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THE WORKS OF
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
SWANSTON EDITION
VOLUME XII
_Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five
Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies
have been printed, of which only Two Thousand
Copies are for sale._
_This is No. ........._
[Illustration: R. L. S. DICTATING TO MRS. STRONG IN HIS STUDY AT VAILIMA]
THE WORKS OF
ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON
VOLUME TWELVE
LONDON : PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND
WINDUS : IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL
AND COMPANY LIMITED : WILLIAM
HEINEMANN : AND LONGMANS GREEN
AND COMPANY MDCCCCXII
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONTENTS
THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE
CHAPTER PAGE
I. SUMMARY OF EVENTS DURING THE MASTER'S WANDERINGS 9
II. SUMMARY OF EVENTS (_continued_) 21
III. THE MASTER'S WANDERINGS: FROM THE MEMOIRS OF THE
CHEVALIER DE BURKE 38
IV. PERSECUTIONS ENDURED BY MR. HENRY 70
V. ACCOUNT OF ALL THAT PASSED ON THE NIGHT OF
FEBRUARY 27TH, 1757 105
VI. SUMMARY OF EVENTS DURING THE MASTER'S SECOND
ABSENCE 127
VII. ADVENTURE OF CHEVALIER BURKE IN INDIA: EXTRACTED
FROM HIS MEMOIRS 147
VIII. THE ENEMY IN THE HOUSE 152
IX. MR. MACKELLAR'S JOURNEY WITH THE MASTER 175
X. PASSAGES AT NEW YORK 194
XI. THE JOURNEY IN THE WILDERNESS 213
XII. THE JOURNEY IN THE WILDERNESS (_continued_) 238
THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE
_TO_
_SIR PERCY FLORENCE AND LADY SHELLEY_
_Here is a tale which extends over many years and travels into many
countries. By a peculiar fitness of circumstance the writer began,
continued it, and concluded it among distant and diverse scenes. Above
all, he was much upon the sea. The character and fortune of the
fraternal enemies, the hall and shrubbery of Durrisdeer, the problem of
Mackellar's homespun and how to shape it for superior flights; these
were his company on deck in many star-reflecting harbours, ran often in
his mind at sea to the tune of slatting canvas, and were dismissed
(something of the suddenest) on the approach of squalls. It is my hope
that these surroundings of its manufacture may to some degree find
favour for my story with seafarers and sea-lovers like yourselves._
_And at least here is a dedication from a great way off: written by the
loud shores of a subtropical island near upon ten thousand miles from
Boscombe Chine and Manor: scenes which rise before me as I write, along
with the faces and voices of my friends._
_Well, I am for the sea once more; no doubt Sir Percy also. Let us make
the signal B. R. D.!_
_R. L. S._
_Waikiki_, _May_ 17_th_, 1889.
PREFACE
Although an old, consistent exile, the editor of the following pages
revisits now and again the city of which he exults to be a native; and
there are few things more strange, more painful, or more salutary, than
such revisitations. Outside, in foreign spots, he comes by surprise and
awakens more attention than he had expected; in his own city, the
relation is reversed, and he stands amazed to be so little recollected.
Elsewhere he is refreshed to see attractive faces, to remark possible
friends; there he scouts the long streets, with a pang at heart, for the
faces and friends that are no more. Elsewhere he is delighted with the
presence of what is new, there tormented by the absence of what is old.
Elsewhere he is content to be his present self; there he is smitten with
an equal regret for what he once was and for what he once hoped to be.
He was feeling all this dimly, as he drove from the station, on his last
visit; he was feeling it still as he alighted at the door of his friend
Mr. Johnstone Thomson, W.S., with whom he was to stay. A hearty welcome,
a face not altogether changed, a few words that sounded of old days, a
laugh provoked and shared, a glimpse in passing of the snowy cloth and
bright decanters and the Piranesis on the dining-room wall, brought him
to his bed-room with a somewhat lightened cheer, and when he and Mr.
