PERSECUTIONS ENDURED BY MR. HENRY.
You can guess on what part of his adventures the Colonel principally
dwelled. Indeed, if we had heard it all, it is to be thought the
current of this business had been wholly altered; but the pirate ship
was very gently touched upon. Nor did I hear the Colonel to an end even
of that which he was willing to disclose; for Mr. Henry, having for
some while been plunged in a brown study, rose at last from his seat
and (reminding the Colonel there were matters that he must attend to)
bade me follow him immediately to the office.
Once there, he sought no longer to dissemble his concern, walking to
and fro in the room with a contorted face, and passing his hand
repeatedly upon his brow.
“We have some business,” he began at last; and there broke off,
declared we must have wine, and sent for a magnum of the best. This was
extremely foreign to his habitudes; and what was still more so, when
the wine had come, he gulped down one glass upon another like a man
careless of appearances. But the drink steadied him.
“You will scarce be surprised, Mackellar,” says he, “when I tell you
that my brother—whose safety we are all rejoiced to learn—stands in
some need of money.”
I told him I had misdoubted as much; but the time was not very
fortunate, as the stock was low.
“Not mine,” said he. “There is the money for the mortgage.”
I reminded him it was Mrs. Henry’s.
“I will be answerable to my wife,” he cried violently.
“And then,” said I, “there is the mortgage.”
“I know,” said he; “it is on that I would consult you.”
I showed him how unfortunate a time it was to divert this money from
its destination; and how, by so doing, we must lose the profit of our
past economies, and plunge back the estate into the mire. I even took
the liberty to plead with him; and when he still opposed me with a
shake of the head and a bitter dogged smile, my zeal quite carried me
beyond my place. “This is midsummer madness,” cried I; “and I for one
will be no party to it.”
“You speak as though I did it for my pleasure,” says he. “But I have a
child now; and, besides, I love order; and to say the honest truth,
Mackellar, I had begun to take a pride in the estates.” He gloomed for
a moment. “But what would you have?” he went on. “Nothing is mine,
nothing. This day’s news has knocked the bottom out of my life. I have
only the name and the shadow of things—only the shadow; there is no
substance in my rights.”
“They will prove substantial enough before a court,” said I.
He looked at me with a burning eye, and seemed to repress the word upon
his lips; and I repented what I had said, for I saw that while he spoke
of the estate he had still a side-thought to his marriage. And then, of
a sudden, he twitched the letter from his pocket, where it lay all
crumpled, smoothed it violently on the table, and read these words to
me with a trembling tongue: “‘My dear Jacob’—This is how he begins!”
cries he—“‘My dear Jacob, I once called you so, you may remember; and
you have now done the business, and flung my heels as high as Criffel.’
What do you think of that, Mackellar,” says he, “from an only brother?
I declare to God I liked him very well; I was always staunch to him;
and this is how he writes! But I will not sit down under the
imputation”—walking to and fro—“I am as good as he; I am a better man
than he, I call on God to prove it! I cannot give him all the monstrous
sum he asks; he knows the estate to be incompetent; but I will give him
what I have, and it is more than he expects. I have borne all this too
long. See what he writes further on; read it for yourself: ‘I know you
are a niggardly dog.’ A niggardly dog! I niggardly? Is that true,
Mackellar? You think it is?” I really thought he would have struck me
at that. “Oh, you all think so! Well, you shall see, and he shall see,
and God shall see. If I ruin the estate and go barefoot, I shall stuff
this bloodsucker. Let him ask all—all, and he shall have it! It is all
his by rights. Ah!” he cried, “and I foresaw all this, and worse, when
he would not let me go.” He poured out another glass of wine, and was
about to carry it to his lips, when I made so bold as to lay a finger
on his arm. He stopped a moment. “You are right,” said he, and flung
glass and all in the fireplace. “Come, let us count the money.”
I durst no longer oppose him; indeed, I was very much affected by the
sight of so much disorder in a man usually so controlled; and we sat
down together, counted the money, and made it up in packets for the
greater ease of Colonel Burke, who was to be the bearer. This done, Mr.
Henry returned to the hall, where he and my old lord sat all night
through with their guest.
A little before dawn I was called and set out with the Colonel. He
would scarce have liked a less responsible convoy, for he was a man who
valued himself; nor could we afford him one more dignified, for Mr.
Henry must not appear with the freetraders. It was a very bitter
morning of wind, and as we went down through the long shrubbery the
Colonel held himself muffled in his cloak.
“Sir,” said I, “this is a great sum of money that your friend requires.
I must suppose his necessities to be very great.”
“We must suppose so,” says he, I thought drily; but perhaps it was the
cloak about his mouth.
“I am only a servant of the family,” said I. “You may deal openly with
me. I think we are likely to get little good by him?”
“My dear man,” said the Colonel, “Ballantrae is a gentleman of the most
eminent natural abilities, and a man that I admire, and that I revere,
to the very ground he treads on.” And then he seemed to me to pause
like one in a difficulty.
“But for all that,” said I, “we are likely to get little good by him?”
“Sure, and you can have it your own way, my dear man,” says the
Colonel.
By this time we had come to the side of the creek, where the boat
awaited him. “Well,” said be, “I am sure I am very much your debtor for
all your civility, Mr. Whatever-your-name-is; and just as a last word,
and since you show so much intelligent interest, I will mention a small
circumstance that may be of use to the family. For I believe my friend
omitted to mention that he has the largest pension on the Scots Fund of
any refugee in Paris; and it’s the more disgraceful, sir,” cries the
Colonel, warming, “because there’s not one dirty penny for myself.”
He cocked his hat at me, as if I had been to blame for this partiality;
then changed again into his usual swaggering civility, shook me by the
hand, and set off down to the boat, with the money under his arms, and
whistling as he went the pathetic air of _Shule Aroon_. It was the
first time I had heard that tune; I was to hear it again, words and
all, as you shall learn, but I remember how that little stave of it ran
in my head after the freetraders had bade him “Wheesht, in the deil’s
name,” and the grating of the oars had taken its place, and I stood and
watched the dawn creeping on the sea, and the boat drawing away, and
the lugger lying with her foresail backed awaiting it.
The gap made in our money was a sore embarrassment, and, among other
consequences, it had this: that I must ride to Edinburgh, and there
raise a new loan on very questionable terms to keep the old afloat;
and was thus, for close upon three weeks, absent from the house of
Durrisdeer.
What passed in the interval I had none to tell me, but I found Mrs.
Henry, upon my return, much changed in her demeanour. The old talks
with my lord for the most part pretermitted; a certain deprecation
visible towards her husband, to whom I thought she addressed herself
more often; and, for one thing, she was now greatly wrapped up in Miss
Katharine. You would think the change was agreeable to Mr. Henry; no
such matter! To the contrary, every circumstance of alteration was a
stab to him; he read in each the avowal of her truant fancies. That
constancy to the Master of which she was proud while she supposed him
dead, she had to blush for now she knew he was alive, and these blushes
were the hated spring of her new conduct. I am to conceal no truth; and
I will here say plainly, I think this was the period in which Mr. Henry
showed the worst. He contained himself, indeed, in public; but there
was a deep-seated irritation visible underneath. With me, from whom he
had less concealment, he was often grossly unjust, and even for his
wife he would sometimes have a sharp retort: perhaps when she had
ruffled him with some unwonted kindness; perhaps upon no tangible
occasion, the mere habitual tenor of the man’s annoyance bursting
spontaneously forth. When he would thus forget himself (a thing so
strangely out of keeping with the terms of their relation), there went
a shook through the whole company, and the pair would look upon each
other in a kind of pained amazement.
