Luttrell Of Arran

The man shook his head in silence, perhaps not over-pleased at the obstinacy of the stranger to investigate what was deemed sacred.

“I want no guide,” said Harry. “I see the Abbey, and I’ll find my own way to it.”

And with these words he sauntered along, every step and every stone of the path familiar to him. As he drew nigh he saw some changes. The railing of the little garden had been repaired, and the garden itself was better tilled than of yore, and close by the wall of the Abbey, where shelter favoured, a few flowers were growing, and some attempt there seemed making to train a creeper to reach the window-sill.

Molly Ryan was out, and a strange face that Harry knew not received him at the door, leaving him, as he entered, to go where he pleased, simply saying, “There’s the way to the Abbey, and that’s where she lives!”

He turned first to the aisle of the church, paved with the tombstones of bygone Luttrells, and where now a cross in blue limestone marked his father’s grave. The inscription was, “To the Memory of the Last of the Luttrells, by one who loved him, but not merited his love.”

“Strange that she should have said so,” thought he, as he sat down upon the stone. But it was soon of the long past his mind was filled with. Of the days of his boyhood, no happy, careless, sunny youth was it, but a time of loneliness and sorrow – of long solitary rambles through the island, and a return at nightfall to a home of melancholy and gloom. He bethought him of his poor mother’s tears as they would fall hot upon his face, and the few words, stern and harsh, his father would meet him with; and yet, now in his utter desolation, what would he not give to hear that voice again whose accents were wont to terrify him? – what would he not give to see the face whose slightest sign of reproof had once overwhelmed him with shame?

How fervently, how faithfully, will the heart cling to some memory of kindness for those whose severity had once been almost a terror! What a sifting process do our affections go through where death has come, tearing away the recollections of what once had grieved and pained us, and leaving only the memory of the blessed word that healed, of the loving look that rallied us. John Luttrell had been a hard, stern, unforgiving man; it was but seldom that he suffered his heart to sway him, but there had been moments when his love overcame him, and it was of these Harry now bethought him, and it was in such guise he pictured his father now before him.

“Oh! if he were here to welcome me back – to let me feel I was not homeless in the world – what a moment of joy and happiness had this been!” How keen can sorrow make memory. There was not a little passing word of praise his father ever spoke – there was not a kindly look, not a little gesture of fondness, that did not recur to him as he sat there and wept.

With slow steps and heavy heart he turned into the house, and sought the little room where his father usually sat during the day. There was the great old chair of bog oak, and there the massive table, and over the fireplace the great two-handed sword, and the stone-headed javelin crosswise over the ox-hide shield; all these he knew, but other objects there were new and strange to him – so strange, that he could not but wonder at them. A half-finished water-colour on an easel, done by no common hand, was at one side of the window, and in a deep chair, as though left hurriedly there, was a guitar. Music, and pen sketches, and books, were strewn about, and a solitary rose in a glass of water bore an almost painful testimony to the rareness of flowers on the spot. A basket of some sewing work – capes of frieze for her school children – stood beside the fire. It was plain to see that this peasant girl had caught up tastes and pursuits which belong to another sphere, and Harry pondered over it, and questioned himself if she were the happier for this cultivation. “Was it better for her, or worse, to be endowed with what, in imparting a resource, removes a sympathy?”

Seated on the little window-stool – the same spot where he had often sat silent for hours – he fell into a train of melancholy thought. His poor father – the broken-down, crushed man, without a companion or a friend – rose before his mind, and filled each spot he turned to, and it was with a feeling of deep self-reproach he recalled how he himself had left him – deserted him, he called it now – to live on in sorrow and die forlorn. Out of this dreamy half-stupor he was roused by the woman hurriedly telling him that her mistress was, coming up the path to the house, and entreating him to go away before she entered.

He arose at once, and, passing through the kitchen, issued forth by the back of the Abbey at the very instant that Kate crossed the door.

“Who has been here, Jane? Whose cane is this?” said she, taking up a stick, Harry had forgotten in his haste..

The woman explained it was the young gentleman to whom her mistress gave permission that morning to see the Abbey, and who had only just taken his departure.

“The whole day here!” exclaimed Kate.

“True enough, Miss. He was two hours, and more in the Abbey, and I thought he was asleep, for he was lying on the masters, grave with his face hid; but when I spoke he answered me. It was what he wished, Miss, was to be let go up in the tower and have a view from the top; but I told him your own rooms was there, and nobody ever got leave to see them.”

“I mean to go to the Murra Glen to-morrow, Molly,” said Kate, turning to her old and faithful servant, “and you may let this stranger go over the Abbey in every part; so that he be away before nightfall, the whole is at his disposal. Go-down this evening to the inn, and take his stick to him, with this, message.”

Seated at her tea, Kate was thinking over the long sea voyage that lay before her, and the new land in which she was to seek her fortune, when a wild shrill scream startled her, and, at the same instant, Molly rushed into the room, and when she had reached the middle of it, staggered back, and leaned, half fainting, against the wall.

