Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice

GILES Sympelton ran from the glen. The lad was light of foot, and inspired with a worthy errand. Headlong, over burn, and ditch, and hedgerow he plunged on – past the long woods of Strathoran – past the gate where stood some of Lord Gillravidge’s household, sheer on to the Tower. The door was open – he darted in – rushed up stairs – and in headlong haste plunged into Mrs. Catherine’s inner drawing-room. Mrs. Catherine herself was seated there alone. She looked up in wonder, as, with flushed face and disordered hair, and breathless from his precipitate speed, the lad suddenly presented himself before her.

“I want your carriage – I want you to send your carriage with me – for a dying lad – a sick boy who has no shelter. Give me your carriage!”

“Young man,” said Mrs. Catherine, “what do you mean?” She rose and approached him. “You are the lad that was in temptation at Strathoran. Have you seen the evil of your ways?”

“Your carriage – I want your carriage!” gasped poor Giles Sympelton. “Order it first, and I will tell you afterwards.”

Mrs. Catherine did not hesitate. She rang the bell, and ordered the carriage immediately.

“Immediately – immediately!” cried the lad. “The cold may kill him.”

“Sit down,” said Mrs. Catherine, “till it is ready; and tell me what has moved you so greatly.”

The youth wiped his hot forehead, and recovered his breath.

“The cottagers up the glen – their name is Macalpine – Lord Gillravidge has evicted them. There is not a house standing – they are all unroofed. The people have no shelter. And the lad – the dying lad?”

Mrs. Catherine rose. Amazement, grief, and burning anger contended in her face.

“What say you? The alien has dared to cast out the Macalpines of Oranmore from their own land! I cannot believe it – it is not possible!”

“The lad is dying!” cried young Sympelton, too much absorbed with what he had seen to heed Mrs. Catherine’s exclamation. “They are covering him with cloaks and plaids – they say the cold will kill him. It is a terrible sight! – old men, and women, and little children, and the dying lad! Not a roof in the whole glen to shelter them!”

Mrs. Catherine left the room, and went down stairs. An energetic word sent double speed into Andrew’s movements as he prepared the carriage. Mrs. Euphan Morison was ordered to put wine into it; blankets and cloaks were added, and Mrs. Catherine, with her own hands, thrust Giles into the carriage.

“Bring the lad here, to the Tower: come back to me yourself. Bring the aged and feeble with you, as many as can come. Mind that you return to me your own self. And now, sir, away!”

The carriage dashed out of the court, and at a pace to which Mrs. Catherine’s horses were not accustomed, took the way to Oranmore.

Fitzherbert and Whittret had left the glen, with their band of attendants. The Macalpines were alone; the shadows of the March evening began to gather darkly upon the hills. In Big Duncan’s roofless cottage, on a bed, hastily constructed before the fire, and shielded with a rude canopy of plaids, lay the sick lad, shivering and moaning, as the gust of wind which swept through the vacant window-frame, and burst in wild freedom overhead, shook the frail shelter over him, and tossed the coverings off his emaciated limbs. Mr. Lumsden stood beside him. In the first shock of that great misfortune, the minister endeavored to speak hopeful, cheering words – of earthly comfort yet to come – of heavenly strength and consolation, which no oppressing hand could bereave them of. – Homeless and destitute, in the stern silence of their restrained emotions, the Macalpines heard him; some vainly, the burning sense of personal wrong momentarily eclipsing even their religion; some with a noble patience which, had they been Romans of an older day, would have gained them the applauses of a world. These brief and lofty words of his were concluded with a prayer. The March evening was darkening, the wind sweeping chill and fierce above them. The tremulous old man leaned on the sick lad’s bed; the grandmother crouched by the fire upon her grandchild’s stool. Big Duncan Macalpine stood on his own threshold; without, close to the vacant window, stood the neighbors who could not find admission into the interior, and from the midst of them the voice of supplication ascended up to heaven, “For strength, for patience, for forgiveness to their enemy.”

A consultation followed. Mr. Lumsden was looking out eagerly for the chaise from Portoran. It could not arrive in less than an hour, Big Duncan said; and the minister with his own hands, endeavored to fix up more securely a shelter for the suffering lad.

