THE ENEMY IN THE HOUSE.
It is a strange thing that I should be at a stick for a date—the date,
besides, of an incident that changed the very nature of my life, and
sent us all into foreign lands. But the truth is, I was stricken out of
all my habitudes, and find my journals very ill redd-up, [7] the day
not indicated sometimes for a week or two together, and the whole
fashion of the thing like that of a man near desperate. It was late in
March at least, or early in April, 1764. I had slept heavily, and
wakened with a premonition of some evil to befall. So strong was this
upon my spirit that I hurried downstairs in my shirt and breeches, and
my hand (I remember) shook upon the rail. It was a cold, sunny morning,
with a thick white frost; the blackbirds sang exceeding sweet and loud
about the house of Durrisdeer, and there was a noise of the sea in all
the chambers. As I came by the doors of the hall, another sound
arrested me—of voices talking. I drew nearer, and stood like a man
dreaming. Here was certainly a human voice, and that in my own master’s
house, and yet I knew it not; certainly human speech, and that in my
native land; and yet, listen as I pleased, I could not catch one
syllable. An old tale started up in my mind of a fairy wife (or perhaps
only a wandering stranger), that came to the place of my fathers some
generations back, and stayed the matter of a week, talking often in a
tongue that signified nothing to the hearers; and went again, as she
had come, under cloud of night, leaving not so much as a name behind
her. A little fear I had, but more curiosity; and I opened the
hall-door, and entered.
The supper-things still lay upon the table; the shutters were still
closed, although day peeped in the divisions; and the great room was
lighted only with a single taper and some lurching reverberation of the
fire. Close in the chimney sat two men. The one that was wrapped in a
cloak and wore boots, I knew at once: it was the bird of ill omen back
again. Of the other, who was set close to the red embers, and made up
into a bundle like a mummy, I could but see that he was an alien, of a
darker hue than any man of Europe, very frailly built, with a singular
tall forehead, and a secret eye. Several bundles and a small valise
were on the floor; and to judge by the smallness of this luggage, and
by the condition of the Master’s boots, grossly patched by some
unscrupulous country cobbler, evil had not prospered.
He rose upon my entrance; our eyes crossed; and I know not why it
should have been, but my courage rose like a lark on a May morning.
“Ha!” said I, “is this you?”—and I was pleased with the unconcern of my
own voice.
“It is even myself, worthy Mackellar,” says the Master.
“This time you have brought the black dog visibly upon your back,” I
continued.
“Referring to Secundra Dass?” asked the Master. “Let me present you. He
is a native gentleman of India.”
“Hum!” said I. “I am no great lover either of you or your friends, Mr.
Bally. But I will let a little daylight in, and have a look at you.”
And so saying, I undid the shutters of the eastern window.
By the light of the morning I could perceive the man was changed.
Later, when we were all together, I was more struck to see how lightly
time had dealt with him; but the first glance was otherwise.
“You are getting an old man,” said I.
A shade came upon his face. “If you could see yourself,” said he, “you
would perhaps not dwell upon the topic.”
“Hut!” I returned, “old age is nothing to me. I think I have been
always old; and I am now, I thank God, better known and more respected.
It is not every one that can say that, Mr. Bally! The lines in your
brow are calamities; your life begins to close in upon you like a
prison; death will soon be rapping at the door; and I see not from what
source you are to draw your consolations.”
Here the Master addressed himself to Secundra Dass in Hindustanee, from
which I gathered (I freely confess, with a high degree of pleasure)
that my remarks annoyed him. All this while, you may be sure, my mind
had been busy upon other matters, even while I rallied my enemy; and
chiefly as to how I should communicate secretly and quickly with my
lord. To this, in the breathing-space now given me, I turned all the
forces of my mind; when, suddenly shifting my eyes, I was aware of the
man himself standing in the doorway, and, to all appearance, quite
composed. He had no sooner met my looks than he stepped across the
threshold. The Master heard him coming, and advanced upon the other
side; about four feet apart, these brothers came to a full pause, and
stood exchanging steady looks, and then my lord smiled, bowed a little
forward, and turned briskly away.
“Mackellar,” says he, “we must see to breakfast for these travellers.”
It was plain the Master was a trifle disconcerted; but he assumed the
more impudence of speech and manner. “I am as hungry as a hawk,” says
he. “Let it be something good, Henry.”
My lord turned to him with the same hard smile.
“Lord Durrisdeer,” says he.
“Oh! never in the family,” returned the Master.
