I would not have a speck rest on his fame
Not if it gave me kingdoms--
’Tis very true that I am poor and friendless,
But think you for that reason I would steal
Kinsman and lands from yet another orphan?
No, no--ah, no!
Lilias Maxwell sat in the old-fashioned window-seat of the Mossgray
drawing-room busy with some household sewing. It was an appropriate work
then, with its licence of unlimited thought, though it had often been
unwholesome enough for the solitary orphan. She was looking forward now,
in that freshness of feeling with which those look who, after a long
interregnum of pain, may again dare to turn their eyes to the future.
Her heart was convalescent, and the haze of subdued sadness which
remained about her present self made the prospect only the fairer. She
was thinking of her guardian’s delicate care of her, and of the one
living voice which should yet thank him for his tenderness.
The old man upstairs in his study was reading one of his philosophical
favourites with some restlessness, as a duty. He was slightly ashamed of
himself for so much preferring the society of his young charge to that
of his old, learned, constant friends. The dust that lay upon his
scientific tools, and the unusual order and solemn regularity with which
these folio and quarto inhabitants of his shelves were arranged, came
upon him like a reproof. His hand rested upon the fanciful records of
Bishop Berkeley’s mystic system. Open before him lay the steadier
disquisitions of a grave philosopher of Scotland. Upon the same table
were some of those strange, wild charts which reveal to us the dreamy
sea of German thought. The volumes round bore all on kindred
subjects--writings of men who had given consistence to the reveries of
the unformed world before their time, and of men who had but skill
enough to spin their spider’s thread about the obscure college or
unknown scholar’s cell in which they lived and died. Divine philosophy
in its strength and its weakness encircled the Laird of Mossgray.
But from the high window of the projecting turret the ruddy winter
sunshine stole in a line of dazzling light through the large low room.
It was a mild day, so mild that the turret window was open, and the low
hum of rural sounds ascended from beneath. Adam Graeme leant back in his
chair, and looked at the steady line of sunlight, and forgot the
philosophies of science. There rose in the gentle soul of the old man
philosophies of older date than these, born before ever the restless
mind of humanity had investigated its own formation or classified its
feelings.
“The same sound is in mine ears
Which in those days I heard.”
Wonderful sights and sounds of nature unchangeable in all their
varying--wonderful human heart which twines its memories about them, and
growing old, dwells in the past, by aid of the great earth and greater
sun!
By the fireside stood an old carved chair; the room was so much the
hermitage of its owner, that its furniture was very scanty; there was no
accommodation for any companionship; but when every other article in the
room was piled with books, this solitary chair remained always
unencumbered. For years it had stood in the same position, turned
towards the fire, its high carved back standing up, a kind of gloomy
screen against the light. This day its position had been slightly
altered, and the sunshine streaming in, threw its fantastic gilding over
the antique carving and faded old embroidery of the unused seat. The old
man started slightly as his eye fell upon it, and it was some time
before he recollected himself. Lilias had been in the study early this
morning, and she it was who had, unconsciously, made this alteration.
It was the chair of Charlie Graeme. This room, now the study of the
thoughtful, aged man, had been the favourite haunt of the schoolboy
cousins long ago. Rusty armour, and heavy swords and axes, borne by the
chiefs of Mossgray, when peace was unknown upon the Border, hung still
upon the low bare walls, and in one corner a pile of youthful
implements, fishing-rods and the like, still bore witness to the
different occupations once pursued under its roof; through all these
long intervening years, since the household traitor left for the last
time the house of the trustful friend, to whom his lost honour brought
so severe a pang, “Charlie’s chair” remained as he had left it,
unoccupied by the solitary fireside. Now for the first time the sunlight
slanted on this relic of the false man, and Mossgray sat with his eyes
fixed upon it, thinking of the dead.
That morning he had received a letter from the Reverend Matthew Monikie,
the pragmatical licentiate of the church, who kept the Aberdeenshire
school, where Charlie’s son had spent his youth. The letter was formally
written, as became the man’s profession, age, and character, with
deductions somewhat authoritative. Halbert Graeme was nearly one and
twenty; it was absolutely necessary, Mr Monikie represented, that some
provision should be made for his future life; that he should be placed
in some situation where he could maintain himself.