All the time, too, while he was injuring himself by this defect of
temper, he was hurting his position by a silence, of which I scarce
know whether to say it was the child of generosity or pride. The
freetraders came again and again, bringing messengers from the Master,
and none departed empty-handed. I never durst reason with Mr. Henry; he
gave what was asked of him in a kind of noble rage. Perhaps because he
knew he was by nature inclining to the parsimonious, he took a
backforemost pleasure in the recklessness with which he supplied his
brother’s exigence. Perhaps the falsity of the position would have
spurred a humbler man into the same excess. But the estate (if I may
say so) groaned under it; our daily expenses were shorn lower and
lower; the stables were emptied, all but four roadsters; servants were
discharged, which raised a dreadful murmuring in the country, and
heated up the old disfavour upon Mr. Henry; and at last the yearly
visit to Edinburgh must be discontinued.
This was in 1756. You are to suppose that for seven years this
bloodsucker had been drawing the life’s blood from Durrisdeer, and that
all this time my patron had held his peace. It was an effect of
devilish malice in the Master that he addressed Mr. Henry alone upon
the matter of his demands, and there was never a word to my lord. The
family had looked on, wondering at our economies. They had lamented, I
have no doubt, that my patron had become so great a miser—a fault
always despicable, but in the young abhorrent, and Mr. Henry was not
yet thirty years of age. Still, he had managed the business of
Durrisdeer almost from a boy; and they bore with these changes in a
silence as proud and bitter as his own, until the coping-stone of the
Edinburgh visit.
At this time I believe my patron and his wife were rarely together,
save at meals. Immediately on the back of Colonel Burke’s announcement
Mrs. Henry made palpable advances; you might say she had laid a sort of
timid court to her husband, different, indeed, from her former manner
of unconcern and distance. I never had the heart to blame Mr. Henry
because he recoiled from these advances; nor yet to censure the wife,
when she was cut to the quick by their rejection. But the result was an
entire estrangement, so that (as I say) they rarely spoke, except at
meals. Even the matter of the Edinburgh visit was first broached at
table, and it chanced that Mrs. Henry was that day ailing and
querulous. She had no sooner understood her husband’s meaning than the
red flew in her face.
“At last,” she cried, “this is too much! Heaven knows what pleasure I
have in my life, that I should be denied my only consolation. These
shameful proclivities must be trod down; we are already a mark and an
eyesore in the neighbourhood. I will not endure this fresh insanity.”
“I cannot afford it,” says Mr. Henry.
“Afford?” she cried. “For shame! But I have money of my own.”
“That is all mine, madam, by marriage,” he snarled, and instantly left
the room.
My old lord threw up his hands to Heaven, and he and his daughter,
withdrawing to the chimney, gave me a broad hint to be gone. I found
Mr. Henry in his usual retreat, the steward’s room, perched on the end
of the table, and plunging his penknife in it with a very ugly
countenance.
“Mr. Henry,” said I, “you do yourself too much injustice, and it is
time this should cease.”
“Oh!” cries he, “nobody minds here. They think it only natural. I have
shameful proclivities. I am a niggardly dog,” and he drove his knife up
to the hilt. “But I will show that fellow,” he cried with an oath, “I
will show him which is the more generous.”
“This is no generosity,” said I; “this is only pride.”
“Do you think I want morality?” he asked.
I thought he wanted help, and I should give it him, willy-nilly; and no
sooner was Mrs. Henry gone to her room than I presented myself at her
door and sought admittance.
She openly showed her wonder. “What do you want with me, Mr.
Mackellar?” said she.
“The Lord knows, madam,” says I, “I have never troubled you before with
any freedoms; but this thing lies too hard upon my conscience, and it
will out. Is it possible that two people can be so blind as you and my
lord? and have lived all these years with a noble gentleman like Mr.
Henry, and understand so little of his nature?”
“What does this mean?” she cried.
“Do you not know where his money goes to? his—and yours—and the money
for the very wine he does not drink at table?” I went on. “To Paris—to
that man! Eight thousand pounds has he had of us in seven years, and my
patron fool enough to keep it secret!”
“Eight thousand pounds!” she repeated. “It in impossible; the estate is
not sufficient.”
“God knows how we have sweated farthings to produce it,” said I. “But
eight thousand and sixty is the sum, beside odd shillings. And if you
can think my patron miserly after that, this shall be my last
interference.”
“You need say no more, Mr. Mackellar,” said she. “You have done most
properly in what you too modestly call your interference. I am much to
blame; you must think me indeed a very unobservant wife” (looking upon
me with a strange smile), “but I shall put this right at once. The
Master was always of a very thoughtless nature; but his heart is
excellent; he is the soul of generosity. I shall write to him myself.
You cannot think how you have pained me by this communication.”
“Indeed, madam, I had hoped to have pleased you,” said I, for I raged
to see her still thinking of the Master.
“And pleased,” said she, “and pleased me of course.”
That same day (I will not say but what I watched) I had the
satisfaction to see Mr. Henry come from his wife’s room in a state most
unlike himself; for his face was all bloated with weeping, and yet he
seemed to me to walk upon the air. By this, I was sure his wife had
made him full amends for once. “Ah,” thought I to myself, “I have done
a brave stroke this day.”
On the morrow, as I was seated at my books, Mr. Henry came in softly
behind me, took me by the shoulders, and shook me in a manner of
playfulness. “I find you are a faithless fellow after all,” says he,
which was his only reference to my part; but the tone he spoke in was
more to me than any eloquence of protestation. Nor was this all I had
effected; for when the next messenger came (as he did not long
afterwards) from the Master, he got nothing away with him but a letter.
For some while back it had been I myself who had conducted these
affairs; Mr. Henry not setting pen to paper, and I only in the dryest
and most formal terms. But this letter I did not even see; it would
scarce be pleasant reading, for Mr. Henry felt he had his wife behind
him for once, and I observed, on the day it was despatched, he had a
very gratified expression.
Things went better now in the family, though it could scarce be
pretended they went well. There was now at least no misconception;
there was kindness upon all sides; and I believe my patron and his wife
might again have drawn together if he could but have pocketed his
pride, and she forgot (what was the ground of all) her brooding on
another man. It is wonderful how a private thought leaks out; it is
wonderful to me now how we should all have followed the current of her
sentiments; and though she bore herself quietly, and had a very even
disposition, yet we should have known whenever her fancy ran to Paris.
