Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice

Anne read it, wonderingly:

“Norman R. R. Marion L.”

Beneath were two longer lines:

“Like autumn leaves upon the forest ways,
The gentle hours fall soft, the brightest days
Fade from our sight.”

and a date. The carvings were near the root, and might have been done by some one sitting on the grassy bank below. Anne had some difficulty in deciphering them, and when she had led her little charge home, returned alone to trace the moss-grown characters again. The date was seventeen years before – Norman R. R. Could it be possible that some other bore that name – or was it indeed a record of some bygone pleasant musing of her unhappy brother’s, before name, and fame, and fortune were lost in that dark crime – before the mark of Cain was sealed upon his brow.

And were there yet greater depths in this calamity than she knew, and more sufferers; the Marion who shared his happier thoughts – who was she? or how had Norman’s blight, so much more dreadful than death, fallen upon her?

The dusky December weeks passed on, and, on the last night of the year, a tall man, closely enveloped in a plaid, walked softly up the dark avenue towards the house of Strathoran. He seemed to know its turns and windings well, as keeping under covert of the thickest trees, he hastily approached the house; – once near it, he crossed the path quickly to gain the obscurity of its shadow, and then walked round it several times without manifesting any desire of entering. It was a very dreary night – the ground was thoroughly soaked with recent rains, and heavy clouds drifted in dark masses over the sky, of whose dull leaden surface, and wading afflicted moon you could see occasional glimpses, as these gloomy hosts of vapors were parted by the wind. A fitful glance of the moon fell now and then upon the stranger’s face. It was pale and resolute, and rigid, like the face of one undergoing some terrible surgical operation, to endure which manfully his every nerve was strained. He paused at last opposite a brilliant window, and retreating backward, raised himself by aid of a tree, so that he could look in. Through the closed curtains he could see a party of gentlemen sitting at their wine – the sound of their laughter, and gay voices, reached him on his watch. With keen eyes he surveyed the unconscious revellers, marked every face, took in, as it seemed, every particular of the scene, and then descending, took his way again through the solitary avenue, and turning as before into a side path, reached the highway unseen. Onward he went, walking very quickly for full two dreary miles, and arrived at last not at any dwelling of man, but at a solitary graveyard, still and solemn, lying upon Oranside, in the midst of which rose the ruined walls of an ancient chapel, moss-grown, and clad with clinging ivy. – The alarm which called forth the parishioners of more southern districts, night after night, to watch their dead, had not reached the distant stillness of Strathoran, and the stranger entered unmolested and unseen. He directed his steps to the chapel, climbed the broken stair, and entered the small unroofed apartment, with its ruined walls, and trailing ivy, and floor of lettered flags, bearing upon them the names of those who slept below – for this was the burial-place of the long-descended Sutherlands of Strathoran. Another uncertain glance of the wan moon directed him to a marble tablet in the wall, by the side of which he stood long in the dreary silence, motionless and still, himself like some dark statue, mocking the dead with empty honor. Hugh Sutherland and Isabel his wife, lay underneath the watcher’s feet; and the son to whom they had left so fair a heritage, and who had visited their grave two twelvemonths since, bearing a name of universal honor, and looking forth upon a smiling future, through natural tears that became him well – stood there now, tearless and stern in the thick gloom of night – a houseless, joyless man.

“I have obeyed,” said Archibald Sutherland, leaning upon the ruined wall. “I have returned to see my father’s house in the hands of an alien to his blood – and now what remains?” His knees were bent upon the stone that covered the dust of father and of mother – his brow pressed to the tablet that chronicled their names; and the ruined man in his extremity, poured out his full heart into the ear of One who heareth always, and never more certainly than when the voice of supplication rises to Him “out of the depths.” “Who shall stand before thee if thou markest iniquity? yet is there forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared, and plenteous redemption.”

Yes, that remained – omnipotent, over all, in His tender mercy, the God whose plentiful redemption encircles with its arms of divine compassion its every returning prodigal – the loving-kindness that turns no supplicant away. The sympathy most wonderful and strange of all, which “touches” – the heart of the Incarnate God with “a fellow-feeling for our infirmities!” – these remained – greater than all sorrows of the earth.

So with less sternness in his pale face, and less despair in his heart, Archibald Sutherland retraced his steps, and turned to the humble fisher’s house far down the Oran, the inhabitants of which had recently come to the district, and knew not either the name or the quality of the stranger whom they had reluctantly agreed to shelter for the night.

He had hovered that same evening in cover of the darkness, in the neighborhood of the Tower – had passed the hospitable walls of Woodsmuir, and looked through the bare trees at Merkland; but drawing back in painful shame, had not dared to enter, or make himself known to any of them all – they all had households, kindred, warm friends about them. He only was alone.

The next night, with his plaid wrapped as closely about him as before, and serving as a disguise, he passed along Oranside in the darkness, turning his steps to the Tower. He could not delay longer – already perhaps in the bitter pain of last night’s trial, he had delayed too long, and in passing those wide-spreading fields and plantations, once his own, but in which now the meanest hind dwelling among them had more share than he, he felt that last night’s trial might be indefinitely prolonged. He came to the Tower at last, and found it also gay and full of light. The hall-door was open, and within stood a knot of servants. The door of Mrs. Euphan Morison’s snug room was ajar, and showed Duncan from Merkland, and Mr. Coulter’s grave man-servant sitting comfortably by the fireside, while the Falcon’s Craig groom, and Mr. Foreman’s lad, and one or two younger attendants, stood among Mrs. Catherine’s maid-servants in the hall listening to the music above.