Thomson sat down a few minutes later, cheek by jowl, and pledged the
past in a preliminary bumper, he was already almost consoled, he had
already almost forgiven himself his two unpardonable errors, that he
should ever have left his native city, or ever returned to it.
"I have something quite in your way," said Mr. Thomson. "I wished to do
honour to your arrival; because, my dear fellow, it is my own youth that
comes back along with you; in a very tattered and withered state, to be
sure, but--well!--all that's left of it."
"A great deal better than nothing," said the editor. "But what is this
which is quite in my way?"
"I was coming to that," said Mr. Thomson: "Fate has put it in my power
to honour your arrival with something really original by way of dessert.
A mystery."
"A mystery?" I repeated.
"Yes," said his friend, "a mystery. It may prove to be nothing, and it
may prove to be a great deal. But in the meanwhile it is truly
mysterious, no eye having looked on it for near a hundred years; it is
highly genteel, for it treats of a titled family; and it ought to be
melodramatic, for (according to the superscription) it is concerned with
death."
"I think I rarely heard a more obscure or a more promising
annunciation," the other remarked. "But what is It?"
"You remember my predecessor's, old Peter M'Brair's business?"
"I remember him acutely; he could not look at me without a pang of
reprobation, and he could not feel the pang without betraying it. He was
to me a man of a great historical interest, but the interest was not
returned."
"Ah well, we go beyond him," said Mr. Thomson. "I daresay old Peter knew
as little about this as I do. You see, I succeeded to a prodigious
accumulation of old law-papers and old tin boxes, some of them of
Peter's hoarding, some of his father's, John, first of the dynasty, a
great man in his day. Among other collections, were all the papers of
the Durrisdeers."
"The Durrisdeers!" cried I. "My dear fellow, these may be of the
greatest interest. One of them was out in the 'Forty-five; one had some
strange passages with the devil--you will find a note of it in Law's
'Memorials,' I think; and there was an unexplained tragedy, I know not
what, much later, about a hundred years ago----"
"More than a hundred years ago," said Mr. Thomson. "In 1783."
"How do you know that? I mean some death."
"Yes, the lamentable deaths of my Lord Durrisdeer and his brother, the
Master of Ballantrae (attainted in the troubles)," said Mr. Thomson with
something the tone of a man quoting. "Is that it?"
"To say truth," said I, "I have only seen some dim reference to the
things in memoirs; and heard some traditions dimmer still, through my
uncle (whom I think you knew). My uncle lived when he was a boy in the
neighbourhood of St. Bride's; he has often told me of the avenue closed
up and grown over with grass, the great gates never opened, the last
lord and his old maid sister who lived in the back parts of the house, a
quiet, plain, poor, humdrum couple it would seem--but pathetic too, as
the last of that stirring and brave house--and, to the country folk,
faintly terrible from some deformed traditions."
"Yes," said Mr. Thomson. "Henry Graeme Durie, the last lord, died in
1820; his sister, the Honourable Miss Katharine Durie, in 'Twenty-seven;
so much I know; and by what I have been going over the last few days,
they were what you say, decent, quiet people, and not rich. To say
truth, it was a letter of my lord's that put me on the search for the
packet we are going to open this evening. Some papers could not be
found; and he wrote to Jack M'Brair suggesting they might be among those
sealed up by a Mr. Mackellar. M'Brair answered, that the papers in
question were all in Mackellar's own hand, all (as the writer
understood) of a purely narrative character; and besides, said he, 'I am
not bound to open them before the year 1889.' You may fancy if these
words struck me: I instituted a hunt through all the M'Brair
repositories; and at last hit upon that packet which (if you have had
enough wine) I propose to show you at once."
In the smoking-room, to which my host now led me, was a packet, fastened
with many seals and enclosed in a single sheet of strong paper thus
endorsed:
Papers relating to the lives and lamentable deaths of the late Lord
Durisdeer, and his elder brother James, commonly called Master of
Ballantrae, attainted in the troubles: entrusted into the hands of
John M'Brair in the Lawnmarket of Edinburgh, W.S.; this 20th day of
September Anno Domini 1789; by him to be kept secret until the
revolution of one hundred years complete, or until the 20th day of
September 1889: the same compiled and written by me,
EPHRAIM MACKELLAR,
_For near forty years Land Steward on the estates of his Lordship._
As Mr. Thomson is a married man, I will not say what hour had struck
when we laid down the last of the following pages; but I will give a few
words of what ensued.