“Every one in this house renders me my proper title,” says my lord. “If
it please you to make an exception, I will leave you to consider what
appearance it will bear to strangers, and whether it may not be
translated as an effect of impotent jealousy.”
I could have clapped my hands together with delight: the more so as my
lord left no time for any answer, but, bidding me with a sign to follow
him, went straight out of the hall.
“Come quick,” says he; “we have to sweep vermin from the house.” And he
sped through the passages, with so swift a step that I could scarce
keep up with him, straight to the door of John Paul, the which he
opened without summons and walked in. John was, to all appearance,
sound asleep, but my lord made no pretence of waking him.
“John Paul,” said he, speaking as quietly as ever I heard him, “you
served my father long, or I would pack you from the house like a dog.
If in half an hour’s time I find you gone, you shall continue to
receive your wages in Edinburgh. If you linger here or in St.
Bride’s—old man, old servant, and altogether—I shall find some very
astonishing way to make you smart for your disloyalty. Up and begone.
The door you let them in by will serve for your departure. I do not
choose my son shall see your face again.”
“I am rejoiced to find you bear the thing so quietly,” said I, when we
were forth again by ourselves.
“Quietly!” cries he, and put my hand suddenly against his heart, which
struck upon his bosom like a sledge.
At this revelation I was filled with wonder and fear. There was no
constitution could bear so violent a strain—his least of all, that was
unhinged already; and I decided in my mind that we must bring this
monstrous situation to an end.
“It would be well, I think, if I took word to my lady,” said I. Indeed,
he should have gone himself, but I counted—not in vain—on his
indifference.
“Aye,” says he, “do. I will hurry breakfast: we must all appear at the
table, even Alexander; it must appear we are untroubled.”
I ran to my lady’s room, and with no preparatory cruelty, disclosed my
news.
“My mind was long ago made up,” said she. “We must make our packets
secretly to-day, and leave secretly to-night. Thank Heaven, we have
another house! The first ship that sails shall bear us to New York.”
“And what of him?” I asked.
“We leave him Durrisdeer,” she cried. “Let him work his pleasure upon
that.”
“Not so, by your leave,” said I. “There shall be a dog at his heels
that can hold fast. Bed he shall have, and board, and a horse to ride
upon, if he behave himself; but the keys—if you think well of it, my
lady—shall be left in the hands of one Mackellar. There will be good
care taken; trust him for that.”
“Mr. Mackellar,” she cried, “I thank you for that thought. All shall be
left in your hands. If we must go into a savage country, I bequeath it
to you to take our vengeance. Send Macconochie to St. Bride’s, to
arrange privately for horses and to call the lawyer. My lord must leave
procuration.”
At that moment my lord came to the door, and we opened our plan to him.
“I will never hear of it,” he cried; “he would think I feared him. I
will stay in my own house, please God, until I die. There lives not the
man can beard me out of it. Once and for all, here I am, and here I
stay in spite of all the devils in hell.” I can give no idea of the
vehemency of his words and utterance; but we both stood aghast, and I
in particular, who had been a witness of his former self-restraint.
My lady looked at me with an appeal that went to my heart and recalled
me to my wits. I made her a private sign to go, and when my lord and I
were alone, went up to him where he was racing to and fro in one end of
the room like a half-lunatic, and set my hand firmly on his shoulder.
“My lord,” says I, “I am going to be the plain-dealer once more; if for
the last time, so much the better, for I am grown weary of the part.”
“Nothing will change me,” he answered. “God forbid I should refuse to
hear you; but nothing will change me.” This he said firmly, with no
signal of the former violence, which already raised my hopes.
“Very well,” said I “I can afford to waste my breath.” I pointed to a
chair, and he sat down and looked at me. “I can remember a time when my
lady very much neglected you,” said I.
“I never spoke of it while it lasted,” returned my lord, with a high
flush of colour; “and it is all changed now.”
“Do you know how much?” I said. “Do you know how much it is all
changed? The tables are turned, my lord! It is my lady that now courts
you for a word, a look—ay, and courts you in vain. Do you know with
whom she passes her days while you are out gallivanting in the
policies? My lord, she is glad to pass them with a certain dry old
grieve [8] of the name of Ephraim Mackellar; and I think you may be
able to remember what that means, for I am the more in a mistake or you
were once driven to the same company yourself.”
“Mackellar!” cries my lord, getting to his feet. “O my God, Mackellar!”