And would not any one have thought that my disclosure must have rooted
up that idol? I think there is the devil in women: all these years
passed, never a sight of the man, little enough kindness to remember
(by all accounts) even while she had him, the notion of his death
intervening, his heartless rapacity laid bare to her; that all should
not do, and she must still keep the best place in her heart for this
accursed fellow, is a thing to make a plain man rage. I had never much
natural sympathy for the passion of love; but this unreason in my
patron’s wife disgusted me outright with the whole matter. I remember
checking a maid because she sang some bairnly kickshaw while my mind
was thus engaged; and my asperity brought about my ears the enmity of
all the petticoats about the house; of which I reeked very little, but
it amused Mr. Henry, who rallied me much upon our joint unpopularity.
It is strange enough (for my own mother was certainly one of the salt
of the earth, and my Aunt Dickson, who paid my fees at the University,
a very notable woman), but I have never had much toleration for the
female sex, possibly not much understanding; and being far from a bold
man, I have ever shunned their company. Not only do I see no cause to
regret this diffidence in myself, but have invariably remarked the most
unhappy consequences follow those who were less wise. So much I thought
proper to set down, lest I show myself unjust to Mrs. Henry. And,
besides, the remark arose naturally, on a re-perusal of the letter
which was the next step in these affairs, and reached me, to my sincere
astonishment, by a private hand, some week or so after the departure of
the last messenger.
_Letter from Colonel_ Burke (_afterwards Chevalier_) _to_ Mr.
Mackellar.
Troyes in Champagne,
_July_ 12, 1756
My Dear Sir,—You will doubtless be surprised to receive a communication
from one so little known to you; but on the occasion I had the good
fortune to rencounter you at Durrisdeer, I remarked you for a young man
of a solid gravity of character: a qualification which I profess I
admire and revere next to natural genius or the bold chivalrous spirit
of the soldier. I was, besides, interested in the noble family which
you have the honour to serve, or (to speak more by the book) to be the
humble and respected friend of; and a conversation I had the pleasure
to have with you very early in the morning has remained much upon my
mind.
Being the other day in Paris, on a visit from this famous city, where I
am in garrison, I took occasion to inquire your name (which I profess I
had forgot) at my friend, the Master of B.; and a fair opportunity
occurring, I write to inform you of what’s new.
The Master of B. (when we had last some talk of him together) was in
receipt, as I think I then told you, of a highly advantageous pension
on the Scots Fund. He next received a company, and was soon after
advanced to a regiment of his own. My dear sir, I do not offer to
explain this circumstance; any more than why I myself, who have rid at
the right hand of Princes, should be fubbed off with a pair of colours
and sent to rot in a hole at the bottom of the province. Accustomed as
I am to Courts, I cannot but feel it is no atmosphere for a plain
soldier; and I could never hope to advance by similar means, even could
I stoop to the endeavour. But our friend has a particular aptitude to
succeed by the means of ladies; and if all be true that I have heard,
he enjoyed a remarkable protection. It is like this turned against him;
for when I had the honour to shake him by the hand, he was but newly
released from the Bastille, where he had been cast on a sealed letter;
and, though now released, has both lost his regiment and his pension.
My dear sir, the loyalty of a plain Irishman will ultimately succeed in
the place of craft; as I am sure a gentleman of your probity will
agree.
Now, sir, the Master is a man whose genius I admire beyond expression,
and, besides, he is my friend; but I thought a little word of this
revolution in his fortunes would not come amiss, for, in my opinion,
the man’s desperate. He spoke, when I saw him, of a trip to India
(whither I am myself in some hope of accompanying my illustrious
countryman, Mr. Lally); but for this he would require (as I understood)
more money than was readily at his command. You may have heard a
military proverb: that it is a good thing to make a bridge of gold to a
flying enemy? I trust you will take my meaning and I subscribe myself,
with proper respects to my Lord Durrisdeer, to his son, and to the
beauteous Mrs. Durie,
My dear Sir,
Your obedient humble servant,
Francis Burke.
This missive I carried at once to Mr. Henry; and I think there was but
the one thought between the two of us: that it had come a week too
late. I made haste to send an answer to Colonel Burke, in which I
begged him, if he should see the Master, to assure him his next
messenger would be attended to. But with all my haste I was not in time
to avert what was impending; the arrow had been drawn, it must now fly.
I could almost doubt the power of Providence (and certainly His will)
to stay the issue of events; and it is a strange thought, how many of
us had been storing up the elements of this catastrophe, for how long a
time, and with how blind an ignorance of what we did.
From the coming of the Colonel’s letter, I had a spyglass in my room,
began to drop questions to the tenant folk, and as there was no great
secrecy observed, and the freetrade (in our part) went by force as
much as stealth, I had soon got together a knowledge of the signals in
use, and knew pretty well to an hour when any messenger might be
expected. I say, I questioned the tenants; for with the traders
themselves, desperate blades that went habitually armed, I could never
bring myself to meddle willingly. Indeed, by what proved in the sequel
an unhappy chance, I was an object of scorn to some of these
braggadocios; who had not only gratified me with a nickname, but
catching me one night upon a by-path, and being all (as they would
have said) somewhat merry, had caused me to dance for their diversion.
The method employed was that of cruelly chipping at my toes with naked
cutlasses, shouting at the same time “Square-Toes”; and though they
did me no bodily mischief, I was none the less deplorably affected,
and was indeed for several days confined to my bed: a scandal on the
state of Scotland on which no comment is required.
It happened on the afternoon of November 7th, in this same unfortunate
year, that I espied, during my walk, the smoke of a beacon fire upon
the Muckleross. It was drawing near time for my return; but the
uneasiness upon my spirits was that day so great that I must burst
through the thickets to the edge of what they call the Craig Head. The
sun was already down, but there was still a broad light in the west,
which showed me some of the smugglers treading out their signal fire
upon the Ross, and in the bay the lugger lying with her sails brailed
up. She was plainly but new come to anchor, and yet the skiff was
already lowered and pulling for the landing-place at the end of the
long shrubbery. And this I knew could signify but one thing, the coming
of a messenger for Durrisdeer.
I laid aside the remainder of my terrors, clambered down the brae—a
place I had never ventured through before, and was hid among the
shore-side thickets in time to see the boat touch. Captain Crail
himself was steering, a thing not usual; by his side there sat a
passenger; and the men gave way with difficulty, being hampered with
near upon half a dozen portmanteaus, great and small. But the business
of landing was briskly carried through; and presently the baggage was
all tumbled on shore, the boat on its return voyage to the lugger, and
the passenger standing alone upon the point of rock, a tall slender
figure of a gentleman, habited in black, with a sword by his side and a
walking-cane upon his wrist. As he so stood, he waved the cane to
Captain Crail by way of salutation, with something both of grace and
mockery that wrote the gesture deeply on my mind.
No sooner was the boat away with my sworn enemies than I took a sort of
half courage, came forth to the margin of the thicket, and there halted
again, my mind being greatly pulled about between natural diffidence
and a dark foreboding of the truth. Indeed, I might have stood there
swithering all night, had not the stranger turned, spied me through the
mists, which were beginning to fall, and waved and cried on me to draw
near. I did so with a heart like lead.
“Here, my good man,” said he, in the English accent, “there are some
things for Durrisdeer.”