“What’s the matter, Molly? What has happened?” cried Kate, eagerly.

“May the blessed saints protect and guard us, Miss, but I seen him as plain as I see you.”

“Whom did you see?”

“Himself that’s gone – the master! Glory to him, and peace too, if it was God’s will,” said the woman, falteringly.

“How foolish this is, Molly. I scarcely expected this from you.”

“I don’t care. I’ll swear it on the book I saw him, and heard him too. ‘Would you be so kind – ’ says he; and at that I let a screech out of me and ran in here.”

“This is too absurd,” said Kate, with some irritation in her voice. “Go and see what this man wants.”

“Not if you were to give me a hat full of goold, Miss Kate. May I never, if I’d go there again to be Queen of England.”

“I am not pleased with you, Molly,” said Kate, taking a candle in her hand and moving towards the door. The woman threw herself at her feet to prevent her, but with a haughty gesture she motioned her away, and passed out.

A man was standing in the doorway, who courteously removed his hat as she came forward, and said, “I’m sorry to have alarmed your servant, Miss Lutrell, but I had left my walking-stick here this morning, and came to get it.”

Screening the light from herself with one hand, she threw the full glare on the other’s face, and, in a voice of deep emotion, said, “I see well why she was frightened. Your name is Luttrell!”

“I must not deny it to the only one that remains of all my kin. Are you not my Cousin Kate?”

She held out her hand to him, and, in a voice quavering and broken, said, “How glad I am to see you – and to see you here under your own roof.”

“There must be two words more before that be settled, Kate,” said he, kindly, as, still holding her hand in his own, he walked back with her to her room.

“There, Molly – there’s your young master; perhaps you’ll be less frightened now that you see him at my side.”

While the poor woman gave way to a transport of joy and tears, Harry continued to gaze at Kate with an intense eagerness. “Tell me one thing, Cousin Kate,” said he, in a whisper; “answer me truly: Were you on board of a convict-ship in Kingstown harbour on Tuesday last, as she was getting under weigh?”

She nodded assent

“Then it was I who lifted you into the boat, and asked your leave to see you safely on shore.”

“I’m ashamed to seem ungrateful, but I have no memory of your kindness. I had too much sorrow on my heart that morning.”

“Oh, if you knew how I longed to meet you again – how I walked and walked incessantly to try and come up with you, never dreaming of such happiness as this – that, when we met, I could claim you as my own dear cousin!”

“And was it right, Cousin Harry, for you to come here in disguise and visit the Abbey like a stranger? Was that an evidence of the affection you speak of?”

“You forget, Kate, I didn’t know whom I was to meet. If I had known that you were the girl whom I carried down the ladder to the boat, I’d have gone to the world’s end to see you again. How came you to be there?”

“You shall hear it all when you have time and patience. We each have much to tell, and you shall begin, but not to-night, Harry; let us be satisfied to make acquaintance now. Why do you stare at me?”

“Because you are so beautiful – because I never saw any one so beautiful before.”

“A very frank compliment, and I suppose too frank to be construed into what is called flattery.”

“To think of you living here! —you, in such a place as this! Why, it is downright monstrous.”

“Cousin Harry,” said she, gravely, “if you are to-do nothing but make me compliments, our intimacy will have but a sorry chance to make any progress. I have no doubt I’m pretty, but remember, that in this place here there are scores of things you’ll be struck by, simply because they come upon you unexpectedly. Look at my little tea equipage, for instance; could you have dreamed of anything so tasteful on the Island of Arran?”

The playful raillery of this speech could not turn his thoughts from herself. Nor was it alone her beauty that amazed him, but her exquisite grace of manner, the sweet-toned voice, low and gentle, her every movement and gesture, and then her bearing towards himself, so nicely balanced between the reserve of a maidenly bashfulness and the freedom of a near relative.

“We will have our tea together, Harry,” said she, “and you shall tell me all your adventures. You could not readily find a listener more eager for all that is strange, or wild, or exciting. Let me hear of the scenes you have gone through, and I’ll be able to make some guess of what manner of man my cousin is.”

“My rough life is little more than a long catalogue of common-place hardships – hardships that sailors come at last to look at as the ordinary events of existence, but which certainly tend to make us somewhat careless about life, but very ready to enjoy it. Where am I to begin?”

“At the beginning, of course. I want to see you as a boy before I hear of you as a man.”

With a manly frankness, and a modesty totally devoid of any affectation, he told the story of his sea life; the strange lands and people he had seen; the wild spots he had visited; the hopes of fortune at one time full and radiant, at another dashed and destroyed by disaster; dreams of wealth and affluence rudely dispelled by mischances; and, last of all – the crowning calamity – the attack made by the Riffs, and his captivity amongst the Moors.

“Was home very often in your thoughts through these reverses?” asked she, gravely.