“It is neither the name of Mackellar nor the name of God that can
change the truth,” said I; “and I am telling you the fact. Now for you,
that suffered so much, to deal out the same suffering to another, is
that the part of any Christian? But you are so swallowed up in your new
friend that the old are all forgotten. They are all clean vanished from
your memory. And yet they stood by you at the darkest; my lady not the
least. And does my lady ever cross your mind? Does it ever cross your
mind what she went through that night?—or what manner of a wife she has
been to you thenceforward?—or in what kind of a position she finds
herself to-day? Never. It is your pride to stay and face him out, and
she must stay along with you. Oh! my lord’s pride—that’s the great
affair! And yet she is the woman, and you are a great hulking man! She
is the woman that you swore to protect; and, more betoken, the own
mother of that son of yours!”
“You are speaking very bitterly, Mackellar,” said he; “but, the Lord
knows, I fear you are speaking very true. I have not proved worthy of
my happiness. Bring my lady back.”
My lady was waiting near at hand to learn the issue. When I brought her
in, my lord took a hand of each of us, and laid them both upon his
bosom. “I have had two friends in my life,” said he. “All the comfort
ever I had, it came from one or other. When you two are in a mind, I
think I would be an ungrateful dog—” He shut his mouth very hard, and
looked on us with swimming eyes. “Do what ye like with me,” says he,
“only don’t think—” He stopped again. “Do what ye please with me: God
knows I love and honour you.” And dropping our two hands, he turned his
back and went and gazed out of the window. But my lady ran after,
calling his name, and threw herself upon his neck in a passion of
weeping.
I went out and shut the door behind me, and stood and thanked God from
the bottom of my heart.
At the breakfast board, according to my lord’s design, we were all
met. The Master had by that time plucked off his patched boots and
made a toilet suitable to the hour; Secundra Dass was no longer
bundled up in wrappers, but wore a decent plain black suit, which
misbecame him strangely; and the pair were at the great window,
looking forth, when the family entered. They turned; and the black man
(as they had already named him in the house) bowed almost to his
knees, but the Master was for running forward like one of the family.
My lady stopped him, curtseying low from the far end of the hall, and
keeping her children at her back. My lord was a little in front: so
there were the three cousins of Durrisdeer face to face. The hand of
time was very legible on all; I seemed to read in their changed faces
a _memento mori_; and what affected me still more, it was the wicked
man that bore his years the handsomest. My lady was quite transfigured
into the matron, a becoming woman for the head of a great tableful of
children and dependents. My lord was grown slack in his limbs; he
stooped; he walked with a running motion, as though he had learned
again from Mr. Alexander; his face was drawn; it seemed a trifle
longer than of old; and it wore at times a smile very singularly
mingled, and which (in my eyes) appeared both bitter and pathetic. But
the Master still bore himself erect, although perhaps with effort; his
brow barred about the centre with imperious lines, his mouth set as
for command. He had all the gravity and something of the splendour of
Satan in the “Paradise Lost.” I could not help but see the man with
admiration, and was only surprised that I saw him with so little fear.
But indeed (as long as we were at the table) it seemed as if his
authority were quite vanished and his teeth all drawn. We had known him
a magician that controlled the elements; and here he was, transformed
into an ordinary gentleman, chatting like his neighbours at the
breakfast-board. For now the father was dead, and my lord and lady
reconciled, in what ear was he to pour his calumnies? It came upon me
in a kind of vision how hugely I had overrated the man’s subtlety. He
had his malice still; he was false as ever; and, the occasion being
gone that made his strength, he sat there impotent; he was still the
viper, but now spent his venom on a file. Two more thoughts occurred to
me while yet we sat at breakfast: the first, that he was abashed—I had
almost said, distressed—to find his wickedness quite unavailing; the
second, that perhaps my lord was in the right, and we did amiss to fly
from our dismasted enemy. But my poor man’s leaping heart came in my
mind, and I remembered it was for his life we played the coward.
When the meal was over, the Master followed me to my room, and, taking
a chair (which I had never offered him), asked me what was to be done
with him.
“Why, Mr. Bally,” said I, “the house will still be open to you for a
time.”
“For a time?” says he. “I do not know if I quite take your meaning.”
“It is plain enough,” said I. “We keep you for our reputation; as soon
as you shall have publicly disgraced yourself by some of your
misconduct, we shall pack you forth again.”
“You are become an impudent rogue,” said the Master, bending his brows
at me dangerously.
“I learned in a good school,” I returned. “And you must have perceived
yourself that with my old lord’s death your power is quite departed. I
do not fear you now, Mr. Bally; I think even—God forgive me—that I take
a certain pleasure in your company.”
He broke out in a burst of laughter, which I clearly saw to be assumed.
