Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice

The library-door opened, and Lewis entered. Mrs. Catherine rose, and presented him to James: the two young men shook hands with an involuntary cordiality, at which they were themselves astonished. Anne was conquering herself again; but joy seemed so much more difficult to keep in bounds, and restrain, than sorrow was. She had little experience of the first – much of the other. She started up, and laid her hand on Lewis’s arm.

“Lewis, Lewis! the way is clearing before us. Mr. Aytoun gives us his support. Mr. Aytoun thinks him innocent!”

CHAPTER XVI

LEWIS Ross was undergoing a process of amelioration. From his earliest days he had been taught to consider himself the person of greatest importance in Merkland; and the pernicious belief had evolved itself in a very strong and deeply-rooted selfishness, to which the final touch and consummation had been given by his foreign travel. Thrown then, with his natural abilities, always very quick and sharp, if not of the highest order, upon the noisy current of the world, with no other occupation than to take care of himself – to attend to his own comforts – to scheme and deliberate for his own enjoyments, the self-important boy had unconsciously risen into a selfish man, having no idea that a supreme regard for his own well-being and comfort was not the most reasonable and proper centre, round which his cares and hopes could revolve.

He returned home. The home routine was going on as before. The servants, his mother, Anne, all did homage to the superior importance of Lewis. He received it as his due. These were but satellites; he, himself, was the planet of their brief horizon. Little Alice helped the delusion on; her simple heart yielded with so little resistance to his fascinations.

All at once the dream was rudely broken. Anne, his quiet, serviceable sister, he suddenly found to be absorbed by the concerns of this unknown Norman, whose very name was strange to him. His own little Alice must consider the pleasure of her mother and brother before his. Lewis was suddenly stopped short in his career of complacent selfishness. The people round him were ready to risk all things for each other. Mrs. Catherine’s wealth and lands were nothing to her, as she said, in comparison with the welfare of Archibald Sutherland, who had no nearer claim upon her than that of being the son of her friend. Anne’s whole soul was engrossed with anxiety for the deliverance of Norman: her own self did not cost her a thought. Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Foreman were spending time and labor heartily in the service of the broken laird, who could make them no return: and worst of all, they expected that Lewis also should join in that Quixotry, as a necessary and unavoidable duty, without even thinking that by so doing he would deserve any particular praise. In the fastnesses of his self-content, Lewis was shaken.

Then came James Aytoun, the stranger, to whom this Norman, whose very name inspired Anne, was, and could be nothing, except, indeed, a detested criminal – the supposed murderer of his father. He came, he saw: and lo! he was deeper into the heart of the struggle than Lewis had ever been: believing Norman’s innocence – declaring his intention of joining Robert Ferguson immediately, and assisting in his investigations; consulting with Anne in frank confidence, and with a far more genuine sympathy than had ever been awakened in the colder heart of Lewis.

The young Laird of Merkland was overpowered: the contagion of James Aytoun’s hearty, manly feeling, of his ready and quick belief, smote Lewis with a sense of his own unenviable singularity. The cloak of self he had been wrapped in began to loosen, and drop away; he began to realise the sad lot of his exiled brother, continually waiting for the kind search, and acquitting justice, which should bring him home again; and growing sick with deferred and fainting hope, as year after year went by, and there came no kindly token over the sea. The letter, instinct now with the breath of earnest belief, which had carried it into those other hearts, began to operate upon Lewis. He sat down between James Aytoun and Anne; he took a part in their consultations; he forgot himself, in thinking of Norman. The divine rod had stricken the desert rock once more, and the freshness of new life – a life for others – a life for the world, dawned upon Lewis Ross.

Anne and James were already conversing like intimate friends. Lewis, with his natural frankness, was soon as deep in the subject as they. Anne’s face brightened as she looked upon him. Mrs. Catherine sent him now and then a word of kindly harshness, more affectionately than was her wont. Their plans were being laid.

“And I would ask of you, James Aytoun,” said Mrs. Catherine, “for what reason that ill-favored buckie of a gig is standing at my door? and what business the cripple helper from the Portoran inn has among my servants? I must take order with this.”

“The man is waiting for me,” said James. “I must return home to-morrow, Mrs. Catherine – and the day is waning. I must get into Portoran soon.”

“You must not think,” said Mrs. Catherine, “of crossing my threshold this night again. Hold your peace, young man: there is no voice lifted under this roof with authority but mine, and I will not have it. Jacky!” Jacky made her appearance at the door – ”let the man that drove Mr. Aytoun up, get his dinner, and then tell your mother he is not to wait – Mr. Aytoun does not return to-night. And now, young folk, are you nearly through with your consulting? I have a visitor waiting for me up the stair.”

“You decide to go with me to-morrow, Mr. Ross?” said James.

