Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice

“Suffered!” Mrs. Catherine rose and walked through the room, till the boards, less solid than those of the Tower, quaked and sounded below her feet. “Wherefore did he not come forth in the light of day, and bear his own burden? Good fame and honor – land and home – what was he that a just man should lay down these for him?”

“He was a feeble, delicate, dependant spirit,” said Anne: “one of those whom it is our natural impulse to defend and suffer for. That was his only claim; but you know how strong that is.”

Mrs. Catherine did know, but she felt no sympathy for the shrinking weakness which could suffer another to bear its own just punishment.

“I know? Yes, I know; but what claim has the like of such a weakling to call himself a man? Eighteen years – eighteen long, slow years – all Alice Aytoun’s lifetime. Anne, I marvel you can bear with his memory, or lift up your face to me, and speak of him as kindred. He shed this blood unawares, said you? Did he doom Norman to this death unawares? was it without his knowledge that he laid this blight upon the two that have borne banishment for him? Speak not to me of this coward, child. I say, mention not his name to me.”

“Mrs. Catherine,” said Anne, “bear with me till you hear his story. If you had seen him as I have seen – if you had listened to Christian as I have listened, you too would mourn over this blighted, broken man, less in his death than in his life. When Norman fled, he was in an agony of fever and madness, unconscious of what was passing round him – only aware in his burning horror and grief that he had shed blood. When he recovered – and most strange it was that he should have recovered – most strange the tenacious life and strength of his feebleness – he heard of Norman’s sacrifice; and then I acknowledge he ought to have done justice, had not his weakness overpowered him. He dared not face the terror and the shame; perhaps the dreadful death due to his blood-guiltiness, and so he lived on – such a life as few have ever lived in this world – a life of despair, and gloom, and misery: terrible to hear of – more terrible to see.”

Mrs. Catherine seated herself again.

“And the sister and the righteous man, his friend, bearing a dark name for him over the sea; and the sad woman at home, that you have told me of, wearing out her days for him. Was his miserable life worth that, think you? Should that not have been worse than any death?”

“Should have been,” said Anne; “but I do not speak of what should be, Mrs. Catherine. Why this shrinking, feeble spirit was conjoined with such a lot, who can tell? It had a strange, feverish, hysteric strength, too. When he battled through yon dark waves to save the perishing seamen, you would not have said that Patrick Lillie was a coward.”

There was a pause. Mrs. Catherine’s manner softened. Anne took advantage of it to repeat to her Christian Lillie’s story. The stern, stately old lady was moved to very tears.

“And so at last justice is done,” she said. “Anne, it is meet that this worn woman, after her travail, should have light in her evening-time. If she will come with you, bid her come to my house. The like of her would do honor to any dwelling, were it a king’s. And she left him at his grave’s brink, whenever he was at rest, to render what was just to the banished man? She did well. It behoves that all who known this history should render reverence. I say she did well.”

There was again a momentary pause.

“And where is he?” asked Mrs. Catherine. “Where, and in what condition is Norman Rutherford?”

“I have never asked yet,” said Anne. “I was anxious to soothe her; she has been so worn out with watching and grief. I will ask her now, when all excitement is over, and she has only to bear her gentle sorrow for Patrick’s death.”

“Ay – ay,” said Mrs. Catherine, slowly; “ay – and yet you do not know, Gowan, the terrible, dreary calm that is left by that shadow of death. I speak of the death that carries home a godly, honorable, righteous man, whose life was a joy and a blessing. – This is a grief sorer than mine. I bow my head to this tribulation. I cannot fathom all the depths of its bitterness; it is greater than mine.”

And with her large gray eyelid swelling full, Mrs. Catherine Douglas bowed her stately head. Yes! the solitary, desolate, dumb might of anguish with which her strong spirit quivered, when she left all that remained of Sholto Douglas sleeping peacefully in his calm island grave, overwhelming as it was, became a gentle sorrow in presence of the life of wakeful agony which Christian Lillie had borne silently within the desolate walls of Schole.

Mrs. Catherine began to speak of the possibility of remaining for the night. It was a very strange idea for her, who had not slept under a strange roof for more than thirty years. Since Patrick’s death, Anne had passed both night and day at Schole, and the pretty little clean bed-room behind was unoccupied. Miss Crankie herself was called in to be consulted on the subject.

Miss Crankie had scarcely entered the room, when there was a rush in the passage. The door flew violently open, and Mrs. Yammer, her head bound up with mighty rolls of flannel, and a newspaper trembling in her eager hand, stood before them.