“I have come with empty pockets,” says he, after a pause.
“I do not think there will be any money going,” I replied. “I would
advise you not to build on that.”
“I shall have something to say on the point,” he returned.
“Indeed?” said I. “I have not a guess what it will be, then.”
“Oh! you affect confidence,” said the Master. “I have still one strong
position—that you people fear a scandal, and I enjoy it.”
“Pardon me, Mr. Bally,” says I. “We do not in the least fear a scandal
against you.”
He laughed again. “You have been studying repartee,” he said. “But
speech is very easy, and sometimes very deceptive. I warn you fairly:
you will find me vitriol in the house. You would do wiser to pay money
down and see my back.” And with that he waved his hand to me and left
the room.
A little after, my lord came with the lawyer, Mr. Carlyle; a bottle of
old wine was brought, and we all had a glass before we fell to
business. The necessary deeds were then prepared and executed, and the
Scotch estates made over in trust to Mr. Carlyle and myself.
“There is one point, Mr. Carlyle,” said my lord, when these affairs had
been adjusted, “on which I wish that you would do us justice. This
sudden departure coinciding with my brother’s return will be certainly
commented on. I wish you would discourage any conjunction of the two.”
“I will make a point of it, my lord,” said Mr. Carlyle. “The Mas— Bally
does not, then, accompany you?”
“It is a point I must approach,” said my lord. “Mr. Bally remains at
Durrisdeer, under the care of Mr. Mackellar; and I do not mean that he
shall even know our destination.”
“Common report, however—” began the lawyer.
“Ah! but, Mr. Carlyle, this is to be a secret quite among ourselves,”
interrupted my lord. “None but you and Mackellar are to be made
acquainted with my movements.”
“And Mr. Bally stays here? Quite so,” said Mr. Carlyle. “The powers you
leave—” Then he broke off again. “Mr. Mackellar, we have a rather heavy
weight upon us.”
“No doubt,” said I.
“No doubt,” said he. “Mr. Bally will have no voice?”
“He will have no voice,” said my lord; “and, I hope, no influence. Mr.
Bally is not a good adviser.”
“I see,” said the lawyer. “By the way, has Mr. Bally means?”
“I understand him to have nothing,” replied my lord. “I give him table,
fire, and candle in this house.”
“And in the matter of an allowance? If I am to share the
responsibility, you will see how highly desirable it is that I should
understand your views,” said the lawyer. “On the question of an
allowance?”
“There will be no allowance,” said my lord. “I wish Mr. Bally to live
very private. We have not always been gratified with his behaviour.”
“And in the matter of money,” I added, “he has shown himself an
infamous bad husband. Glance your eye upon that docket, Mr. Carlyle,
where I have brought together the different sums the man has drawn from
the estate in the last fifteen or twenty years. The total is pretty.”
Mr. Carlyle made the motion of whistling. “I had no guess of this,”
said he. “Excuse me once more, my lord, if I appear to push you; but it
is really desirable I should penetrate your intentions. Mr. Mackellar
might die, when I should find myself alone upon this trust. Would it
not be rather your lordship’s preference that Mr. Bally
should—ahem—should leave the country?”
My lord looked at Mr. Carlyle. “Why do you ask that?” said he.
“I gather, my lord, that Mr. Bally is not a comfort to his family,”
says the lawyer with a smile.
My lord’s face became suddenly knotted. “I wish he was in hell!” cried
he, and filled himself a glass of wine, but with a hand so tottering
that he spilled the half into his bosom. This was the second time that,
in the midst of the most regular and wise behaviour, his animosity had
spirted out. It startled Mr. Carlyle, who observed my lord thenceforth
with covert curiosity; and to me it restored the certainty that we were
acting for the best in view of my lord’s health and reason.
Except for this explosion the interview was very successfully
conducted. No doubt Mr. Carlyle would talk, as lawyers do, little by
little. We could thus feel we had laid the foundations of a better
feeling in the country, and the man’s own misconduct would certainly
complete what we had begun. Indeed, before his departure, the lawyer
showed us there had already gone abroad some glimmerings of the truth.
“I should perhaps explain to you, my lord,” said he, pausing, with his
hat in his hand, “that I have not been altogether surprised with your
lordship’s dispositions in the case of Mr. Bally. Something of this
nature oozed out when he was last in Durrisdeer. There was some talk of
a woman at St. Bride’s, to whom you had behaved extremely handsome, and
Mr. Bally with no small degree of cruelty. There was the entail, again,
which was much controverted. In short, there was no want of talk, back
and forward; and some of our wise-acres took up a strong opinion. I
remained in suspense, as became one of my cloth; but Mr. Mackellar’s
docket here has finally opened my eyes. I do not think, Mr. Mackellar,
that you and I will give him that much rope.”