“Yes, certainly,” said Lewis. “I will not do much good I dare say; but I shall, at least, be on the spot.”

“You are done, are you?” said Mrs. Catherine. “James Aytoun I have another matter to speak to you about. Has a stranger in the country – the purchaser of an old estate – any shadow of a right to shut up a road which has been the property of the folk of this parish of Strathoran, since beyond the memory of man?”

“No,” said James, “no proprietor has – of however long standing he may be.”

“Not myself say you?” said Mrs. Catherine, “that is another thing, James Aytoun. My house has held this land for many generations. I have a right of service from the people; but an upstart – a laird by purchase, by purchase, said I? – by cheatry and secret theftdom, nothing better! There is a creature of this kind upon the lands of Strathoran, and the way by the waterside is blocked up this day – a kirk road! a by-way as old as the tenure of my lands! – the cattle never did a worse thing for their own peacefulness. The road shall return to the folk it rightfully belongs to, if I should have the whole reprobate pack of them before the Court of Session!”

“Who is the proprietor?” said James.

“Lord Gillravidge,” answered Lewis.

“Lord Gillravidge? Hold your peace, Lewis Ross, when folk are not speaking to you, as one of your years should. The house of Strathoran has been a sinful house, James Aytoun, and Providence has sent upon it a plague of frogs, as was sent upon Egypt in the time of Israel’s captivity – puddocks that have the gift of venom over and above the native slime of them. The proprietor is Archibald Sutherland, who is dwelling in my house at this moment; but the lad has let his possessions slip through his fingers, and the vermin are in them. I would take the law with me. What should be my first step, James Aytoun, for the recovery of the road?”

“Throw down the barricade,” said Lewis.

“Lewis Ross, I have told you to hold your peace – though I will not say but what there are glimmerings of discernment breaking through the shell; tell Alice from me, James Aytoun, that the youth, if he were once through this season of vanity, gives promise of more judgment than I looked for at his hands. It is not my wont to wait for other folk’s bidding, Lewis – the barricade is down before now; but what order is it right that I should take, if the cattle put it up again?”

“Had you not better try a remonstrance, Mrs. Catherine,” said James. “It may have been done in ignorance.”

“Remonstrance! a bonnie story that I should condescend to remonstrate with the hounds. Where are you going, Anne? Did I not bid ye remain with us?”

“You forget that Marjory is up stairs, Mrs. Catherine,” said Anne.

“I forget no such thing – the bairns are mad! counselling me with their wisdom in my own house – and that minds me that I am forgetting the comfort of the stranger like a self-seeking old wife as I am. James Aytoun, I will let you see your room – and you, bairns, remain where you are, and dine with him. You are like to be near kindred – it is right you should be friends.”

Mrs. Catherine led James Aytoun away, and Anne and Lewis joined Marjory in the drawing-room, where, the fumes of her indignation scarcely over, she had been firmly shutting her lips for the last hour, lest some hint of the shut-up by-way should escape them, to pain the landless Archibald.

They spent the evening pleasantly together. James Aytoun was fresh from that peculiar society of Edinburgh, whose intellectual progress is the pulse of Scotland, healthful, strong, and bold, as its beatings have been for these past centuries. His own compeers and companions were the rising generation – lawyers, physicians, clergymen, literati, whom the course of some score years would find in the highest places there. The intellectual life and activity which breathed out from his very conversation, stimulated Lewis. These pursuits of science and literature – those professional matters even, to the consideration of which intellect so elevated and acute was devoted, gave the country laird a new idea of the pleasure and dignity of life. Labor – healthful, vigorous, energetic, manly labor – not vacant ease of frivolous enjoyment, was the thing esteemed in that lettered community of beautiful Edinburgh, the names of whose toiling, daring, chivalrous, intellectual workmen, would be household words to the next wave of Scottish population – would have risen into the mental firmament ere then, stars for a world to see.

It was a particularly happy thing for Lewis at this especial time, his encounter with James Aytoun; the unselfish breadth of his good mind and heart, the generous start to exertion, the clear health and readiness of all his well cultured faculties, and his frank and instinctive energy, carried with them all the better part of Lewis Ross’s nature. Their visitor, with his intelligent conversation, and well-cultivated mind, pleased and made friends of them all; but conferred especial benefit and invigoration upon Lewis.

The next day they left the Tower together. Lewis, with his old self-confidence, believing himself sure to help on the search mightily by his presence; but yet so much more earnest and unselfish in his desire to see the truth established, that Anne’s heart rejoiced within her. Mrs. Ross was sulkily reconciling herself to the obvious necessity. She was by no means interested in the result of the investigation, and was inclined to hope that it would be unsuccessful, and that Lewis might be released from his engagement, yet, nevertheless, prepared herself, with much sullenness and ill-humor, for “the worst.”

