Thus it happened that an affair which so nearly touched the honour of
the Morays, and which had been agitating me at the very moment when
the bugle sounded in the Place d'Armes, became a secret shared by
three only. The regiment joined in the occupation of Paris, and did
not return to Scotland until the middle of December.
I had ceased to mourn for Mr. Mackenzie, but neither to regret him nor
to speculate on the mystery which closed his career, and which, now
that death had sealed Mr. Urquhart's lips, I could no longer hope to
penetrate, when, on the day of my return to Inverness, I was reminded
of him by finding, among the letters and papers awaiting me, a
visiting-card neatly indited with the name of the Reverend Samuel
Saul. On inquiry I learnt that the minister had paid at least three
visits to Inverness during the past fortnight, and had, on each
occasion, shown much anxiety to learn when the battalion might be
expected. He had also left word that he wished to see me on a matter
of much importance.
Sure enough, at ten o'clock next morning the little man presented
himself. He was clearly bursting to disclose his business, and our
salutations were scarce over when he ran to the door and called to
some one in the passage outside.
"Elspeth! Step inside, woman. The housekeeper, sir, to the late Mr.
Mackenzie of Ardlaugh," he explained, as he held the door to admit
her.
She was dressed in ragged mourning, and wore a grotesque and fearful
bonnet. As she saluted me respectfully I saw that her eyes indeed were
dry and even hard, but her features set in an expression of quiet
and hopeless misery. She did not speak, but left explanation to the
minister.
"You will guess, sir," began Mr. Saul, "that we have called to learn
more of the poor lad." And he paused.
"He died most gallantly," said I: "died in the act of saving the
colours. No soldier could have wished for a better end."
"To be sure, to be sure. So it was reported to us. He died, as one
might say, without a stain on his character?" said Mr. Saul, with a
sort of question in his tone.
"He died," I answered, "in a way which could only do credit to his
name."
A somewhat constrained silence followed. The woman broke it. "You are
not telling us all," she said, in a slow, harsh voice.
It took me aback. "I am telling all that needs to be known," I assured
her.
"No doubt, sir, no doubt," Mr. Saul interjected. "Hold your tongue,
woman. I am going to tell Colonel Ross a tale which may or may not
bear upon anything he knows. If not, he will interrupt me before I
go far; but if he says nothing I shall take it I have his leave to
continue. Now, sir, on the 16th day of June last, and at six in the
morning--that would be the day of Quatre Bras--"
He paused for me to nod assent, and continued. "At six in the morning
or a little earlier, this woman, Elspeth Mackenzie, came to me at the
Manse in great perturbation. She had walked all the way from Ardlaugh.
It had come to her (she said) that the young Laird abroad was in great
trouble since the previous evening. I asked, 'What trouble? Was it
danger of life, for instance?'--asking it not seriously, but rather
to compose her; for at first I set down her fears to an old woman's
whimsies. Not that I would call Elspeth old precisely--"
Here he broke off and glanced at her; but, perceiving she paid little
attention, went on again at a gallop. "She answered that it was
worse--that the young Laird stood very near disgrace, and (the worst
of all was) at a distance she could not help him. Now, sir, for
reasons I shall hereafter tell you, Mr. Mackenzie's being in disgrace
would have little surprised me; but that she should know of it, he
being in Belgium, was incredible. So I pressed her, and she being
distraught and (I verily believe) in something like anguish, came out
with a most extraordinary story: to wit, that the Laird of Ardlaugh
had in his service, unbeknown to him (but, as she protested, well
known to her), a familiar spirit--or, as we should say commonly, a
'brownie'--which in general served him most faithfully but at times
erratically, having no conscience nor any Christian principle to
direct him. I cautioned her, but she persisted, in a kind of wild
terror, and added that at times the spirit would, in all good faith,
do things which no Christian allowed to be permissible, and further,
that she had profited by such actions. I asked her, 'Was thieving one
of them?' She answered that it was, and indeed the chief.
"Now, this was an admission which gave me some eagerness to hear
more. For to my knowledge there were charges lying against young Mr.
Mackenzie--though not pronounced--which pointed to a thief in his
employment and presumably in his confidence. You will remember, sir,
that when I had the honour of meeting you at Mr. Mackenzie's table, I
took my leave with much abruptness. You remarked upon it, no doubt.
But you will no longer think it strange when I tell you that
there--under my nose--were a dozen apples of a sort which grows
nowhere within twenty miles of Ardlaugh but in my own Manse garden.
The tree was a new one, obtained from Herefordshire, and planted
three seasons before as an experiment. I had watched it, therefore,
particularly; and on that very morning had counted the fruit, and been
dismayed to find twelve apples missing. Further, I am a pretty good
judge of wine (though I taste it rarely), and could there and then
have taken my oath that the claret our host set before us was the very
wine I had tasted at the table of his neighbour Mr. Gillespie. As for
the venison--I had already heard whispers that deer and all game were
not safe within a mile or two of Ardlaugh. These were injurious tales,
sir, which I had no mind to believe; for, bating his religion, I saw
everything in Mr. Mackenzie which disposed me to like him. But I knew
(as neighbours must) of the shortness of his purse; and the multiplied
evidence (particularly my own Goodrich pippins staring me in the face)
overwhelmed me for a moment.
"So then, I listened to this woman's tale with more patience--or,
let me say, more curiosity--than you, sir, might have given it. She
persisted, I say, that her master was in trouble; and that the trouble
had something to do with a game of cards, but that Mr. Mackenzie had
been innocent of deceit, and the real culprit was this spirit I tell
of--"
Here the woman herself broke in upon Mr. Saul. "He had nae
conscience--he had nae conscience. He was just a poor luck-child, born
by mischance and put away without baptism. He had nae conscience. How
should he?"