The rest of that important day passed prosperously through. It was our
policy to keep the enemy in view, and I took my turn to be his
watchman with the rest. I think his spirits rose as he perceived us to
be so attentive, and I know that mine insensibly declined. What
chiefly daunted me was the man’s singular dexterity to worm himself
into our troubles. You may have felt (after a horse accident) the hand
of a bone-setter artfully divide and interrogate the muscles, and
settle strongly on the injured place? It was so with the Master’s
tongue, that was so cunning to question; and his eyes, that were so
quick to observe. I seemed to have said nothing, and yet to have let
all out. Before I knew where I was the man was condoling with me on my
lord’s neglect of my lady and myself, and his hurtful indulgence to
his son. On this last point I perceived him (with panic fear) to
return repeatedly. The boy had displayed a certain shrinking from his
uncle; it was strong in my mind his father had been fool enough to
indoctrinate the same, which was no wise beginning: and when I looked
upon the man before me, still so handsome, so apt a speaker, with so
great a variety of fortunes to relate, I saw he was the very personage
to captivate a boyish fancy. John Paul had left only that morning; it
was not to be supposed he had been altogether dumb upon his favourite
subject: so that here would be Mr. Alexander in the part of Dido, with
a curiosity inflamed to hear; and there would be the Master, like a
diabolical Æneas, full of matter the most pleasing in the world to any
youthful ear, such as battles, sea-disasters, flights, the forests of
the West, and (since his later voyage) the ancient cities of the
Indies. How cunningly these baits might be employed, and what an
empire might be so founded, little by little, in the mind of any boy,
stood obviously clear to me. There was no inhibition, so long as the
man was in the house, that would be strong enough to hold these two
apart; for if it be hard to charm serpents, it is no very difficult
thing to cast a glamour on a little chip of manhood not very long in
breeches. I recalled an ancient sailor-man who dwelt in a lone house
beyond the Figgate Whins (I believe, he called it after Portobello),
and how the boys would troop out of Leith on a Saturday, and sit and
listen to his swearing tales, as thick as crows about a carrion: a
thing I often remarked as I went by, a young student, on my own more
meditative holiday diversion. Many of these boys went, no doubt, in
the face of an express command; many feared and even hated the old
brute of whom they made their hero; and I have seen them flee from him
when he was tipsy, and stone him when he was drunk. And yet there they
came each Saturday! How much more easily would a boy like Mr.
Alexander fall under the influence of a high-looking, high-spoken
gentleman-adventurer, who should conceive the fancy to entrap him;
and, the influence gained, how easy to employ it for the child’s
perversion!
I doubt if our enemy had named Mr. Alexander three times before I
perceived which way his mind was aiming—all this train of thought and
memory passed in one pulsation through my own—and you may say I started
back as though an open hole had gaped across a pathway. Mr. Alexander:
there was the weak point, there was the Eve in our perishable paradise;
and the serpent was already hissing on the trail.
I promise you, I went the more heartily about the preparations; my last
scruple gone, the danger of delay written before me in huge characters.
From that moment forth I seem not to have sat down or breathed. Now I
would be at my post with the Master and his Indian; now in the garret,
buckling a valise; now sending forth Macconochie by the side postern
and the wood-path to bear it to the trysting-place; and, again,
snatching some words of counsel with my lady. This was the _verso_ of
our life in Durrisdeer that day; but on the _recto_ all appeared quite
settled, as of a family at home in its paternal seat; and what
perturbation may have been observable, the Master would set down to the
blow of his unlooked-for coming, and the fear he was accustomed to
inspire.
Supper went creditably off, cold salutations passed and the company
trooped to their respective chambers. I attended the Master to the
last. We had put him next door to his Indian, in the north wing;
because that was the most distant and could be severed from the body of
the house with doors. I saw he was a kind friend or a good master
(whichever it was) to his Secundra Dass—seeing to his comfort; mending
the fire with his own hand, for the Indian complained of cold;
inquiring as to the rice on which the stranger made his diet; talking
with him pleasantly in the Hindustanee, while I stood by, my candle in
my hand, and affected to be overcome with slumber. At length the Master
observed my signals of distress. “I perceive,” says he, “that you have
all your ancient habits: early to bed and early to rise. Yawn yourself
away!”