"Here," said Mr. Thomson, "is a novel ready to your hand: all you have
to do is to work up the scenery, develop the characters, and improve the
style."
"My dear fellow," said I, "they are just the three things that I would
rather die than set my hand to. It shall be published as it stands."
"But it's so bald," objected Mr. Thomson.
"I believe there is nothing so noble as baldness," replied I, "and I am
sure there is nothing so interesting. I would have all literature bald,
and all authors (if you like) but one."
"Well, well," said Mr. Thomson, "we shall see."
* * * * *
[_"Johnstone Thomson, W.S.," is Mr. C. Baxter, W.S. (afterwards the
author's executor), with whom, as "Thomson Johnstone," Stevenson
frequently corresponded in the broadest of broad Scots.--The scene is
laid in Mr. Baxter's house, 7 Rothesay Place, Edinburgh._]
THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE
CHAPTER I
SUMMARY OF EVENTS DURING THE MASTER'S WANDERINGS
The full truth of this odd matter is what the world has long been
looking for, and public curiosity is sure to welcome. It so befell that
I was intimately mingled with the last years and history of the house;
and there does not live one man so able as myself to make these matters
plain, or so desirous to narrate them faithfully. I knew the Master; on
many secret steps of his career I have an authentic memoir in my hand; I
sailed with him on his last voyage almost alone; I made one upon that
winter's journey of which so many tales have gone abroad; and I was
there at the man's death. As for my late Lord Durrisdeer, I served him
and loved him near twenty years; and thought more of him the more I knew
of him. Altogether, I think it not fit that so much evidence should
perish; the truth is a debt I owe my lord's memory; and I think my old
years will flow more smoothly, and my white hair lie quieter on the
pillow, when the debt is paid.
The Duries of Durrisdeer and Ballantrae were a strong family in the
south-west from the days of David First. A rhyme still current in the
countryside--
"Kittle folk are the Durrisdeers,
They ride wi' ower mony spears"--
bears the mark of its antiquity; and the name appears in another, which
common report attributes to Thomas of Ercildoune himself--I cannot say
how truly, and which some have applied--I dare not say with how much
justice--to the events of this narration:
"Twa Duries in Durrisdeer,
Ane to tie and ane to ride.
An ill day for the groom
And a waur day for the bride."
Authentic history besides is filled with their exploits, which (to our
modern eyes) seem not very commendable: and the family suffered its full
share of those ups and downs to which the great houses of Scotland have
been ever liable. But all these I pass over, to come to that memorable
year 1745, when the foundations of this tragedy were laid.
At that time there dwelt a family of four persons in the house of
Durrisdeer, near St. Bride's, on the Solway shore; a chief hold of their
race since the Reformation. My old lord, eighth of the name, was not old
in years, but he suffered prematurely from the disabilities of age; his
place was at the chimney side; there he sat reading, in a lined gown,
with few words for any man, and wry words for none: the model of an old
retired housekeeper; and yet his mind very well nourished with study,
and reputed in the country to be more cunning than he seemed. The Master
of Ballantrae, James in baptism, took from his father the love of
serious reading; some of his tact, perhaps, as well, but that which was
only policy in the father became black dissimulation in the son. The
face of his behaviour was merely popular and wild: he sat late at wine,
later at the cards; had the name in the country of "an unco man for the
lasses"; and was ever in the front of broils. But for all he was the
first to go in, yet it was observed he was invariably the best to come
off; and his partners in mischief were usually alone to pay the piper.
