. "You must go to Aberdeen
to-morrow, Malcolm," he said.
"Verra weel, my lord."
"And bring Mr. Glennie, the lawyer, back with you."
"Yes, my lord."
"Go to bed, then."
"I wad raither bide, my lord. I cudna sleep a wink for wantin' to be
back aside ye."
The marquis yielded, and Malcolm sat by him all the night through. He
tossed about, would doze off and murmur strangely, then wake up and
ask for brandy and water, yet be content with the lemonade Malcolm
gave him.
Next day he quarreled with every word that Mrs. Courthope uttered,
kept forgetting he had sent Malcolm away, and was continually wanting
him. His fits of pain were more severe, alternated with drowsiness,
which deepened at times to stupor.
It was late before Malcolm returned. He went instantly to his bedside.
"Is Mr. Glennie with you?" asked his master feebly.
"Yes, my lord."
"Tell him to come here at once."
When Malcolm returned with the lawyer the marquis directed him to
place a table and chair by the bedside, light four candles, provide
everything necessary for writing and go to bed.