Once in my own room, I made the customary motions of undressing, so
that I might time myself; and when the cycle was complete, set my
tinder-box ready, and blew out my taper. The matter of an hour
afterward I made a light again, put on my shoes of list that I had worn
by my lord’s sick-bed, and set forth into the house to call the
voyagers. All were dressed and waiting—my lord, my lady, Miss
Katharine, Mr. Alexander, my lady’s woman Christie; and I observed the
effect of secrecy even upon quite innocent persons, that one after
another showed in the chink of the door a face as white as paper. We
slipped out of the side postern into a night of darkness, scarce broken
by a star or two; so that at first we groped and stumbled and fell
among the bushes. A few hundred yards up the wood-path Macconochie was
waiting us with a great lantern; so the rest of the way we went easy
enough, but still in a kind of guilty silence. A little beyond the
abbey the path debauched on the main road and some quarter of a mile
farther, at the place called Eagles, where the moors begin, we saw the
lights of the two carriages stand shining by the wayside. Scarce a word
or two was uttered at our parting, and these regarded business: a
silent grasping of hands, a turning of faces aside, and the thing was
over; the horses broke into a trot, the lamplight sped like
Will-o’-the-Wisp upon the broken moorland, it dipped beyond Stony Brae;
and there were Macconochie and I alone with our lantern on the road.
There was one thing more to wait for, and that was the reappearance of
the coach upon Cartmore. It seems they must have pulled up upon the
summit, looked back for a last time, and seen our lantern not yet moved
away from the place of separation. For a lamp was taken from a
carriage, and waved three times up and down by way of a farewell. And
then they were gone indeed, having looked their last on the kind roof
of Durrisdeer, their faces toward a barbarous country. I never knew
before, the greatness of that vault of night in which we two poor
serving-men—the one old, and the one elderly—stood for the first time
deserted; I had never felt before my own dependency upon the
countenance of others. The sense of isolation burned in my bowels like
a fire. It seemed that we who remained at home were the true exiles,
and that Durrisdeer and Solwayside, and all that made my country
native, its air good to me, and its language welcome, had gone forth
and was far over the sea with my old masters.
The remainder of that night I paced to and fro on the smooth highway,
reflecting on the future and the past. My thoughts, which at first
dwelled tenderly on those who were just gone, took a more manly temper
as I considered what remained for me to do. Day came upon the inland
mountain-tops, and the fowls began to cry, and the smoke of homesteads
to arise in the brown bosom of the moors, before I turned my face
homeward, and went down the path to where the roof of Durrisdeer shone
in the morning by the sea.
At the customary hour I had the Master called, and awaited his coming
in the hall with a quiet mind. He looked about him at the empty room
and the three covers set.
“We are a small party,” said he. “How comes?”
“This is the party to which we must grow accustomed,” I replied.
He looked at me with a sudden sharpness. “What is all this?” said he.
“You and I and your friend Mr. Dass are now all the company,” I
replied. “My lord, my lady, and the children, are gone upon a voyage.”
“Upon my word!” said he. “Can this be possible? I have indeed fluttered
your Volscians in Corioli! But this is no reason why our breakfast
should go cold. Sit down, Mr. Mackellar, if you please”—taking, as he
spoke, the head of the table, which I had designed to occupy
myself—“and as we eat, you can give me the details of this evasion.”
I could see he was more affected than his language carried, and I
determined to equal him in coolness. “I was about to ask you to take
the head of the table,” said I; “for though I am now thrust into the
position of your host, I could never forget that you were, after all, a
member of the family.”
For a while he played the part of entertainer, giving directions to
Macconochie, who received them with an evil grace, and attending
specially upon Secundra. “And where has my good family withdrawn to?”
he asked carelessly.
“Ah! Mr. Bally, that is another point,” said I. “I have no orders to
communicate their destination.”
“To me,” he corrected.
“To any one,” said I.
“It is the less pointed,” said the master; “_c’est de bon ton_: my
brother improves as he continues. And I, dear Mr. Mackellar?”
“You will have bed and board, Mr. Bally,” said I. “I am permitted to
give you the run of the cellar, which is pretty reasonably stocked. You
have only to keep well with me, which is no very difficult matter, and
you shall want neither for wine nor a saddle-horse.”
He made an excuse to send Macconochie from the room.
“And for money?” he inquired. “Have I to keep well with my good friend
Mackellar for my pocket-money also? This is a pleasing return to the
principles of boyhood.”
“There was no allowance made,” said I; “but I will take it on myself to
see you are supplied in moderation.”