This luck or dexterity got him several ill-wishers, but with the rest of
the country enhanced his reputation; so that great things were looked
for in his future, when he should have gained more gravity. One very
black mark he had to his name; but the matter was hushed up at the time,
and so defaced by legends before I came into these parts that I scruple
to set it down. If it was true, it was a horrid fact in one so young;
and if false, it was a horrid calumny. I think it notable that he had
always vaunted himself quite implacable, and was taken at his word; so
that he had the addition, among his neighbours of "an ill man to cross."
Here was altogether a young nobleman (not yet twenty-four in the year
'Forty-five) who had made a figure in the country beyond his time of
life. The less marvel if there were little heard of the second son, Mr.
Henry (my late Lord Durrisdeer), who was neither very bad nor yet very
able, but an honest, solid sort of lad, like many of his neighbours.
Little heard, I say; but indeed it was a case of little spoken. He was
known among the salmon fishers in the firth, for that was a sport that
he assiduously followed; he was an excellent good horse-doctor besides;
and took a chief hand, almost from a boy, in the management of the
estates. How hard a part that was, in the situation of that family, none
knows better than myself; nor yet with how little colour of justice a
man may there acquire the reputation of a tyrant and a miser. The fourth
person in the house was Miss Alison Graeme, a near kinswoman, an orphan,
and the heir to a considerable fortune which her father had acquired in
trade. This money was loudly called for by my lord's necessities;
indeed, the land was deeply mortgaged; and Miss Alison was designed
accordingly to be the Master's wife, gladly enough on her side; with how
much good-will on his is another matter. She was a comely girl, and in
those days very spirited and self-willed; for the old lord having no
daughter of his own, and my lady being long dead, she had grown up as
best she might.
To these four came the news of Prince Charlie's landing, and set them
presently by the ears. My lord, like the chimney-keeper that he was, was
all for temporising. Miss Alison held the other side, because it
appeared romantical; and the Master (though I have heard they did not
agree often) was for this once of her opinion. The adventure tempted
him, as I conceive; he was tempted by the opportunity to raise the
fortunes of the house, and not less by the hope of paying off his
private liabilities, which were heavy beyond all opinion. As for Mr.
Henry, it appears he said little enough at first; his part came later
on. It took the three a whole day's disputation before they agreed to
steer a middle course, one son going forth to strike a blow for King
James, my lord and the other staying at home to keep in favour with King
George. Doubtless this was my lord's decision; and, as is well known, it
was the part played by many considerable families. But the one dispute
settled, another opened. For my lord, Miss Alison, and Mr. Henry all
held the one view: that it was the cadet's part to go out; and the
Master, what with restlessness and vanity, would at no rate consent to
stay at home. My lord pleaded, Miss Alison wept, Mr. Henry was very
plain spoken: all was of no avail.
"It is the direct heir of Durrisdeer that should ride by his King's
bridle," says the Master.
"If we were playing a manly part," says Mr. Henry, "there might be sense
in such talk. But what are we doing? Cheating at cards!"
"We are saving the house of Durrisdeer, Henry," his father said.
"And see, James," said Mr. Henry, "if I go, and the Prince has the upper
hand, it will be easy to make your peace with King James. But if you go,
and the expedition fails, we divide the right and the title. And what
shall I be then?"
"You will be Lord Durrisdeer," said the Master. "I put all I have upon
the table."
"I play at no such game," cries Mr. Henry. "I shall be left in such a
situation as no man of sense and honour could endure. I shall be neither
fish nor flesh!" he cried. And a little after he had another
expression, plainer perhaps than he intended. "It is your duty to be
here with my father," said he. "You know well enough you are the
favourite."
"Ay?" said the Master. "And there spoke Envy! Would you trip up my
heels--Jacob?" said he, and dwelled upon the name maliciously.
Mr. Henry went and walked at the low end of the hall without reply; for
he had an excellent gift of silence. Presently he came back.
"I am the cadet, and I _should_ go," said he. "And my lord here is the
master, and he says I _shall_ go. What say ye to that, my brother?"
"I say this, Harry," returned the Master, "that when very obstinate folk
are met, there are only two ways out: Blows--and I think none of us
could care to go so far; or the arbitrament of chance--and here is a
guinea piece. Will you stand by the toss of the coin?"