I was now near enough to see him, a very handsome figure and
countenance, swarthy, lean, long, with a quick, alert, black look, as
of one who was a fighter, and accustomed to command; upon one cheek he
had a mole, not unbecoming; a large diamond sparkled on his hand; his
clothes, although of the one hue, were of a French and foppish design;
his ruffles, which he wore longer than common, of exquisite lace; and I
wondered the more to see him in such a guise when he was but newly
landed from a dirty smuggling lugger. At the same time he had a better
look at me, toised me a second time sharply, and then smiled.
“I wager, my friend,” says he, “that I know both your name and your
nickname. I divined these very clothes upon your hand of writing, Mr.
Mackellar.”
At these words I fell to shaking.
“Oh,” says he, “you need not be afraid of me. I bear no malice for your
tedious letters; and it is my purpose to employ you a good deal. You
may call me Mr. Bally: it is the name I have assumed; or rather (since
I am addressing so great a precision) it is so I have curtailed my own.
Come now, pick up that and that”—indicating two of the portmanteaus.
“That will be as much as you are fit to bear, and the rest can very
well wait. Come, lose no more time, if you please.”
His tone was so cutting that I managed to do as he bid by a sort of
instinct, my mind being all the time quite lost. No sooner had I picked
up the portmanteaus than he turned his back and marched off through the
long shrubbery, where it began already to be dusk, for the wood is
thick and evergreen. I followed behind, loaded almost to the dust,
though I profess I was not conscious of the burthen; being swallowed up
in the monstrosity of this return, and my mind flying like a weaver’s
shuttle.
On a sudden I set the portmanteaus to the ground and halted. He turned
and looked back at me.
“Well?” said he.
“You are the Master of Ballantrae?”
“You will do me the justice to observe,” says he, “I have made no
secret with the astute Mackellar.”
“And in the name of God,” cries I, “what brings you here? Go back,
while it is yet time.”
“I thank you,” said he. “Your master has chosen this way, and not I;
but since he has made the choice, he (and you also) must abide by the
result. And now pick up these things of mine, which you have set down
in a very boggy place, and attend to that which I have made your
business.”
But I had no thought now of obedience; I came straight up to him. “If
nothing will move you to go back,” said I; “though, sure, under all the
circumstances, any Christian or even any gentleman would scruple to go
forward . . . ”
“These are gratifying expressions,” he threw in.
“If nothing will move you to go back,” I continued, “there are still
some decencies to be observed. Wait here with your baggage, and I will
go forward and prepare your family. Your father is an old man; and . .
. ” I stumbled . . . “there are decencies to be observed.”
“Truly,” said he, “this Mackellar improves upon acquaintance. But look
you here, my man, and understand it once for all—you waste your breath
upon me, and I go my own way with inevitable motion.”
“Ah!” says I. “Is that so? We shall see then!”
And I turned and took to my heels for Durrisdeer. He clutched at me and
cried out angrily, and then I believe I heard him laugh, and then I am
certain he pursued me for a step or two, and (I suppose) desisted. One
thing at least is sure, that I came but a few minutes later to the door
of the great house, nearly strangled for the lack of breath, but quite
alone. Straight up the stair I ran, and burst into the hall, and
stopped before the family without the power of speech; but I must have
carried my story in my looks, for they rose out of their places and
stared on me like changelings.
“He has come,” I panted out at last.
“He?” said Mr. Henry.
“Himself,” said I.
“My son?” cried my lord. “Imprudent, imprudent boy! Oh, could he not
stay where he was safe!”
Never a word says Mrs. Henry; nor did I look at her, I scarce knew why.
“Well,” said Mr. Henry, with a very deep breath, “and where is he?”
“I left him in the long shrubbery,” said I.
“Take me to him,” said he.
So we went out together, he and I, without another word from any one;
and in the midst of the gravelled plot encountered the Master strolling
up, whistling as he came, and beating the air with his cane. There was
still light enough overhead to recognise, though not to read, a
countenance.
“Ah! Jacob,” says the Master. “So here is Esau back.”
“James,” says Mr. Henry, “for God’s sake, call me by my name. I will
not pretend that I am glad to see you; but I would fain make you as
welcome as I can in the house of our fathers.”
“Or in _my_ house? or _yours_?” says the Master. “Which were you about
to say? But this is an old sore, and we need not rub it. If you would
not share with me in Paris, I hope you will yet scarce deny your elder
brother a corner of the fire at Durrisdeer?”
“That is very idle speech,” replied Mr. Henry. “And you understand the
power of your position excellently well.”
“Why, I believe I do,” said the other with a little laugh. And this,
though they had never touched hands, was (as we may say) the end of the
brothers’ meeting; for at this the Master turned to me and bade me
fetch his baggage.
I, on my side, turned to Mr. Henry for a confirmation; perhaps with
some defiance.
“As long as the Master is here, Mr. Mackellar, you will very much
oblige me by regarding his wishes as you would my own,” says Mr. Henry.
“We are constantly troubling you: will you be so good as send one of
the servants?”—with an accent on the word.
If this speech were anything at all, it was surely a well-deserved
reproof upon the stranger; and yet, so devilish was his impudence, he
twisted it the other way.
“And shall we be common enough to say ‘Sneck up’?” inquires he softly,
looking upon me sideways.
Had a kingdom depended on the act, I could not have trusted myself in
words; even to call a servant was beyond me; I had rather serve the man
myself than speak; and I turned away in silence and went into the long
shrubbery, with a heart full of anger and despair. It was dark under
the trees, and I walked before me and forgot what business I was come
upon, till I near broke my shin on the portmanteaus. Then it was that I
remarked a strange particular; for whereas I had before carried both
and scarce observed it, it was now as much as I could do to manage one.
And this, as it forced me to make two journeys, kept me the longer from
the hall.
When I got there, the business of welcome was over long ago; the
company was already at supper; and by an oversight that cut me to the
quick, my place had been forgotten. I had seen one side of the Master’s
return; now I was to see the other. It was he who first remarked my
coming in and standing back (as I did) in some annoyance. He jumped
from his seat.
“And if I have not got the good Mackellar’s place!” cries he. “John,
lay another for Mr. Bally; I protest he will disturb no one, and your
table is big enough for all.”
I could scarce credit my ears, nor yet my senses, when he took me by
the shoulders and thrust me, laughing, into my own place—such an
affectionate playfulness was in his voice. And while John laid the
fresh place for him (a thing on which he still insisted), he went and
leaned on his father’s chair and looked down upon him, and the old man
turned about and looked upwards on his son, with such a pleasant mutual
tenderness that I could have carried my hand to my head in mere
amazement.
Yet all was of a piece. Never a harsh word fell from him, never a sneer
showed upon his lip. He had laid aside even his cutting English accent,
and spoke with the kindly Scots’ tongue, that set a value on
affectionate words; and though his manners had a graceful elegance
mighty foreign to our ways in Durrisdeer, it was still a homely
courtliness, that did not shame but flattered us. All that, he did
throughout the meal, indeed, drinking wine with me with a notable
respect, turning about for a pleasant word with John, fondling his
father’s hand, breaking into little merry tales of his adventures,
calling up the past with happy reference—all he did was so becoming,
and himself so handsome, that I could scarce wonder if my lord and Mrs.
