There could be no greater contrast than that which existed between
Walter Methven, Lord Erradeen, hurrying away with the sense of a man
escaped with his life from the shores of Loch Houran, and Oona Forrester
left behind upon the isle.
It was not only that he had all at once become the first object in her
life, and she counted for little or nothing in his. That was not the
question. She had been for sufficient space of time, and with sufficient
stress of circumstances to make the impression one which would not die
easily, of the first importance in his thoughts: and no doubt that
impression would revive when he had leisure from the overwhelming
pre-occupation which was in his mind. But it was that he was himself
full of an anxiety and excitement strong enough to dwarf every other
feeling, which made the blood course through his veins, and inspired
every thought; while she was left in a state more like vacancy than
anything else, emptied out of everything that had interested her. The
vigorous bend of the rowers to the oars as they carried him away was
not more unlike the regretful languor of the women as they stood on the
beach, Mrs. Forrester waving her handkerchief, but Oona without even
impulse enough in her to do that.
As for Walter, he was all energy and impulse. He arranged the
portmanteaux which Symington had brought with his own hands, to leave
room for the sweep of the oars, and quicken the crossing. His farewells
were but half said. It seemed as if he could scarcely breathe till he
got away. Every stroke of the oars lightened his heart, and when he was
clear of that tragic water altogether, and sprang up upon the rude
country waggonette which had been engaged at the inn to carry him to the
station, his brow relaxed, and the muscles of his mouth gave way as they
had not done since his first day on Loch Houran. He gave a look almost
of hatred at the old castle, and then averted his face. When he reached
the railway, the means of communication with the world he had known
before, he was a different man. The horses had gone too slowly for him,
so did the leisurely friendly trains on the Highland railway, with their
broad large windows for the sake of the views. Travellers, as a rule,
did not wish to go too fast while they skirted those gleaming lochs, and
ran along under shadow of the mountains: they liked to have somebody to
point out which was Loch Ool and which St. Monan's. It was too slow for
Lord Erradeen, but still it was going away. He began to think of all the
commonplace accessories of life with a sort of enthusiasm--the great
railway stations, the Edinburgh Hotel, with its ordinary guests. He was
so sick of everything connected with his Highland property and with its
history, that he resolved he would make no pause in Edinburgh, and would
not go near Mr. Milnathort. The questions they would no doubt put to him
made him impatient even in thought. He would not subject himself to
these; he would put away altogether out of his mind, if he could,
everything connected with it, and all that he had been seeing and
hearing, or, at least, had fancied he heard and saw.
But when Oona turned away from looking after the boat--which she was
indeed the first to do, Mrs. Forrester waiting almost as long as it was
within sight to wave her handkerchief if the departing guest should look
back--she felt herself and her life emptied out all at once. When she
began to think of it in the cold light of this sudden conclusion, a
sense of humiliation came over her. She blushed with hot shame at this
altogether unasked, unreasonable, unnecessary resignation of herself and
her interests to a stranger. He was nothing but a stranger, she said to
herself; there was no remarkable charm in him one way or another. She
had not been at all affected by his first appearance. He was not
handsome enough or clever enough, nor had he any special attraction to
gain him so high a place. Somehow she had not thought of Walter in her
first realisation of the new interest which had pushed away all the
other occupations out of her existence: and she had not blushed in the
high sense of expanded life and power to help. But now it moved her with
a certain shame to think that the sudden departure of a man whom she
scarcely knew, and to whom she was nothing, should thus have emptied out
her existence and left a bewildering blank in her heart. She went slowly
up the walk, and went to her room, and there sat down with a curious
self-abandonment. It was all over, all ended and done. When he came into
her life it was accidentally, without any purpose in it on either side;
and now that he had gone out of it again, there was no anger, no sense
of wrong, only a curious consciousness that everything had gone
away--that the soil had slipped from her, and nothing was left. No,
there was no reason at all to be angry--nobody was to blame. Then she
laughed a little at herself at this curious, wanton sort of trouble
intended by nobody--which neither he had meant to draw her into, nor she
to bring upon herself.
There was one thing however between her and this vacancy. He had left
her a commission which any kind-hearted girl would have thought a
delightful one--to arrange with the factor how the cotters were to be
most effectually helped and provided for. It had been their thought at
first--the young man being little better instructed than the girl on
such matters--that to make Duncan Fraser and the rest the proprietors of
their little holdings would be the most effectual way of helping them,
and would do the property of Lord Erradeen very little harm--a thing
that Walter, unaccustomed to property, and still holding it lightly,
contemplated with all the ease of the landless, never thinking of the
thorn in the flesh of a piece of alienated land in the midst of an
estate, until it suddenly flashed upon him that his estates being all
entailed, this step would be impossible. How was it to be done then?