“What are we to do?” exclaimed one of the Macalpines. – ”Neighbors, what is to become of us? – where are we to gang?”

A loud scream from a young mother interrupted him; her infant was seized with the fearful cough and convulsive strugglings of croup. The poor young woman pressed it to her breast, and rushed to her own desolate cottage. Alas! what shelter was there? The roof lay in broken pieces on the ground; window and door were carried away; the fire had sunk into embers. She threw herself down before it, and tried to chafe the little limbs into warmth. Other mothers followed her. All the means known to their experience were adopted in vain. The terrible hoarse cough continued – the infant’s face was already black.

“What are we to do?” exclaimed the same voice again. “Are we to see our bairns die before our eyes? Duncan, we let them destroy our houses at your word! What are we to do?”

“If ye had dune onything else,” said Big Duncan Macalpine, “we would have had the roof of a jail ower our heads before this time – and it’s my hope there is nae faint heart among us, that would have left the wives and the bairns to fend for themsels. – Neighbors, I know not what to do; if we could but get ower this night, some better hope might turn up for us.”

His sister brushed past them as he spoke, carrying hot water to bathe the suffering infant – not hot enough, alas! to do it any good. The other women were heaping peats upon a fire, to make ready more; the old people within Duncan’s house crouched and shivered by the narrow hearth; the little children clinging to the skirts of their parents, were sobbing with the cold.

“Get ower the night?” said Roderick Macalpine, “we might get along oursels on the hillside; but what’s to come of them?” and he waved his hand towards the helpless circle by the fire – the aged, the dying, the children.

“Sirs,” said the old man coming forward, fancying as it seemed that they appealed to him, “let us go to the kirkyard. You can pit up shelters there – no man can cast ye out of the place where your forebears are sleeping. If they take all the land beside, ye have yet a right to that.”

The listeners shrank and trembled – the old man with his palsied head, and withered face, and wandering light blue eyes, proposing to them so ghastly a refuge. The Macalpines were not driven so utterly to extremity. It remained for these more enlightened days to send Highland cottars, in dire need, to seek a miserable shelter above the dust of their fathers.

The consultation was stayed – no one dared answer the old man – when suddenly Giles Sympelton was seen running in haste up the glen. He had brought the carriage as high as it could come, and now flew forward himself to get the invalid transferred to it. Big Duncan lifted the sick lad in his arms, and carried him away, while Giles lingered to deliver Mrs. Catherine’s orders.

“Let me take the old people with me,” he said, eagerly, to Mr. Lumsden. “The carriage is large – the old lady said I was to bring as many as could come. It is Mrs. Catherine Douglas, of the Tower – do not let us lose time, Sir: get the oldest people down to the carriage.”

The Macalpines did not cheer – they were too grave for that; but the lad’s hand was grasped in various honest rough ones, and “blessings on him!” were murmured from many tongues. Three of the most feeble could be accommodated in the carriage – at least, could be crowded beneath its roof, while the sick youth was placed on the cushions, and his mother sat at his feet.

“Is there anything more I can do?” said Giles, looking in grief and pity upon the agonized face of the young mother, sitting within the dismantled cottage waiting while her neighbors prepared another hot-bath for her child.

“Nothing,” said Mr. Lumsden. “I thank you heartily, young gentleman, for what you have already done. You may have saved that poor lad’s life by your promptitude. Tell Mrs. Catherine that every arrangement that can possibly be made for the comfort of the Macalpines, I will attend to. Good night – I thank you most sincerely. You will never repent this day’s work, I am sure.”

Giles lingered still.

“How is the child? will it die?” he asked anxiously of one of the women.

“Bless the innocent, the water’s hot this time,” was the answer; “it’s no moaning sae muckle. Eh, the Lord forbid it should die!”

Giles turned and ran down the glen, saw his charge safely deposited in the carriage, and, mounting beside the coachman, drove more leisurely to the Tower.

Before they had been very long away, the chaise arrived from Portoran. The infant’s sufferings were abated; it had sunk into a troubled, exhausted sleep. Mr. Lumsden filled the chaise immediately with the feebler members of the houseless community. It was arranged that the rest should walk to Portoran – it was twelve miles – a weary length of way, where the minister pledged himself they should find accommodations. Big Duncan and Roderick Macalpine voluntarily remained in the glen, to protect the household goods of their banished people.