Henry sat about the board with radiant faces, or if John waited behind
with dropping tears.
As soon as supper was over, Mrs. Henry rose to withdraw.
“This was never your way, Alison,” said he.
“It is my way now,” she replied: which was notoriously false, “and I
will give you a good-night, James, and a welcome—from the dead,” said
she, and her voice dropped and trembled.
Poor Mr. Henry, who had made rather a heavy figure through the meal,
was more concerned than ever; pleased to see his wife withdraw, and yet
half displeased, as he thought upon the cause of it; and the next
moment altogether dashed by the fervour of her speech.
On my part, I thought I was now one too many; and was stealing after
Mrs. Henry, when the Master saw me.
“Now, Mr. Mackellar,” says he, “I take this near on an unfriendliness.
I cannot have you go: this is to make a stranger of the prodigal son;
and let me remind you where—in his own father’s house! Come, sit ye
down, and drink another glass with Mr. Bally.”
“Ay, ay, Mr. Mackellar,” says my lord, “we must not make a stranger
either of him or you. I have been telling my son,” he added, his voice
brightening as usual on the word, “how much we valued all your friendly
service.”
So I sat there, silent, till my usual hour; and might have been almost
deceived in the man’s nature but for one passage, in which his perfidy
appeared too plain. Here was the passage; of which, after what he knows
of the brothers’ meeting, the reader shall consider for himself. Mr.
Henry sitting somewhat dully, in spite of his best endeavours to carry
things before my lord, up jumps the Master, passes about the board, and
claps his brother on the shoulder.
“Come, come, _Hairry lad_,” says he, with a broad accent such as they
must have used together when they were boys, “you must not be downcast
because your brother has come home. All’s yours, that’s sure enough,
and little I grudge it you. Neither must you grudge me my place beside
my father’s fire.”
“And that is too true, Henry,” says my old lord with a little frown, a
thing rare with him. “You have been the elder brother of the parable in
the good sense; you must be careful of the other.”
“I am easily put in the wrong,” said Mr. Henry.
“Who puts you in the wrong?” cried my lord, I thought very tartly for
so mild a man. “You have earned my gratitude and your brother’s many
thousand times: you may count on its endurance; and let that suffice.”
“Ay, Harry, that you may,” said the Master; and I thought Mr. Henry
looked at him with a kind of wildness in his eye.
On all the miserable business that now followed, I have four questions
that I asked myself often at the time and ask myself still:—Was the man
moved by a particular sentiment against Mr. Henry? or by what he
thought to be his interest? or by a mere delight in cruelty such as
cats display and theologians tell us of the devil? or by what he would
have called love? My common opinion halts among the three first; but
perhaps there lay at the spring of his behaviour an element of all. As
thus:—Animosity to Mr. Henry would explain his hateful usage of him
when they were alone; the interests he came to serve would explain his
very different attitude before my lord; that and some spice of a design
of gallantry, his care to stand well with Mrs. Henry; and the pleasure
of malice for itself, the pains he was continually at to mingle and
oppose these lines of conduct.
Partly because I was a very open friend to my patron, partly because in
my letters to Paris I had often given myself some freedom of
remonstrance, I was included in his diabolical amusement. When I was
alone with him, he pursued me with sneers; before the family he used me
with the extreme of friendly condescension. This was not only painful
in itself; not only did it put me continually in the wrong; but there
was in it an element of insult indescribable. That he should thus leave
me out in his dissimulation, as though even my testimony were too
despicable to be considered, galled me to the blood. But what it was to
me is not worth notice. I make but memorandum of it here; and chiefly
for this reason, that it had one good result, and gave me the quicker
sense of Mr. Henry’s martyrdom.
It was on him the burthen fell. How was he to respond to the public
advances of one who never lost a chance of gibing him in private? How
was he to smile back on the deceiver and the insulter? He was condemned
to seem ungracious. He was condemned to silence. Had he been less
proud, had he spoken, who would have credited the truth? The acted
calumny had done its work; my lord and Mrs. Henry were the daily
witnesses of what went on; they could have sworn in court that the
Master was a model of long-suffering good-nature, and Mr. Henry a
pattern of jealousy and thanklessness. And ugly enough as these must
have appeared in any one, they seemed tenfold uglier in Mr. Henry; for
who could forget that the Master lay in peril of his life, and that he
had already lost his mistress, his title, and his fortune?
“Henry, will you ride with me?” asks the Master one day.
And Mr. Henry, who had been goaded by the man all morning, raps out: “I
will not.”
“I sometimes wish you would be kinder, Henry,” says the other,
wistfully.
I give this for a specimen; but such scenes befell continually. Small
wonder if Mr. Henry was blamed; small wonder if I fretted myself into
something near upon a bilious fever; nay, and at the mere recollection
feel a bitterness in my blood.
Sure, never in this world was a more diabolical contrivance: so
perfidious, so simple, so impossible to combat. And yet I think again,
and I think always, Mrs. Henry might have read between the lines; she
might have had more knowledge of her husband’s nature; after all these
years of marriage she might have commanded or captured his confidence.
And my old lord, too—that very watchful gentleman—where was all his
observation? But, for one thing, the deceit was practised by a master
hand, and might have gulled an angel. For another (in the case of Mrs.
Henry), I have observed there are no persons so far away as those who
are both married and estranged, so that they seem out of ear-shot or to
have no common tongue. For a third (in the case of both of these
spectators), they were blinded by old ingrained predilection. And for a
fourth, the risk the Master was supposed to stand in (supposed, I
say—you will soon hear why) made it seem the more ungenerous to
criticise; and, keeping them in a perpetual tender solicitude about his
life, blinded them the more effectually to his faults.
It was during this time that I perceived most clearly the effect of
manner, and was led to lament most deeply the plainness of my own. Mr.
Henry had the essence of a gentleman; when he was moved, when there was
any call of circumstance, he could play his part with dignity and
spirit; but in the day’s commerce (it is idle to deny it) he fell short
of the ornamental. The Master (on the other hand) had never a movement
but it commanded him. So it befell that when the one appeared gracious
and the other ungracious, every trick of their bodies seemed to call
out confirmation. Not that alone: but the more deeply Mr. Henry
floundered in his brother’s toils, the more clownish he grew; and the
more the Master enjoyed his spiteful entertainment, the more
engagingly, the more smilingly, he went! So that the plot, by its own
scope and progress, furthered and confirmed itself.
It was one of the man’s arts to use the peril in which (as I say) he
was supposed to stand. He spoke of it to those who loved him with a
gentle pleasantry, which made it the more touching. To Mr. Henry he
used it as a cruel weapon of offence. I remember his laying his finger
on the clean lozenge of the painted window one day when we three were
alone together in the hall. “Here went your lucky guinea, Jacob,” said
he. And when Mr. Henry only looked upon him darkly, “Oh!” he added,
“you need not look such impotent malice, my good fly. You can be rid of
your spider when you please. How long, O Lord? When are you to be
wrought to the point of a denunciation, scrupulous brother? It is one
of my interests in this dreary hole. I ever loved experiment.” Still
Mr. Henry only stared upon him with a grooming brow, and a changed
colour; and at last the Master broke out in a laugh and clapped him on
the shoulder, calling him a sulky dog. At this my patron leaped back
with a gesture I thought very dangerous; and I must suppose the Master
thought so too, for he looked the least in the world discountenance,
and I do not remember him again to have laid hands on Mr. Henry.