They had decided that Shaw would know best, and that some way of
remitting the rents at least during the lifetime of the present Lord
Erradeen must be settled upon, and secured to them at once. Oona had
this commission left in her hands. She could have thought of none more
delightful a few days ago, but now it seemed to make the future vacancy
of life all the more evident by the fact that here was one thing, and
only one, before her to do. When that was done, what would happen?--a
return upon the pleasant occupations, the amusements, the hundred little
incidents which had filled the past? After all, the past was only a week
back. Can it ever return, and things be again as they were
before?----Oona had never reasoned or speculated on these matters till
this moment. She had never known by experiment that the past cannot
return, or that which has been be once more; but she became aware of it
in a moment now.
Then she got up and stood at her window and looked out on the unchanging
landscape, and laughed aloud at herself. How ridiculous it was! By this
time it made no difference to Lord Erradeen that she had ever existed.
Why should it make any difference to her that he had come and gone? The
new generation takes a view of such matters which is different from the
old-fashioned sentimental view. After yielding to the new influence
rashly, unawares, like a romantic girl of any benighted century, Oona
began to examine it like an enlightened young intelligence of her own.
Her spirit rose against it, and that vigorous quality which we call a
sense of humour. There was something almost ludicrous in the thought
that one intelligent creature should be thus subject to another, and
that life itself should be altered by an accidental meeting. And if this
was absurd to think of in any case, how much more in her own? Nobody had
ever had a more pleasant, happy life. In her perfect womanliness and
submission to all the laws of nature, she was yet as independent as the
most free-born soul could desire. There was no path in all the district,
whether it led to the loneliest cottage or the millionnaire's palace,
that was not free to Oona Forrester. The loch and the hills were open to
her as her mother's garden, to the perfectly dauntless, modest creature,
who had never in her life heard a tone or caught a look of disrespect.
She went her mother's errands, which were so often errands of charity,
far and near, with companions when she cared for them, without
companions when she did not. What did it matter? The old cotter people
about had a pretty Gaelic name for her; and to all the young ones Miss
Oona of the Isle was as who should say Princess Oona, a young lady whom
every one was bound to forward upon her way. Her mother was not so
clever as Oona, which was, perhaps, a drawback; but she could not have
been more kind, more tender, more loving if she had possessed, as our
Laureate says, "the soul of Shakespeare." All was well about and around
this favourite of nature. How was it possible then that she could have
come to any permanent harm in two or three days?
Notwithstanding this philosophical view, however, Oona did nothing all
that day, and to tell the truth felt little except the sense of vacancy;
but next day she announced to her mother that she was going to the Manse
to consult with Mr. Cameron about the Truach-Glas cotters, and that
probably she would see Mr. Shaw there, and be able to do the business
Lord Erradeen had confided to her. Mrs. Forrester fully approved.
"A thing that is to make poor folk more comfortable should never be put
off a moment," that kind woman said, "for, poor bodies, they have little
enough comfort at the best," and she stood at the porch and waved her
hand to her child, as the boat sped out of the shade of the isle into
the cold sunshine which had triumphed for an hour or two over the clouds
and rain. Oona found Mr. Shaw, as she had anticipated, in the village,
and there was a very brisk and not altogether peaceable discussion in
the minister's study, over this new idea. The factor, though he was so
strongly set against all severe measures, and in reality so much on the
side of the cotters, was yet taken aback, as was natural, by the new
idea presented to him. He laughed at the notion of making them the
owners of their little holdings.
"Why not give Tom Patterson his farm too? He finds it just as hard to
pay the rent," he cried in minded ridicule and wrath. "There is no
difference in the principle though there may be in the circumstances.
And what if Lord Erradeen had a few hundred crofters instead of
half-a-dozen? I'm speaking of the principle. Of course he cannot do it.
It's all entailed, every inch of the land, and he cannot do it; but
supposing he could, and that he were treating them all equally? It's
just not to be done. It is just shifting the difficulty. It is putting
other people at a disadvantage. A man cannot give away his land and his
living. It is just a thing that is not to be done."