“Eh, Johann! – Eh, Miss Ross!” she could articulate no more.

“What in the world has come ower the woman now?” exclaimed Miss Crankie, peevishly. “If ye will be a puling, no-weel fuil, ye may keep your ailments to yoursel at least. For guid sake, Tammie, haud your tongue; dinna deave the ladies.”

“Eh, Miss Ross! – Eh, Johann!” exclaimed the aroused and excited Mrs. Yammer, “if it wasna for the stitch in my side, I wad read it to ye mysel. Look at this.”

Anne took the paper wonderingly. She glanced down a long paragraph, headed “Romance in real life,” with hurried half attention, and little interest. Her eyes were arrested by the concluding words: they seemed to shine out from a mist. Unconsciously, in her sudden excitement, she read them aloud: “This most honorable vindication of Norman Rutherford, of Redheugh – ”

“Gowan,” exclaimed Mrs. Catherine, hastily, taking the paper from her powerless hand, “what is that you say?”

“Ye see,” said Mrs. Yammer, following up briskly her unwonted independent movement, “we get it atween us. Mr. Currie, the saddler, and Mrs. Clippie, the captain’s widow, and Robert Carritch, the session-clerk, and Johann and me; and I was just sitting ower the fire, trying if the heat would do ony guid to my puir head, when I saw that about young Redheugh – and I’ll be out o’ my wits the morn wi the draft frae that open door.”

“Gae way to your fireside again, and haud your tongue,” said Miss Crankie, bundling her sister unceremoniously out of the door before her. “Wits! – woman, if ye had as muckle judgment as wad lie on a sixpence, ye wad see that the ladies have mair concern in that than either you or me.”

Anne had been looking at them vacantly with a vague, unconscious smile upon her lip. Now, when the door was shut, she suddenly knelt down at Mrs. Catherine’s knees, scarce knowing what she did, and leaning there, burst into tears. She was conscious of Mrs. Catherine’s hand laid caressingly upon her hair; she was conscious of an indistinct mist of joy and thankfulness. It overpowered and weakened her; she could not stay these tears.

In the meantime, Mrs. Catherine read:

“We have just had communicated to us the particulars of a very moving story, another of the many examples that truth is strange, stranger than fiction. We believe that many of our readers, who are acquainted with the neighborhood of our city, may have remarked a desolate house, standing in the midst of a very rich country, within sight of the Firth, and presenting a very singular contrast, in its utter neglect and ruin, to the prosperous and flourishing appearance of everything about it. The story current in the neighborhood is, that its last proprietor perished miserably in the sea, while flying from the doom of a murderer, with the blood of a friend shed deliberately and in cowardice on his hand. Other more ghostly rumors of sights seen and sounds heard in its immediate neighborhood are of course current also. – The account we have now to give of this dark transaction reveals something almost as strange as the re-appearance on this earthly scene of spirits long ago departed. It seems the very triumph and perfection of generous self-sacrifice and ‘godlike amity,’ and as such we are happy to have an opportunity of presenting it to our readers.

“A few days since, the Lord Advocate received from a lady a full exculpation of Mr. Rutherford, of Redheugh, in the shape of a confession made by the real criminal upon his death-bed. We do wrong in applying the name of criminal to this unhappy man. – According to his death-bed declaration, made in the presence of witnesses, and to which full credence may be given, the death of the late Arthur Aytoun, Esq., of Aytoun, so long regarded as a murder, falls under the lighter title of an accident. A dreamy student had been spending an hour of a brilliant summer morning shooting upon the sands, and on his return home fired an inadvertent shot, while resting in a wood, when, instead of the bird which he fancied he aimed at, the unhappy young man heard a cry of mortal agony, and beheld the death of a fellow-man. Distracted and maddened, he rushed home; made some wild confession to his sister of the fact alone, without telling her that it was accidental, and immediately fell into the wild delirium of fever. Mr. Rutherford, of Redheugh, was the most intimate friend of the family, and betrothed to the younger sister. The fowling-piece, which had fallen from the young man’s hand when he discovered the fatal effects of the shot, belonged to Mr. Rutherford. Mr. Aytoun and Mr. Rutherford had parted the night before in anger: every circumstance directed suspicion to the Laird of Redheugh. In her first terror, the sister of the unhappy shedder of blood, naturally sought counsel from the friend who was so shortly to enter into the most intimate relation with the family; and Mr. Rutherford, with a generosity never in our knowledge paralleled, resolved at once to divert attention from his helpless friend by his own flight. The younger sister accompanied him, after a secret marriage. By universal consent he was pronounced guilty: the fact of his flight settled that beyond dispute in the judgment of the world.