Mossgray had made a resolution, and was determined to keep it. The son
of Charlie Graeme should never be heir to the house in which his father
had meditated so much treachery; it was better than the line of the old
race should be utterly extinguished, than that it should spring anew
from a stock which displayed so much guile, and falsehood, and
dishonour. Mossgray resolved to continue the yearly allowance he had
given this youth, and to refuse him no specific aid or influence which
he asked; but, “Let him not enter my presence,” repeated the old man;
“let me not be brought into contact with one whose motives I cannot
trust, whose conduct may steel my heart both against himself and others.
I wish him well, but let him not come near me.”
It was unjust: it was almost the single conscious injustice with which
even his own conscience could tax Adam Graeme of Mossgray, and in
consequence he tried to banish it from his mind. As he sat thus musing,
a melting of the heart came upon him. He could almost fancy, as he saw
the sunbeams stealing over Charlie’s chair, that Charlie himself had
risen from it even now.
Very shortly afterwards he joined Lilias. She was still sitting in the
deep window-seat of the cheerful, old-fashioned drawing-room. The ruddy
sunbeams just touched her pale head with a shadowy glory; her fingers
were busily employed, her mind no less active. Not as Helen Buchanan
would have done in the vivid dreams which took possession of her less
serene spirit, but in the flush of a tranquil, gentle hope, weaving the
mystic thread of her imagined destiny over the unknown future which lay
before her.
“Lilias,” said her guardian, when they had been for some time engaged in
conversation less personal, “I am the last of my race, but I have a
fancy that I should like ill to be the last of my name. When I was as
young as you are, there seemed to me a peculiar charm and grace in the
name I would have you bear--you must be Lilias Graeme.”
“Gladly, if it pleases you, Mossgray,” answered Lilias.
“It pleases me,” said the old man, with his gentle smile; “it is strange
how sometimes, Lilias, we have our early fancies realized in a way
which, could we foresee it when we form them, we should think bitter
mockery. This name! well, but the years fall tranquilly, and do a good
work in the content they bring. I think they bring content--acquiescence
at least in what Providence sends us.”
“Is it always so?” said Lilias. She was thinking of her fretful,
repining father, whose discontent was not allayed by years.
“I think so,” said Mossgray: “we resist when we are strong, but when
this gentle hand of decay droops over us, we learn to think that what
has befallen us was, after all, the best; but I did not intend to
discuss melancholy matters with you, and youthful people, as I remember,
think all sad that relates to the end. When that comes, Lilias--when you
yourself are the lady of this old stronghold of the Graemes, remember
that you have promised to bear their name.”
Lilias laid down her work and looked steadily into her guardian’s face.
“You shall call me by what name you please, but you must not give me
Mossgray.”
The old man shook his head and smiled.
“No, no!” exclaimed Lilias, hastily; “you have given me a home in my
extremity--more than that, you have given me such kindness as perhaps no
other in the world could give. You have been my protector, my true
father, and I thank you with all my heart; but there is no gift you can
give me now half so precious as those I have received already. You have
made me your child; after this I will take no inferior gift, not though
it is all your land. I will be Lilias Graeme your daughter; but only
while Mossgray is _your_ home must it be mine.”
Mossgray laid his hand gently on the young head which was inspired with
energy so unusual.
“I thank you, my good Lilias; but even on your own showing you must take
my inheritance; for I can have no heir so fitting as my own child.”
“Mossgray,” said Lilias, “you are not the last of your race.”
A slight colour passed over the old man’s face.
“You are right, Lilias,” he said, gravely, “there is yet one Graeme
remaining of the blood; but even you must not speak to me of him.”
Her face had been lifted to him full of eagerness: when he said that her
countenance fell--she was silent.
“Nay,” said her guardian, kindly, “I do not mean that there is anything,
Lilias, of which you may not speak to me with the utmost freedom; but
this youth, this Halbert--you do not and cannot know how strong my
reasons are for resolving never to see him, nor to suffer his presence
at Mossgray.”
“Is it for himself; has he displeased you himself, Mossgray?” asked
Lilias, with some timidity.
Adam Graeme sat down near her, and met her shy glance with his own
benign, unclouded smile.
“We will speak of him no more, Lilias, if you are afraid.”
“No, no, I am not afraid,” said Lilias, hurriedly; “but you must let me
be proud--for myself and for you.”