"He knows it is not to be done; he knows it is entailed, therefore----"
"Oh yes, Miss Oona; therefore--" cried the factor. "Little of it, very
little, would have come his way if it had not been entailed. Whether or
not it is good for the country, there can be no doubt it's the
stronghold of a family. Very likely there would have been no Methvens
(and small damage, begging his pardon that is a kind of a new stock),
and certainly there would have been no property to keep up a title, but
for the entail. It is a strange story, the story of them altogether."
Shaw continued, "it has been a wonderfully managed property. I must say
that for it; no praise to me, so I am free to speak. There was the late
lord--the only one I knew. There was very little in him, and yet the way
he managed was wonderful; they have just added land to land, and farm to
farm. I do not understand it. And now I suppose we've arrived at the
prodigal that always appears some time in a family to make the hoards
go."
"No, no," said the minister, "you must not call the man a prodigal whose
wish is to give to the poor."
"That is all very well," said Shaw; "the poor, where there are
half-a-dozen of them, are easily enough managed. Give them their land if
you like (if it was not criminal to cut a slice out of an estate), it
does not matter much; but if there were a hundred? It is the principle I
am thinking of. They cannot buy it themselves, and the State will not
buy it for them, seeing they are only decent Scots lads, not blazing
Irishmen. I cannot see where the principle will lead to: I am not
against the kindness, Miss Oona, far from that: and these half-a-dozen
Frasers, what would it matter? but if there were a hundred? The land is
just my profession, as the Church is Mr. Cameron's, and I must think of
it, all the ways of it; and this is a thing that would not work so far
as I can see."
"But Lord Erradeen acknowledges that," said Oona. "What he wants to do
is only for his time. To set them free of the rent they cannot pay, and
to let them feel that nobody can touch them, so long as he lives--"
"And the Lord grant him wealth of days," said the minister; "a long life
and a happy one!"
"You will not look at it," cried the factor, "from a common-sense point
of view. All that is very pretty, and pleasing to the young man's--what
shall I call it?--his kindness and his vanity, for both are involved, no
doubt. But it will just debauch the minds of the people. They will learn
to think they have a right to it; and when the next heir comes into
possession, there will be a burning question raised up, and a bitter
sense of wrong if he asks for his own again. Oh yes, Miss Oona, so long
as the present condition of affairs lasts it will be their own. A man
with a rent of two or three pounds is just as liable as if it were two
or three hundred. The principle is the same; and as I am saying, if
there were a number of them, you just could not do it: for I suppose you
are not a communist, Miss Oona, that would do away with property
altogether?"
A sudden smile from among the clouds lit up Shaw's ruddy, remonstrative
countenance, as he put this question, and Oona smiled too.
"I don't make any theories," she said; "I don't understand it. I feel as
Lord Erradeen does, that whatever the law may be, I would rather be
without a roof to shelter myself than turn one poor creature out of her
home. Oh, I don't wonder when I remember the horror in his face! Think!
could you sleep, could you rest--you, young and strong, and well off,
when you had turned out the poor folk to the hill?--all for a little
miserable money?" cried Oona, starting to her feet, "or for the
principle, as you call it? I, for one," cried the girl, with flashing
eyes, "would never have let him speak to me again."
"There you have it, Oona; there's a principle, if you like; there is
something that will work," cried the old minister, with a tremulous
burst of laughter. "Just you keep by that, my bonnie dear, and all your
kind; and we'll hear of few evictions within the Highland line."
"That would be all very well," said the factor, "if every landlord was a
young lad, like Lord Erradeen; but even then it might be a hard case,
and Miss Oona would not find it as easy as she thinks; for supposing
there were hundreds, as I'm always saying: and supposing there were some
among them that could just pay well enough, but took advantage; and
supposing a landlord that was poor too, and was losing everything? No,
no, Miss Oona, in this world things are not so simple. My counsel is to
let them be--just to let them be. I would bid them pay when they can,
and that my lord would not be hard upon them. That is what I would do. I
would tell them he was willing to wait, and may be to forgive them what
was past, or something like that. After what happened the other day,
they will be very sure he will not be hard upon them. And that is what I
would advise him to do."
"You are not going to wash your hands of it, after all?" the minister
said.
Shaw laughed. "Not just this time, Mr. Cameron. I always thought he was
a fine lad. And now that he has good advisers, and amenable----" he
added, with a glance at Oona, which fortunately she did not see.
And after this interview she went home, very silent, depressed as she
had no right to be, feeling as if life was over, and all things come to
an end.