"I will stand and fall by it," said Mr. Henry. "Heads, I go; shield, I
stay."
The coin was spun, and it fell shield. "So there is a lesson for Jacob,"
says the Master.
"We shall live to repent of this," says Mr. Henry, and flung out of the
hall.
As for Miss Alison, she caught up that piece of gold which had just sent
her lover to the wars, and flung it clean through the family shield in
the great painted window.
"If you loved me as well as I love you, you would have stayed," cried
she.
"'I could not love you, dear, so well, loved I not honour more,'" sang
the Master.
"_O!_" she cried, "you have no heart--I hope you may be killed!" and she
ran from the room, and in tears, to her own chamber.
It seems the Master turned to my lord with his most comical manner, and
says he, "This looks like a devil of a wife."
"I think you are a devil of a son to me," cried his father, "you that
have always been the favourite, to my shame be it spoken. Never a good
hour have I gotten of you since you were born; no, never one good hour,"
and repeated it again the third time. Whether it was the Master's
levity, or his insubordination, or Mr. Henry's word about the favourite
son, that had so much disturbed my lord, I do not know: but I incline to
think it was the last, for I have it by all accounts that Mr. Henry was
more made up to from that hour.
Altogether it was in pretty ill blood with his family that the Master
rode to the North; which was the more sorrowful for others to remember
when it seemed too late. By fear and favour he had scraped together near
upon a dozen men, principally tenants' sons; they were all pretty full
when they set forth, and rode up the hill by the old abbey, roaring and
singing, the white cockade in every hat. It was a desperate venture for
so small a company to cross the most of Scotland unsupported; and (what
made folk think so the more) even as that poor dozen was clattering up
the hill, a great ship of the King's navy, that could have brought them
under with a single boat, lay with her broad ensign streaming in the
bay. The next afternoon, having given the Master a fair start, it was
Mr. Henry's turn; and he rode off, all by himself, to offer his sword
and carry letters from his father to King George's Government. Miss
Alison was shut in her room, and did little but weep, till both were
gone; only she stitched the cockade upon the Master's hat, and (as John
Paul told me) it was wetted with tears when he carried it down to him.
In all that followed, Mr. Henry and my old lord were true to their
bargain. That ever they accomplished anything is more than I could
learn; and that they were anyway strong on the King's side, more than I
believe. But they kept the letter of loyalty, corresponded with my Lord
President, sat still at home, and had little or no commerce with the
Master while that business lasted. Nor was he, on his side, more
communicative. Miss Alison, indeed, was always sending him expresses,
but I do not know if she had many answers. Macconochie rode for her
once, and found the Highlanders before Carlisle, and the Master riding
by the Prince's side in high favour; he took the letter (so Macconochie
tells), opened it, glanced it through with a mouth like a man whistling,
and stuck it in his belt, whence, on his horse passageing, it fell
unregarded to the ground. It was Macconochie who picked it up; and he
still kept it, and indeed I have seen it in his hands. News came to
Durrisdeer of course, by the common report, as it goes travelling
through a country, a thing always wonderful to me. By that means the
family learned more of the Master's favour with the Prince, and the
ground it was said to stand on: for by a strange condescension in a man
so proud--only that he was a man still more ambitious--he was said to
have crept into notability by truckling to the Irish. Sir Thomas
Sullivan, Colonel Burke, and the rest, were his daily comrades, by which
course he withdrew himself from his own country-folk. All the small
intrigues he had a hand in fomenting; thwarted my Lord George upon a
thousand points; was always for the advice that seemed palatable to the
Prince, no matter if it was good or bad; and seems upon the whole (like
the gambler he was all through life) to have had less regard to the
chances of the campaign than to the greatness of favour he might aspire
to, if, by any luck, it should succeed. For the rest, he did very well
in the field; no one questioned that: for he was no coward.