The chaise had driven off – the pedestrians were already on the high road. Duncan and Roderick, wrapped in their plaids, had seated themselves by the peat-fire in Duncan’s roofless dwelling. – The stern composure upon the faces of these two men, lighted by the red glow of the fire, as they sat there in the rapidly darkening twilight, told a tale of the intense excitement of that day, and now of the knawing sorrow, the weight of anxiety that possessed them. Mr. Lumsden stood at the door, his pony’s bridle in his hand.

“Mind what I have said,” he cried, as he left them. “Keep up your hearts and do not despair. You will not need to leave the country – you will find friends – only keep up your hearts and be strong. God will not forsake you.”

They returned his good-night with deep emotion. This peaceful glen, that yesternight had slept beneath the moonbeams in the placid sleep of righteous and honorable labor – strange policy that could prefer some paltry gain to the continuance of the healthful homejoy of these true children, and heirs of the soil!

The two Macalpines sat together in silence, their eyes fixed on the red glow of the fire before them. By-and-by Roderick’s gaze wandered – first to the numberless little domestic tokens round, which spoke so pitiful a language – the basket of cakes was still on the table, the “big wheel” at which Jean Macalpine had been spinning so busily on the previous night, stood thrust aside in the corner. His eyes stray further – through the vacant window-frame he saw, upon the other side of the Oran, his own roofless house; he saw the cradle from which his child had been hurriedly snatched, lying broken within; he saw the household seat in which, only some five winters since, he had placed bonnie Jeanie Macalpine, a bride then, the mother of three children now. His hearth was black – his house desolate – Jeanie and her heart failed him: “Oh, man! Duncan!” exclaimed poor Roderick, as he hid his face in his hands in an agony of grief.

Big Duncan Macalpine’s dark eyes were dilated with the stern and passionate force of his strong resolution; his clear, brave, honest face was turned steadfastly towards the fire.

“Roderick,” he said, emphatically, “I daurna trust mysel to look about me. Keep your eyes away from the ruined houses – look forward, man. Have I no my ain share? is my house less desolate than yours?”

In the meantime, Giles Sympelton had arrived with his charge at the Tower; and having seen the sick youth placed in a warm room, with kindly hands about him, and the old people settled comfortably by the great kitchen fire, was finally solacing himself after the labors of this strangely exciting day, at Mrs. Catherine’s well-appointed dinner-table, with Mrs. Catherine herself opposite him. She was singularly kind. In spite of much temptation, and many bad associates, Giles Sympelton had remained unsophisticated and simple. The fear of ridicule, which might in other circumstances have induced him to resist the attractions of this stately old lady, with whom he had been brought so strangely in contact, was removed from the lad now – he gave way to the fascination. With natural naivete and simplicity, he told her his whole brief history; how of late he had written very seldom to his father; how he had become disgusted with Fitzherbert, and disliked Gillravidge, and was so very sorry for “poor Sutherland;” how he vowed never to enter Lord Gillravidge’s house again, if “that noble fellow, Macalpine,” were turned out of his; and, finally, how determined was he to keep his vow – to send for his servant, and his possessions, and to go into Portoran that very night: he was resolved not to spend another night in Strathoran.

“I have houseroom for you,” said Mrs. Catherine. “Let your servant bring your apparel here – I am not straitened for chambers. You have done good service to the Macalpines, as becomes a young heart. I rejoice to have you in my house. You should send for your man without delay.”

The youth hesitated – met Mrs. Catherine’s eye – blushed – looked down, and muttered something about troubling her.

“You will be no trouble to me – I have told you that. What is your name?”

Sympelton looked up surprised and bashful.

“Giles Sympelton,” he said.

“Sympelton?” said Mrs. Catherine. “Was the bairn that died in Madeira thirty years ago, a friend to you?”

“My father had a sister,” said young Sympelton; “he was very fond of her – who died very long ago, years before I was born.”

Mrs. Catherine was silent, and seemed much moved.