But though he had his peril always on his lips in the one way or the
other, I thought his conduct strangely incautious, and began to fancy
the Government—who had set a price upon his head—was gone sound asleep.
I will not deny I was tempted with the wish to denounce him; but two
thoughts withheld me: one, that if he were thus to end his life upon an
honourable scaffold, the man would be canonised for good in the minds
of his father and my patron’s wife; the other, that if I was anyway
mingled in the matter, Mr. Henry himself would scarce escape some
glancings of suspicion. And in the meanwhile our enemy went in and out
more than I could have thought possible, the fact that he was home
again was buzzed about all the country-side, and yet he was never
stirred. Of all these so-many and so-different persons who were
acquainted with his presence, none had the least greed—as I used to say
in my annoyance—or the least loyalty; and the man rode here and
there—fully more welcome, considering the lees of old unpopularity,
than Mr. Henry—and considering the freetraders, far safer than myself.
Not but what he had a trouble of his own; and this, as it brought about
the gravest consequences, I must now relate. The reader will scarce
have forgotten Jessie Broun; her way of life was much among the
smuggling party; Captain Crail himself was of her intimates; and she
had early word of Mr. Bally’s presence at the house. In my opinion, she
had long ceased to care two straws for the Master’s person; but it was
become her habit to connect herself continually with the Master’s name;
that was the ground of all her play-acting; and so now, when he was
back, she thought she owed it to herself to grow a haunter of the
neighbourhood of Durrisdeer. The Master could scarce go abroad but she
was there in wait for him; a scandalous figure of a woman, not often
sober; hailing him wildly as “her bonny laddie,” quoting pedlar’s
poetry, and, as I receive the story, even seeking to weep upon his
neck. I own I rubbed my hands over this persecution; but the Master,
who laid so much upon others, was himself the least patient of men.
There were strange scenes enacted in the policies. Some say he took his
cane to her, and Jessie fell back upon her former weapons—stones. It is
certain at least that he made a motion to Captain Crail to have the
woman trepanned, and that the Captain refused the proposition with
uncommon vehemence. And the end of the matter was victory for Jessie.
Money was got together; an interview took place, in which my proud
gentleman must consent to be kissed and wept upon; and the woman was
set up in a public of her own, somewhere on Solway side (but I forget
where), and, by the only news I ever had of it, extremely
ill-frequented.
This is to look forward. After Jessie had been but a little while upon
his heels, the Master comes to me one day in the steward’s office, and
with more civility than usual, “Mackellar,” says he, “there is a damned
crazy wench comes about here. I cannot well move in the matter myself,
which brings me to you. Be so good as to see to it: the men must have a
strict injunction to drive the wench away.”
“Sir,” said I, trembling a little, “you can do your own dirty errands
for yourself.”
He said not a word to that, and left the room.
Presently came Mr. Henry. “Here is news!” cried he. “It seems all is
not enough, and you must add to my wretchedness. It seems you have
insulted Mr. Bally.”
“Under your kind favour, Mr. Henry,” said I, “it was he that insulted
me, and, as I think, grossly. But I may have been careless of your
position when I spoke; and if you think so when you know all, my dear
patron, you have but to say the word. For you I would obey in any point
whatever, even to sin, God pardon me!” And thereupon I told him what
had passed.
Mr. Henry smiled to himself; a grimmer smile I never witnessed. “You
did exactly well,” said he. “He shall drink his Jessie Broun to the
dregs.” And then, spying the Master outside, he opened the window, and
crying to him by the name of Mr. Bally, asked him to step up and have a
word.
“James,” said he, when our persecutor had come in and closed the door
behind him, looking at me with a smile, as if he thought I was to be
humbled, “you brought me a complaint against Mr. Mackellar, into which
I have inquired. I need not tell you I would always take his word
against yours; for we are alone, and I am going to use something of
your own freedom. Mr. Mackellar is a gentleman I value; and you must
contrive, so long as you are under this roof, to bring yourself into no
more collisions with one whom I will support at any possible cost to me
or mine. As for the errand upon which you came to him, you must deliver
yourself from the consequences of your own cruelty, and, none of my
servants shall be at all employed in such a case.”
“My father’s servants, I believe,” says the Master.
“Go to him with this tale,” said Mr. Henry.
The Master grew very white. He pointed at me with his finger. “I want
that man discharged,” he said.
“He shall not be,” said Mr. Henry.
“You shall pay pretty dear for this,” says the Master.
“I have paid so dear already for a wicked brother,” said Mr. Henry,
“that I am bankrupt even of fears. You have no place left where you can
strike me.”
“I will show you about that,” says the Master, and went softly away.
“What will he do next, Mackellar?” cries Mr. Henry.
“Let me go away,” said I. “My dear patron, let me go away; I am but the
beginning of fresh sorrows.”
“Would you leave me quite alone?” said he.
We were not long in suspense as to the nature of the new assault. Up
to that hour the Master had played a very close game with Mrs. Henry;
avoiding pointedly to be alone with her, which I took at the time for
an effect of decency, but now think to be a most insidious art;
meeting her, you may say, at meal-time only; and behaving, when he did
so, like an affectionate brother. Up to that hour, you may say he had
scarce directly interfered between Mr. Henry and his wife; except in
so far as he had manoeuvred the one quite forth from the good graces
of the other. Now all that was to be changed; but whether really in
revenge, or because he was wearying of Durrisdeer and looked about for
some diversion, who but the devil shall decide?
From that hour, at least, began the siege of Mrs. Henry; a thing so
deftly carried on that I scarce know if she was aware of it herself,
and that her husband must look on in silence. The first parallel was
opened (as was made to appear) by accident. The talk fell, as it did
often, on the exiles in France; so it glided to the matter of their
songs.
“There is one,” says the Master, “if you are curious in these matters,
that has always seemed to me very moving. The poetry is harsh; and yet,
perhaps because of my situation, it has always found the way to my
heart. It is supposed to be sung, I should tell you, by an exile’s
sweetheart; and represents perhaps, not so much the truth of what she
is thinking, as the truth of what he hopes of her, poor soul! in these
far lands.” And here the Master sighed, “I protest it is a pathetic
sight when a score of rough Irish, all common sentinels, get to this
song; and you may see, by their falling tears, how it strikes home to
them. It goes thus, father,” says he, very adroitly taking my lord for
his listener, “and if I cannot get to the end of it, you must think it
is a common case with us exiles.” And thereupon he struck up the same
air as I had heard the Colonel whistle; but now to words, rustic
indeed, yet most pathetically setting forth a poor girl’s aspirations
for an exiled lover; of which one verse indeed (or something like it)
still sticks by me:—
O, I will dye my petticoat red,
With my dear boy I’ll beg my bread,
Though all my friends should wish me dead,
For Willie among the rushes, O!