“In moderation?” he repeated. “And you will take it on yourself?” He
drew himself up, and looked about the hall at the dark rows of
portraits. “In the name of my ancestors, I thank you,” says he; and
then, with a return to irony, “But there must certainly be an allowance
for Secundra Dass?” he said. “It in not possible they have omitted
that?”
“I will make a note of it, and ask instructions when I write,” said I.
And he, with a sudden change of manner, and leaning forward with an
elbow on the table—“Do you think this entirely wise?”
“I execute my orders, Mr. Bally,” said I.
“Profoundly modest,” said the Master; “perhaps not equally ingenuous.
You told me yesterday my power was fallen with my father’s death. How
comes it, then, that a peer of the realm flees under cloud of night out
of a house in which his fathers have stood several sieges? that he
conceals his address, which must be a matter of concern to his Gracious
Majesty and to the whole republic? and that he should leave me in
possession, and under the paternal charge of his invaluable Mackellar?
This smacks to me of a very considerable and genuine apprehension.”
I sought to interrupt him with some not very truthful denegation; but
he waved me down, and pursued his speech.
“I say, it smacks of it,” he said; “but I will go beyond that, for I
think the apprehension grounded. I came to this house with some
reluctancy. In view of the manner of my last departure, nothing but
necessity could have induced me to return. Money, however, is that
which I must have. You will not give with a good grace; well, I have
the power to force it from you. Inside of a week, without leaving
Durrisdeer, I will find out where these fools are fled to. I will
follow; and when I have run my quarry down, I will drive a wedge into
that family that shall once more burst it into shivers. I shall see
then whether my Lord Durrisdeer” (said with indescribable scorn and
rage) “will choose to buy my absence; and you will all see whether, by
that time, I decide for profit or revenge.”
I was amazed to hear the man so open. The truth is, he was consumed
with anger at my lord’s successful flight, felt himself to figure as a
dupe, and was in no humour to weigh language.
“Do you consider _this_ entirely wise?” said I, copying his words.
“These twenty years I have lived by my poor wisdom,” he answered with a
smile that seemed almost foolish in its vanity.
“And come out a beggar in the end,” said I, “if beggar be a strong
enough word for it.”
“I would have you to observe, Mr. Mackellar,” cried he, with a sudden
imperious heat, in which I could not but admire him, “that I am
scrupulously civil: copy me in that, and we shall be the better
friends.”
Throughout this dialogue I had been incommoded by the observation of
Secundra Dass. Not one of us, since the first word, had made a feint of
eating: our eyes were in each other’s faces—you might say, in each
other’s bosoms; and those of the Indian troubled me with a certain
changing brightness, as of comprehension. But I brushed the fancy
aside, telling myself once more he understood no English; only, from
the gravity of both voices, and the occasional scorn and anger in the
Master’s, smelled out there was something of import in the wind.
For the matter of three weeks we continued to live together in the
house of Durrisdeer: the beginning of that most singular chapter of my
life—what I must call my intimacy with the Master. At first he was
somewhat changeable in his behaviour: now civil, now returning to his
old manner of flouting me to my face; and in both I met him half-way.
Thanks be to Providence, I had now no measure to keep with the man;
and I was never afraid of black brows, only of naked swords. So that I
found a certain entertainment in these bouts of incivility, and was
not always ill-inspired in my rejoinders. At last (it was at supper) I
had a droll expression that entirely vanquished him. He laughed again
and again; and “Who would have guessed,” he cried, “that this old wife
had any wit under his petticoats?”
“It is no wit, Mr. Bally,” said I: “a dry Scot’s humour, and something
of the driest.” And, indeed, I never had the least pretension to be
thought a wit.
From that hour he was never rude with me, but all passed between us in
a manner of pleasantry. One of our chief times of daffing [9] was when
he required a horse, another bottle, or some money. He would approach
me then after the manner of a schoolboy, and I would carry it on by way
of being his father: on both sides, with an infinity of mirth. I could
not but perceive that he thought more of me, which tickled that poor
part of mankind, the vanity. He dropped, besides (I must suppose
unconsciously), into a manner that was not only familiar, but even
friendly; and this, on the part of one who had so long detested me, I
found the more insidious. He went little abroad; sometimes even
refusing invitations. “No,” he would say, “what do I care for these
thick-headed bonnet-lairds? I will stay at home, Mackellar; and we
shall share a bottle quietly, and have one of our good talks.” And,
indeed, meal-time at Durrisdeer must have been a delight to any one, by
reason of the brilliancy of the discourse. He would often express
wonder at his former indifference to my society. “But, you see,” he
would add, “we were upon opposite sides. And so we are to-day; but let
us never speak of that. I would think much less of you if you were not
staunch to your employer.” You are to consider he seemed to me quite
impotent for any evil; and how it is a most engaging form of flattery
when (after many years) tardy justice is done to a man’s character and
parts. But I have no thought to excuse myself. I was to blame; I let
him cajole me, and, in short, I think the watch-dog was going sound
asleep, when he was suddenly aroused.