Anne accompanied Lewis, in the morning, to the Tower, to bid James good-by, and charge him with various kindly messages, and some little tokens of sisterly good-will for Alice. At Mrs. Catherine’s desire she remained. Mrs. Catherine had already despatched Andrew with the following missive to Strathoran:

“Mrs. Catherine Douglas, of the Tower, desires that Lord Gillravidge will explain to her, at his earliest leisure, his motive for shutting up the by-way upon Oranside – a thing both unreasonable and unlawful, and which she has no thought of submitting to for a day. The path belongs to the people of the parish, who had dwelt upon the land for centuries, before ever it passed into Lord Gillravidge’s tenantcy. Mrs. Catherine Douglas desires Lord Gillravidge to know that he has done what is contrary to the law of the land, and expects to have an immediate reason rendered to her, for the insult and hardship inflicted upon her people and parish, by the closing of a known kirk road, and public way.”

Mrs. Catherine and her household were busied in preparation for Archibald’s departure. Mrs. Catherine herself was hemming with a very fine needle, and almost invisible thread, breadths of transparent cambric, for the shirts which her three generations of domestics, Mrs. Elspat Henderson, Mrs. Euphan Morison, and Jacky, were occupied in making.

“And child,” said Mrs. Catherine, “I like not idle greives. If you are not pleased with Jacky’s stitching, take the other breast yourself – there is plenty to hold you all busy. I have no brood of young folk, sitting with their hands before them. What did you get clear eyesight and quick fingers for?”

Anne took the work – into no unknown or “ ‘prentice hand,” would it have been confided. Mrs. Catherine’s “white seam” was elaborated into a positive work of art. Within her strong spirit, and covered by her harsh speech, there lay so much of that singular delicacy, which could endure nothing coarse or unsuitable, that the smallest household matters came within its operation. Mrs. Catherine had little faith in the existence of fine taste or delicate perceptions, in conjunction with a coarse or disorderly “seam.” Would modern young ladies think her judgment correct?

“Archie is in Portoran,” said Mrs. Catherine, after a little time had elapsed, during which the fine work and cheerful conversation proceeded in brisk and pleasant unison. “There are still some matters to be settled with Mr. Foreman, and he expects the letter the day that will fix his going to Glasgow. We are nothing less than a bundle of contradictions, child, we unsatisfied human folk. It was my own special desire and wish that the lad should verily plunge himself into some labor for the redemption of his land; now I have a drither at letting him go away to a mere, hard money-getting work, where little of either heart or head is needed.”

“Little heart, perhaps,” said Anne; “but, at least, the head must be very necessary, Mrs. Catherine.”

“You do not know,” answered Mrs. Catherine. “Head! I tell you, child, I have seen divers in my youth who had gathered great fortunes by trade, and yet were vaporing, empty-headed, purse-proud fuils; beginning by running errands, and sweeping shops, and the like, and ending by making bairnly fuils of themselves, to the laughter of the vain and thoughtless, and to the shame of right-minded folk. We have other imaginations of merchantmen, child; we give them a state and circumstance that the men are as innocent of, as Johnnie Halflin out there. We think of the old days when merchants were princes, and of them that stood afar off, and wailed for Babylon. There are some such, doubtless, now, but it is not always the best that are the most fortunate. And to think of Archie living for years among folk to whom the paltry siller is the sole god and good in this world or the next. Maybe, child – maybe in the rebound of his carelessness, getting to like the yellow dirt himself for its own sake!”

“No fear,” said Anne. “Archibald is able to stand the probation in every way, I trust, Mrs. Catherine; and it is but a means – it is not an end.”

“Ay,” said Mrs. Catherine. “The youth has a great stake. – He is a changed man, child, so far as we may form a judgment. Wherefore should I ever have doubted it? As if true prayers could lie unanswered before the Throne for ever!”

Jacky opened the door.

“If ye please – ”

“What you elf? Can you no speak out?”

“It’s – it’s the man – the stranger” – Jacky remembered her former description of him, but scorned to repeat herself; “that came to the Tower with Mr. Foreman. If ye please, will I bring him in?”

“The jackal – the fuil that does Lord Gillravidge’s errands,” said Mrs. Catherine. “I am lothe that the feet of an unclean animal should come within this room, but what can I do, child? The library is Archie’s especial room, and if he comes in, I would like ill that he saw any of this evil crew.”

“He had better come here,” said Anne.

Mrs. Catherine made a motion of disgust.

“Hear you, you imp! Is he alone?”

“There’s a gentleman with him,” said Jacky. “No a grown-up man – just young like – but he’s a gentleman.”

“Bring them up here.”