The next was the news of Culloden, which was brought to Durrisdeer by
one of the tenants' sons--the only survivor, he declared, of all those
that had gone singing up the hill. By an unfortunate chance John Paul
and Macconochie had that very morning found the guinea piece--which was
the root of all the evil--sticking in a holly bush; they had been "up
the gait," as the servants say at Durrisdeer, to the change-house; and
if they had little left of the guinea, they had less of their wits.
What must John Paul do but burst into the hall where the family sat at
dinner, and cry the news to them that "Tam Macmorland was but new
lichtit at the door, and--wirra, wirra--there were nane to come behind
him"?
They took the word in silence like folk condemned; only Mr. Henry
carrying his palm to his face, and Miss Alison laying her head outright
upon her hands. As for my lord, he was like ashes.
"I have still one son," says he. "And, Henry, I will do you this
justice--it is the kinder that is left."
It was a strange thing to say in such a moment; but my lord had never
forgotten Mr. Henry's speech, and he had years of injustice on his
conscience. Still it was a strange thing, and more than Miss Alison
could let pass. She broke out and blamed my lord for his unnatural
words, and Mr. Henry because he was sitting there in safety when his
brother lay dead, and herself because she had given her sweetheart ill
words at his departure, calling him the flower of the flock, wringing
her hands, protesting her love, and crying on him by his name--so that
the servants stood astonished.
Mr. Henry got to his feet, and stood holding his chair. It was he that
was like ashes now.
"O!" he burst out suddenly, "I know you loved him."
"The world knows that, glory be to God!" cries she; and then to Mr.
Henry: "There is none but me to know one thing--that you were a traitor
to him in your heart."
"God knows," groans he, "it was lost love on both sides."
Time went by in the house after that without much change; only they were
now three instead of four, which was a perpetual reminder of their loss.
Miss Alison's money, you are to bear in mind, was highly needful for the
estates; and the one brother being dead, my old lord soon set his heart
upon her marrying the other. Day in, day out, he would work upon her,
sitting by the chimney-side with his finger in his Latin book, and his
eyes set upon her face with a kind of pleasant intentness that became
the old gentleman very well. If she wept, he would condole with her like
an ancient man that has seen worse times and begins to think lightly
even of sorrow; if she raged, he would fall to reading again in his
Latin book, but always with some civil excuse; if she offered, as she
often did, to let them have her money in a gift, he would show her how
little it consisted with his honour, and remind her, even if he should
consent, that Mr. Henry would certainly refuse. _Non vi sed sæpe
cadendo_ was a favourite word of his; and no doubt this quiet
persecution wore away much of her resolve; no doubt, besides, he had a
great influence on the girl, having stood in the place of both her
parents; and, for that matter, she was herself filled with the spirit of
the Duries, and would have gone a great way for the glory of Durrisdeer;
but not so far, I think, as to marry my poor patron, had it not
been--strangely enough--for the circumstance of his extreme
unpopularity.
This was the work of Tam Macmorland. There was not much harm in Tam; but
he had that grievous weakness, a long tongue; and as the only man in
that country who had been out--or, rather, who had come in again--he was
sure of listeners. Those that have the underhand in any fighting, I have
observed, are ever anxious to persuade themselves they were betrayed. By
Tam's account of it, the rebels had been betrayed at every turn and by
every officer they had; they had been betrayed at Derby, and betrayed at
Falkirk; the night march was a step of treachery of my Lord George's;
and Culloden was lost by the treachery of the Macdonalds. This habit of
imputing treason grew upon the fool, till at last he must have in Mr.
Henry also. Mr. Henry (by his account) had betrayed the lads of
Durrisdeer; he had promised to follow with more men, and instead of that
he had ridden to King George. "Ay, and the next day!" Tam would cry.
"The puir bonny Master, and the puir kind lads that rade wi' him, were
hardly ower the scaur or he was aff--the Judis! Ay, weel--he has his way
o't: he's to be my lord, nae less, and there's mony a cold corp amang
the Hieland heather!" And at this, if Tam had been drinking, he would
begin to weep.
Let any one speak long enough, he will get believers. This view of Mr.