“Jacky, ye monkey, shut that door,” cried Mrs. Euphan Morison, “Idle hizzies clavering nonsense, and decent folk like to get their death o’ cauld. I wad advise ye to tak hame some o’ that horehound-balsam wi’ ye, Duncan – it’s uncommon guid for hoarseness. I made it with my ain hand.”

Jacky darted forward to do her mother’s bidding; and Archibald felt the girl’s keen eye pierce his disguise in a moment. – She paused, looked at him. “If ye please, will I tell Mrs. Catherine?”

“Yes – but wait, Jacky, let me go up stairs.”

Jacky went gravely forward before him, and drawing his plaid more closely over his face, Archibald followed her unobserved. – The girl led him to a small apartment which opened into that well-remembered drawing-room, and without saying a word, left him there. He sat down and waited. Ah! these gay sounds of mirth and music, how bitterly they mock sick hearts. A sort of hope had inspired him, as he felt himself once more in shelter of these stately walls, but now, within hearing of the sounds of pleasure and rejoicing, his heart again sank within him. There was no place for him – homeless and hopeless, there. As he listened, a simple voice began to sing – words chiming strangely in with his changed fortunes.

“Like autumn leaves upon the forest ways,
The gentle hours fall soft, the brightest days
Fade from our sight.
A dimness steals upon the earth and heaven,
Blended of gloom and light;
Shuts its soft eyelid o’er day’s azure levin,
And shades with its soft tints the glories of sweet even
To sober-toned night.

“From his deep cradle the woods among
His russet robes waving free,
The Oran with his kindly tongue,
Is travelling to the sea.
He rushes to the ocean old,
In sparkling wave and foam,
And out into that trackless wold
Bears the kind voice of home.
Wayfaring man, far, on the sea
Listen how he calls to thee!

“Warm household lights are shining out
His rugged channel o’er.
Ill plants of malice, and guile, and doubts
Ne’er blossom on his shore.
There is Peace in her matron’s gown and hood.
Her footsteps never roam,
And Hope is in pleasant neighborhood
And strength is strongest at home
Thy foot is weary, thy cheek is wan,
Come to thy kindred, wayfaring man

“Oran’s ringing voice he hears,
The great sea waves among,
To yon far shore the ripple bears
The Oran’s kindly tongue.
Yet he labors on, and travels far,
For years of toil must glide,
Before he sees the even star
Rise calm on Oranside.
Speed thy labor o’er land and sea,
Home and kindred are waiting for thee!

“The gentle hours fall soft, the brightest days,
Like autumn leaves upon the forest ways,
Fade from our sight.
And night and day he labors as he can,
Far from home’s kindly light.
His foot is weary, and his cheek is wan,
Ah! pray, young hearts, for the sad wayfaring man
Laboring this night.”

The air was very simple beginning and ending in a low pathetic strain, and with a quicker measure for the intervening verses – but the music was but a soft chiming breath, bearing along the words. Archibald Sutherland leaned his head upon his hands, the burden floating dizzily through his mind. Alas! for him, beginning his wayfaring so painfully, neither home nor kindred waited. He heard a step approach – a hand gently open the door of communication, and raised his head, a sad calmness possessing him. – Among the gay hearts, divided from him only by that wall, there might be some one, whose prayer of gentle pity, would indeed rise for the wayfaring man.

CHAPTER IX

ANNE Ross was seated near Mrs. Catherine’s piano when Alice Aytoun took her place at it timidly, and placing a sheet of manuscript music before her, began her song. Anne started in tremulous wonder as it commenced. Most strange to hear these words repeated by a living voice at all – stranger still that they should fall from Alice Aytoun’s. With breathless interest she listened as the lines flowed on. The wayfaring man in toil, and danger, and sorrow, hearing in the ripple of the great sea, far away in some strange country, the kindly call of the Oran to home and kindred. Her cheeks grew pale – her lips quivered. How could this be twined into Norman’s history? – or was Alice unconsciously murmuring out the low, sad prayer of its conclusion for her father’s murderer?

The tears were swelling in Anne’s eyes as the song concluded; and Ralph Falconer who stood near had addressed to her some sneering compliment on her sensibility, when Jacky stole behind her chair, and whispered something in her ear. Anne recollected herself instantly, and, approaching Mrs. Catherine, communicated to her Jacky’s intelligence. Mrs. Catherine started – rose from her seat – wavered a moment, and then restraining her emotions, sat resolutely down again.

“See, Anne, there is the key of the little room. Take the dyvour there – I will come myself when I can. Tell him that – .” Anne turned to obey. “And, child, – bid Euphan Morison have a good fire kindled in the red room, and tell Andrew he is to hold himself ready to wait on Mr. Archibald – and, child – be kindly to the unhappy youth. It behoves me to be stern myself, but there is no such bondage upon you.”

When Archibald Sutherland lifted his head it was Anne Ross who stood before him, her eyes shining wet, her face full of sympathetic sorrow. She held out her hand, and advanced towards him.

“Mr. Sutherland – Archibald.”