I should say the Indian was continually travelling to and fro in the
house. He never spoke, save in his own dialect and with the Master;
walked without sound; and was always turning up where you would least
expect him, fallen into a deep abstraction, from which he would start
(upon your coming) to mock you with one of his grovelling obeisances.
He seemed so quiet, so frail, and so wrapped in his own fancies, that I
came to pass him over without much regard, or even to pity him for a
harmless exile from his country. And yet without doubt the creature was
still eavesdropping; and without doubt it was through his stealth and
my security that our secret reached the Master.
It was one very wild night, after supper, and when we had been making
more than usually merry, that the blow fell on me.
“This is all very fine,” says the Master, “but we should do better to
be buckling our valise.”
“Why so?” I cried. “Are you leaving?”
“We are all leaving to-morrow in the morning,” said he. “For the port
of Glascow first, thence for the province of New York.”
I suppose I must have groaned aloud.
“Yes,” he continued, “I boasted; I said a week, and it has taken me
near twenty days. But never mind; I shall make it up; I will go the
faster.”
“Have you the money for this voyage?” I asked.
“Dear and ingenuous personage, I have,” said he. “Blame me, if you
choose, for my duplicity; but while I have been wringing shillings from
my daddy, I had a stock of my own put by against a rainy day. You will
pay for your own passage, if you choose to accompany us on our flank
march; I have enough for Secundra and myself, but not more—enough to be
dangerous, not enough to be generous. There is, however, an outside
seat upon the chaise which I will let you have upon a moderate
commutation; so that the whole menagerie can go together—the house-dog,
the monkey, and the tiger.”
“I go with you,” said I.
“I count upon it,” said the Master. “You have seen me foiled; I mean
you shall see me victorious. To gain that I will risk wetting you like
a sop in this wild weather.”
“And at least,” I added, “you know very well you could not throw me
off.”
“Not easily,” said he. “You put your finger on the point with your
usual excellent good sense. I never fight with the inevitable.”
“I suppose it is useless to appeal to you?” said I.
“Believe me, perfectly,” said he.
“And yet, if you would give me time, I could write—” I began.
“And what would be my Lord Durrisdeer’s answer?” asks he.
“Aye,” said I, “that is the rub.”
“And, at any rate, how much more expeditious that I should go myself!”
says he. “But all this is quite a waste of breath. At seven to-morrow
the chaise will be at the door. For I start from the door, Mackellar; I
do not skulk through woods and take my chaise upon the wayside—shall we
say, at Eagles?”
My mind was now thoroughly made up. “Can you spare me quarter of an
hour at St. Bride’s?” said I. “I have a little necessary business with
Carlyle.”
“An hour, if you prefer,” said he. “I do not seek to deny that the
money for your seat is an object to me; and you could always get the
first to Glascow with saddle-horses.”
“Well,” said I, “I never thought to leave old Scotland.”
“It will brisken you up,” says he.
“This will be an ill journey for some one,” I said. “I think, sir, for
you. Something speaks in my bosom; and so much it says plain—that this
is an ill-omened journey.”
“If you take to prophecy,” says he, “listen to that.”
There came up a violent squall off the open Solway, and the rain was
dashed on the great windows.
“Do ye ken what that bodes, warlock?” said he, in a broad accent: “that
there’ll be a man Mackellar unco’ sick at sea.”
When I got to my chamber, I sat there under a painful excitation,
hearkening to the turmoil of the gale, which struck full upon that
gable of the house. What with the pressure on my spirits, the eldritch
cries of the wind among the turret-tops, and the perpetual trepidation
of the masoned house, sleep fled my eyelids utterly. I sat by my taper,
looking on the black panes of the window, where the storm appeared
continually on the point of bursting in its entrance; and upon that
empty field I beheld a perspective of consequences that made the hair
to rise upon my scalp. The child corrupted, the home broken up, my
master dead or worse than dead, my mistress plunged in desolation—all
these I saw before me painted brightly on the darkness; and the outcry
of the wind appeared to mock at my inaction.