Henry's behaviour crept about the country by little and little; it was
talked upon by folk that knew the contrary, but were short of topics;
and it was heard and believed and given out for gospel by the ignorant
and the ill-willing. Mr. Henry began to be shunned; yet a while, and the
commons began to murmur as he went by, and the women (who are always the
most bold because they are the most safe) to cry out their reproaches to
his face. The Master was cried up for a saint. It was remembered how he
had never any hand in pressing the tenants; as, indeed, no more he had,
except to spend the money. He was a little wild perhaps, the folk said;
but how much better was a natural, wild lad that would soon have settled
down, than a skinflint and a sneckdraw, sitting with his nose in an
account-book to persecute poor tenants! One trollop, who had had a child
to the Master, and by all accounts been very badly used, yet made
herself a kind of champion of his memory. She flung a stone one day at
Mr. Henry.
"Whaur's the bonny lad that trustit ye?" she cried.
Mr. Henry reined in his horse and looked upon her, the blood flowing
from his lip. "Ay, Jess?" says he. "You too? And yet ye should ken me
better." For it was he who had helped her with money.
The woman had another stone ready, which she made as if she would cast;
and he, to ward himself, threw up the hand that held his riding-rod.
"What, would ye beat a lassie, ye ugly----?" cries she, and ran away
screaming as though he had struck her.
Next day word went about the country like wildfire that Mr. Henry had
beaten Jessie Broun within an inch of her life. I give it as one
instance of how this snowball grew, and one calumny brought another;
until my poor patron was so perished in reputation that he began to keep
the house like my lord. All this while, you may be very sure, he uttered
no complaints at home; the very ground of the scandal was too sore a
matter to be handled; and Mr. Henry was very proud, and strangely
obstinate in silence. My old lord must have heard of it, by John Paul,
if by no one else; and he must at least have remarked the altered habits
of his son. Yet even he, it is probable, knew not how high the feeling
ran; and as for Miss Alison, she was ever the last person to hear news,
and the least interested when she heard them.
In the height of the ill-feeling (for it died away as it came, no man
could say why) there was an election forward in the town of St. Bride's,
which is the next to Durrisdeer, standing on the Water of Swift; some
grievance was fermenting, I forget what, if ever I heard: and it was
currently said there would be broken heads ere night, and that the
sheriff had sent as far as Dumfries for soldiers. My lord moved that Mr.
Henry should be present, assuring him it was necessary to appear, for
the credit of the house. "It will soon be reported," said he, "that we
do not take the lead in our own country."
"It is a strange lead that I can take," said Mr. Henry; and when they
had pushed him further, "I tell you the plain truth," he said: "I dare
not show my face."
"You are the first of the house that ever said so," cries Miss Alison.
"We will go all three," said my lord; and sure enough he got into his
boots (the first time in four years--a sore business John Paul had to
get them on), and Miss Alison into her riding-coat, and all three rode
together to St. Bride's.
The streets were full of the riff-raff of all the countryside, who had
no sooner clapped eyes on Mr. Henry than the hissing began, and the
hooting, and the cries of "Judas!" and "Where was the Master?" and
"Where were the poor lads that rode with him?" Even a stone was cast;
but the more part cried shame at that, for my old lord's sake, and Miss
Alison's. It took not ten minutes to persuade my lord that Mr. Henry had
been right. He said never a word, but turned his horse about, and home
again, with his chin upon his bosom. Never a word said Miss Alison; no
doubt she thought the more; no doubt her pride was stung, for she was a
bone-bred Durie; and no doubt her heart was touched to see her cousin so
unjustly used. That night she was never in bed; I have often blamed my
lady--when I call to mind that night I readily forgive her all; and the
first thing in the morning she came to the old lord in his usual seat.
"If Henry still wants me," said she, "he can have me now." To himself
she had a different speech: "I bring you no love, Henry; but God knows,
all the pity in the world."
June the 1st, 1748, was the day of their marriage. It was December of
the same year that first saw me alighting at the doors of the great
house; and from there I take up the history of events as they befell
under my own observation, like a witness in a court.