“The vessel he sailed in was lost; himself in it, as has to this hour been universally believed. But the strange eventful history of this unfortunate gentleman has not had so abrupt a termination. He still lives, and will long live, we trust, to expend in a larger circle the rare generosity of which he has given so remarkable a proof.

“The unhappy man, by whose inadvertent hand Mr. Aytoun fell, and for whom Mr. Rutherford has suffered, is lately dead. – Without a moment’s delay, after his death, his sister immediately brought his confession to the proper quarter, so that now there remains nothing but to give to the world this most honorable vindication of Norman Rutherford, of Redheugh. In the consciousness of an act of singular goodness, bravely done, and in the universal applause of all good men, our heroic countryman, on his return to his own land, will, we doubt not, find himself abundantly rewarded.”

And thus it was made known to the world – the work of the two sisters was accomplished. Free from all stain and disgrace, radiant in the honor and blessing of generous work and life, the sentence of justice, and the universal voice of good men, should welcome to his long-lost home and country Norman Rutherford, of Redheugh.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE next day, after a long interview with Christian Lillie, and granting the further delay of a week to Anne for Christian’s sake, Mrs. Catherine returned to Edinburgh. At the week’s end, when she had rendered what service and assistance she could to Christian, Anne was to join Mrs. Catherine, and they were to proceed home.

But the invitation of Mrs. Catherine, and Anne’s entreaty that she should accompany them, was steadily and quietly negatived by Christian. The day before Anne left Schole, they sat together in the study – Anne was renewing her solicitations.

“No,” said Christian, calmly, “no, I cannot leave his grave. I cannot give up my watch of Patrick. You do not know – I pray God you never may – when folk have watched and waited for a lifelong like me, how hard it is to break the old wont, even though it be one of the sorest pain that ever oppressed mortal spirit. I am calm now – you know how calm I am – but I must tarry by his grave.”

“And will you stay here,” said Anne, “here in this desolate house?”

“At this time I must – my desire is to return to our old home, before Marion comes back to me – I forget she has been a mother long, and a grave tried woman. I only mind her as my bird Marion, my little sister; I would like to have her chamber for her, as it was before this cloud fell. You shall go with me to-morrow, and we will see what they say – the people who are in the house.”

“And where are they?” said Anne, “will you not tell me, Christian, where they are?”

Christian’s countenance changed: “They will be home in due time. Your brother Norman will reveal himself to you himself, and you will not ask me further. It is a weakness – a remembrance of my old bondage – but you will wait, Anne, my sister. – Let him carry you his own secret himself.”

Anne was silent. It was a singular hesitation this, but she could not press her question further. “And will you not come to Merkland – to see us – to see Lilie?”

“I will come when Marion comes,” said Christian. “Let me stay until then. By the time this year is ended, as I calculate, they will be home, and till that time I will rest.”

Anne rose, a stranger was at the gate: through the window she descried the good-humored round face of Mrs. Brock, her earliest acquaintance in Aberford. “Here is your tenant, Christian,” she said: “shall I see her? it may fatigue you.”

“No,” said Christian, “let her be brought in, Anne; it will save us our walk to-morrow.”

Anne went out, and met the Grieve’s wife, who was greatly astonished to see her. “Eh, preserve me! is this you, Miss Ross? and ye never came back to tak a cup o’ tea; and I’ve been looking for ye ilka fine day; and sae muckle as wee Geordie had to tell his father about the leddy yon night; and ye’ll hae been biding close a’ this time at Aberford?”

“No,” said Anne, “I have been in the North since I saw you.”

“And sae ye ken Miss Lillie? She’ll be sair put out o’ the way, it’s like, about her brother. Losh! do ye ken Miss Ross, our George says there’s something in the papers about it being Maister Lillie that killed the man, and no young Redheugh. Is there onythiug in’t, think ye? ane couldna ask Miss Lillie.”

“By no means,” said Anne, “she is in great grief for her brother, and you must not allude to it.”

“It’ll be true then? Eh! to think of a delicate looking man like thon doing the like o’ that.”

“It was an accident,” said Anne, quickly; “he was a gentleman, who would not have harmed any living thing. Do you wish to see Miss Lillie?”

“Ou, ay, it was just about the house, ye ken. George thought we micht maybe come to a settlement about the house. Ye see there’s a new yin building at the back end o’ the toun, nigher the water – a guid twa story house, and we’ve a big family, and George would like to be off or on at yince.”