He sang it well, even as a song; but he did better yet a performer. I
have heard famous actors, when there was not a dry eye in the Edinburgh
theatre; a great wonder to behold; but no more wonderful than how the
Master played upon that little ballad, and on those who heard him, like
an instrument, and seemed now upon the point of failing, and now to
conquer his distress, so that words and music seemed to pour out of his
own heart and his own past, and to be aimed directly at Mrs. Henry. And
his art went further yet; for all was so delicately touched, it seemed
impossible to suspect him of the least design; and so far from making a
parade of emotion, you would have sworn he was striving to be calm.
When it came to an end, we all sat silent for a time; he had chosen the
dusk of the afternoon, so that none could see his neighbour’s face; but
it seemed as if we held our breathing; only my old lord cleared his
throat. The first to move was the singer, who got to his feet suddenly
and softly, and went and walked softly to and fro in the low end of the
hall, Mr. Henry’s customary place. We were to suppose that he there
struggled down the last of his emotion; for he presently returned and
launched into a disquisition on the nature of the Irish (always so much
miscalled, and whom he defended) in his natural voice; so that, before
the lights were brought, we were in the usual course of talk. But even
then, methought Mrs. Henry’s face was a shade pale; and, for another
thing, she withdrew almost at once.
The next sign was a friendship this insidious devil struck up with
innocent Miss Katharine; so that they were always together, hand in
hand, or she climbing on his knee, like a pair of children. Like all
his diabolical acts, this cut in several ways. It was the last stroke
to Mr. Henry, to see his own babe debauched against him; it made him
harsh with the poor innocent, which brought him still a peg lower in
his wife’s esteem; and (to conclude) it was a bond of union between the
lady and the Master. Under this influence, their old reserve melted by
daily stages. Presently there came walks in the long shrubbery, talks
in the Belvedere, and I know not what tender familiarity. I am sure
Mrs. Henry was like many a good woman; she had a whole conscience but
perhaps by the means of a little winking. For even to so dull an
observer as myself, it was plain her kindness was of a more moving
nature than the sisterly. The tones of her voice appeared more
numerous; she had a light and softness in her eye; she was more gentle
with all of us, even with Mr. Henry, even with myself; methought she
breathed of some quiet melancholy happiness.
To look on at this, what a torment it was for Mr. Henry! And yet it
brought our ultimate deliverance, as I am soon to tell.
The purport of the Master’s stay was no more noble (gild it as they
might) than to wring money out. He had some design of a fortune in the
French Indies, as the Chevalier wrote me; and it was the sum required
for this that he came seeking. For the rest of the family it spelled
ruin; but my lord, in his incredible partiality, pushed ever for the
granting. The family was now so narrowed down (indeed, there were no
more of them than just the father and the two sons) that it was
possible to break the entail and alienate a piece of land. And to
this, at first by hints, and then by open pressure, Mr. Henry was
brought to consent. He never would have done so, I am very well
assured, but for the weight of the distress under which he laboured.
But for his passionate eagerness to see his brother gone, he would not
thus have broken with his own sentiment and the traditions of his
house. And even so, he sold them his consent at a dear rate, speaking
for once openly, and holding the business up in its own shameful
colours.
“You will observe,” he said, “this is an injustice to my son, if ever I
have one.”
“But that you are not likely to have,” said my lord.
“God knows!” says Mr. Henry. “And considering the cruel falseness of
the position in which I stand to my brother, and that you, my lord, are
my father, and have the right to command me, I set my hand to this
paper. But one thing I will say first: I have been ungenerously pushed,
and when next, my lord, you are tempted to compare your sons, I call on
you to remember what I have done and what he has done. Acts are the
fair test.”
My lord was the most uneasy man I ever saw; even in his old face the
blood came up. “I think this is not a very wisely chosen moment, Henry,
for complaints,” said he. “This takes away from the merit of your
generosity.”
“Do not deceive yourself, my lord,” said Mr. Henry. “This injustice is
not done from generosity to him, but in obedience to yourself.”
“Before strangers . . . ” begins my lord, still more unhappily
affected.
“There is no one but Mackellar here,” said Mr. Henry; “he is my friend.
And, my lord, as you make him no stranger to your frequent blame, it
were hard if I must keep him one to a thing so rare as my defence.”
Almost I believe my lord would have rescinded his decision; but the
Master was on the watch.
“Ah! Henry, Henry,” says he, “you are the best of us still. Rugged and
true! Ah! man, I wish I was as good.”
And at that instance of his favourite’s generosity my lord desisted
from his hesitation, and the deed was signed.
As soon as it could he brought about, the land of Ochterhall was sold
for much below its value, and the money paid over to our leech and sent
by some private carriage into France. Or so he said; though I have
suspected since it did not go so far. And now here was all the man’s
business brought to a successful head, and his pockets once more
bulging with our gold; and yet the point for which we had consented to
this sacrifice was still denied us, and the visitor still lingered on
at Durrisdeer. Whether in malice, or because the time was not yet come
for his adventure to the Indies, or because he had hopes of his design
on Mrs. Henry, or from the orders of the Government, who shall say? but
linger he did, and that for weeks.
You will observe I say: from the orders of Government; for about this
time the man’s disreputable secret trickled out.
The first hint I had was from a tenant, who commented on the Master’s
stay, and yet more on his security; for this tenant was a Jacobitish
sympathiser, and had lost a son at Culloden, which gave him the more
critical eye. “There is one thing,” said he, “that I cannot but think
strange; and that is how he got to Cockermouth.”
“To Cockermouth?” said I, with a sudden memory of my first wonder on
beholding the man disembark so point-de-vice after so long a voyage.
“Why, yes,” says the tenant, “it was there he was picked up by Captain
Crail. You thought he had come from France by sea? And so we all did.”
I turned this news a little in my head, and then carried it to Mr.
Henry. “Here is an odd circumstance,” said I, and told him.
“What matters how he came, Mackellar, so long as he is here?” groans
Mr. Henry.
“No, sir,” said I, “but think again! Does not this smack a little of
some Government connivance? You know how much we have wondered already
at the man’s security.”
“Stop,” said Mr. Henry. “Let me think of this.” And as he thought,
there came that grim smile upon his face that was a little like the
Master’s. “Give me paper,” said he. And he sat without another word and
wrote to a gentleman of his acquaintance—I will name no unnecessary
names, but he was one in a high place. This letter I despatched by the
only hand I could depend upon in such a case—Macconochie’s; and the old
man rode hard, for he was back with the reply before even my eagerness
had ventured to expect him. Again, as he read it, Mr. Henry had the
same grim smile.
“This is the best you have done for me yet, Mackellar,” says he. “With
this in my hand I will give him a shog. Watch for us at dinner.”
At dinner accordingly Mr. Henry proposed some very public appearance
for the Master; and my lord, as he had hoped, objected to the danger of
the course.
“Oh!” says Mr. Henry, very easily, “you need no longer keep this up
with me. I am as much in the secret as yourself.”
“In the secret?” says my lord. “What do you mean, Henry? I give you my
word, I am in no secret from which you are excluded.”