The old man smiled again.
“Surely, Lilias, if you will tell me how and why.”
“For myself,” said Lilias, with some tremor in her voice, “because I
would fain have you believe, Mossgray, that it is your own tenderness I
prize, and not any gift--not any inheritance.”
“I believe it already, Lilias--I need no proof.”
“And besides,” continued Lilias, “for everybody--all our
neighbours--‘the haill water,’ Mossgray. I must vindicate myself. I
cannot have these good people think ill of me. They know you have given
me everything I have; but they must not fancy that I grasp at all.”
“Hush, Lilias,” said the old man, “I cannot hear this. Well, I permit
your own pride: it becomes you well enough; and now for me.”
“And for you, Mossgray,” said Lilias. “I am jealous that any one should
have cause to say that once in your life you dealt unjustly--that you
alienated his inheritance from one of your own blood because your kind
heart had compassion on a stranger. I could not hear this said. For the
very name’s sake which you say I am to bear, I would shrink from such a
reproach as this.”
“It is unjust,” said the old man. “I almost believe you, Lilias; but
suppose that I knew, and were sure, that far greater dishonour would
come to the name, if Halbert Graeme inherited Mossgray, than could fall
upon me for disowning him--what then? Would you still advise me to
bestow all I have upon the son of a treacherous, false man?”
“I do not know him,” said Lilias; “if he does otherwise than well, I am
grieved for himself; but it has no effect upon me--it does not alter the
right and the wrong; and you, Mossgray, who have never done injustice!”
“How have you heard, Lilias, of Halbert Graeme?” said the old man. “Did
you ever meet him in your wanderings that you plead his cause so
warmly?”
“No--oh, no. I have only heard of him, principally here at home, where
they cannot forget that he is a son of the house,” said Lilias; “and
some one has brought them word that he is good and generous, and worthy
to be your successor. Will you not see with your own eyes whether it is
so?”
“You are a Quixote, Lilias,” said Mossgray, “you have the epidemic
generosity of youth upon you just now. When you are old, you will be
wiser, perhaps--who can tell?--than to throw away your own prospects for
the sake of a stranger whom you never saw.”
“I do not know that it is well to be so wise,” said Lilias; “and I shall
not learn from you, Mossgray.”
“In this point I cannot answer for myself,” said the old man. “I have
had an experience bitterer than usual; but let us not speak of that: we
have had enough of Halbert Graeme. Who are to be your guests, Lilias, in
our first essay at hospitality? have you determined?”
“I specially beg an invitation for only one,” said Lilias; “and perhaps
I do ill to ask that; but--I remember what it is to be poor and alone.”
“And who is your one guest?” said Mossgray.
“It is Helen Buchanan;--you have seen her, Mossgray; she is only a
humble teacher in Fendie: but she is--”
“I know her,” said the courteous Adam Graeme, to whom the word
gentlewoman was, as to Hope Oswald, the highest of feminine titles. “Why
should you hesitate to invite her, Lilias?”
“Because,” said Lilias, with a smile, “the young ladies, the young
landed ladies, Mossgray, may think her not good enough to meet them; but
I made a promise to Hope Oswald to do what I could to honour Helen in
the presence of Hope’s father.”
“So Hope begins to scheme,” said Mossgray, smiling; “and the cause,
Lilias?”
“I think it has some connection with Mr William Oswald; indeed, Mrs
Oswald almost told me that his father’s very stern resolution alone
prevents--”
“I understand,” said the old man, as Lilias hesitated and blushed with a
not unnatural sympathy. “His father’s resolution--pooh! his father will
break it.”
“Do you think so, Mossgray?”
“I begin to think, Lilias,” said Mossgray, turning to leave the room,
“that resolutions are made only to be broken. May it fare with Mr Oswald
as it has done with me; but remember,” and the old man looked back from
the door with some humour in his face, “I do not mean in the matter of
Halbert Graeme.”
He did not mean it--he was still _resolved_; and yet when he returned to
his study, it was to look long at the declining sunlight as it gilded
the ancient carvings of Charlie’s chair, and to think gently of the
dead. A certain poetic, half-superstitious feeling, which became him
well, hindered him from restoring to its original position the old seat
of Charlie Graeme. He suffered the sunshine to dwell upon it like a
reconciling smile.