The Master had changed countenance, and I saw he was struck in a joint
of his harness.
“How?” says Mr. Henry, turning to him with a huge appearance of
surprise. “I see you serve your masters very faithfully; but I had
thought you would have been humane enough to set your father’s mind at
rest.”
“What are you talking of? I refuse to have my business publicly
discussed. I order this to cease,” cries the Master very foolishly and
passionately, and indeed more like a child than a man.
“So much discretion was not looked for at your hands, I can assure
you,” continued Mr. Henry. “For see what my correspondent
writes”—unfolding the paper—“‘It is, of course, in the interests both
of the Government and the gentleman whom we may perhaps best continue
to call Mr. Bally, to keep this understanding secret; but it was never
meant his own family should continue to endure the suspense you paint
so feelingly; and I am pleased mine should be the hand to set these
fears at rest. Mr. Bally is as safe in Great Britain as yourself.’”
“Is this possible?” cries my lord, looking at his son, with a great
deal of wonder and still more of suspicion in his face.
“My dear father,” says the Master, already much recovered. “I am
overjoyed that this may be disclosed. My own instructions, direct from
London, bore a very contrary sense, and I was charged to keep the
indulgence secret from every one, yourself not excepted, and indeed
yourself expressly named—as I can show in black and white unless I have
destroyed the letter. They must have changed their mind very swiftly,
for the whole matter is still quite fresh; or rather, Henry’s
correspondent must have misconceived that part, as he seems to have
misconceived the rest. To tell you the truth, sir,” he continued,
getting visibly more easy, “I had supposed this unexplained favour to a
rebel was the effect of some application from yourself; and the
injunction to secrecy among my family the result of a desire on your
part to conceal your kindness. Hence I was the more careful to obey
orders. It remains now to guess by what other channel indulgence can
have flowed on so notorious an offender as myself; for I do not think
your son need defend himself from what seems hinted at in Henry’s
letter. I have never yet heard of a Durrisdeer who was a turncoat or a
spy,” says he, proudly.
And so it seemed he had swum out of this danger unharmed; but this was
to reckon without a blunder he had made, and without the pertinacity of
Mr. Henry, who was now to show he had something of his brother’s
spirit.
“You say the matter is still fresh,” says Mr. Henry.
“It is recent,” says the Master, with a fair show of stoutness and yet
not without a quaver.
“Is it so recent as that?” asks Mr. Henry, like a man a little puzzled,
and spreading his letter forth again.
In all the letter there was no word as to the date; but how was the
Master to know that?
“It seemed to come late enough for me,” says he, with a laugh. And at
the sound of that laugh, which rang false, like a cracked bell, my lord
looked at him again across the table, and I saw his old lips draw
together close.
“No,” said Mr. Henry, still glancing on his letter, “but I remember
your expression. You said it was very fresh.”
And here we had a proof of our victory, and the strongest instance yet
of my lord’s incredible indulgence; for what must he do but interfere
to save his favourite from exposure!
“I think, Henry,” says he, with a kind of pitiful eagerness, “I think
we need dispute no more. We are all rejoiced at last to find your
brother safe; we are all at one on that; and, as grateful subjects, we
can do no less than drink to the king’s health and bounty.”
Thus was the Master extricated; but at least he had been put to his
defence, he had come lamely out, and the attraction of his personal
danger was now publicly plucked away from him. My lord, in his heart of
hearts, now knew his favourite to be a Government spy; and Mrs. Henry
(however she explained the tale) was notably cold in her behaviour to
the discredited hero of romance. Thus in the best fabric of duplicity,
there is some weak point, if you can strike it, which will loosen all;
and if, by this fortunate stroke, we had not shaken the idol, who can
say how it might have gone with us at the catastrophe?
And yet at the time we seemed to have accomplished nothing. Before a
day or two he had wiped off the ill-results of his discomfiture, and,
to all appearance, stood as high as ever. As for my Lord Durrisdeer, he
was sunk in parental partiality; it was not so much love, which should
be an active quality, as an apathy and torpor of his other powers; and
forgiveness (so to mis-apply a noble word) flowed from him in sheer
weakness, like the tears of senility. Mrs. Henry’s was a different
case; and Heaven alone knows what he found to say to her, or how he
persuaded her from her contempt. It is one of the worst things of
sentiment, that the voice grows to be more important than the words,
and the speaker than that which is spoken. But some excuse the Master
must have found, or perhaps he had even struck upon some art to wrest
this exposure to his own advantage; for after a time of coldness, it
seemed as if things went worse than ever between him and Mrs. Henry.
They were then constantly together. I would not be thought to cut one
shadow of blame, beyond what is due to a half-wilful blindness, on that
unfortunate lady; but I do think, in these last days, she was playing
very near the fire; and whether I be wrong or not in that, one thing is
sure and quite sufficient: Mr. Henry thought so. The poor gentleman sat
for days in my room, so great a picture of distress that I could never
venture to address him; yet it is to be thought he found some comfort
even in my presence and the knowledge of my sympathy. There were times,
too, when we talked, and a strange manner of talk it was; there was
never a person named, nor an individual circumstance referred to; yet
we had the same matter in our minds, and we were each aware of it. It
is a strange art that can thus be practised; to talk for hours of a
thing, and never name nor yet so much as hint at it. And I remember I
wondered if it was by some such natural skill that the Master made love
to Mrs. Henry all day long (as he manifestly did), yet never startled
her into reserve.
To show how far affairs had gone with Mr. Henry, I will give some words
of his, uttered (as I have cause not to forget) upon the 26th of
February, 1757. It was unseasonable weather, a cast back into Winter:
windless, bitter cold, the world all white with rime, the sky low and
gray: the sea black and silent like a quarry-hole. Mr. Henry sat close
by the fire, and debated (as was now common with him) whether “a man”
should “do things,” whether “interference was wise,” and the like
general propositions, which each of us particularly applied. I was by
the window, looking out, when there passed below me the Master, Mrs.
Henry, and Miss Katharine, that now constant trio. The child was
running to and fro, delighted with the frost; the Master spoke close in
the lady’s ear with what seemed (even from so far) a devilish grace of
insinuation; and she on her part looked on the ground like a person
lost in listening. I broke out of my reserve.
“If I were you, Mr. Henry,” said I, “I would deal openly with my lord.”
“Mackellar, Mackellar,” said he, “you do not see the weakness of my
ground. I can carry no such base thoughts to any one—to my father least
of all; that would be to fall into the bottom of his scorn. The
weakness of my ground,” he continued, “lies in myself, that I am not
one who engages love. I have their gratitude, they all tell me that; I
have a rich estate of it! But I am not present in their minds; they are
moved neither to think with me nor to think for me. There is my loss!”
He got to his feet, and trod down the fire. “But some method must be
found, Mackellar,” said he, looking at me suddenly over his shoulder;
“some way must be found. I am a man of a great deal of patience—far too
much—far too much. I begin to despise myself. And yet, sure, never was
a man involved in such a toil!” He fell back to his brooding.
“Cheer up,” said I. “It will burst of itself.”
“I am far past anger now,” says he, which had so little coherency with
my own observation that I let both fall.