Weir of Hermiston : the Misadventures of John Nicholson : the Story of a lie : the Bodysnatcher

THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION

OF THE WORKS OF

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
WEIR OF HERMISTON

HE MISADVENTURES OF JOHN NICHOLSON
THE STORY OF A LIE
THE BODY-SNATCHER

THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION
OF STEVENSON'S WORKS

NOVELS AND ROMANCES
TREASURE ISLAND
PRINCE OTTO
KIDNAPPED
THE BLACK ARROW
THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE
THE WRONG BOX
THE WRECKER
DAVID BALFOUR
THE EBB-TIDE
WEIR OF HERMISTON
ST. IVES

SHORTER STORIES
NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
THE DYNAMITER
THE MERRY MEN, containing DR. JEKYLL

AND MR. HYDE
ISLAND NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS

ESSA YS, TRA VELS &» SKETCHES
AN INLAND VOYAGE
TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
VIRGINIfcuS PUERISQUE
FAMILIAR STUDIES
THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT, containing THK

SILVERADO SQUATTERS
MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS
IN THE SOUTH SEAS
ACROSS THE PLAINS
ESSAYS OF TRAVEL AND IN THE ART OF

WRITING
LAY MORALS AND OTHER PAPERS

POEMS
COMPLETE POEMS

THE LETTERS OF ROBERT LOUIS

STEVENSON. 4 wis.
THE LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

ByGraham Balfour. Abridged Edition in ^e rel» m*

Thirty-one volumes. Sold singly or in sets

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York

BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION

WEIR OF HERMISTON

THE MISADVENTURES OF JOHN
NICHOLSON

THE STORY OF A LIE

THE BODY-SNATCHER

BY

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1920

Copyright, 1896
By Stone & Kimball

Copyright, 1896
By Charles Scribner's Son?

"ENGLISH \

hi*

TO
MY WIFE

I saw rain falling and the rainbow drawn
On Lammermuir. Hearkening I heard again
In my precipitous city beaten bells
Winnow the keen sea wind. And here afar,
Intent on my own race and place, I wrote.

Take thou the writing : thine it is. For who
Burnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal,
Held still the target higher, chary of praise
And prodigal of counsel — who but thou ?
So now, in the end, if this the least be good,
If any deed be done, if any fire
Burn in the imperfect page, the praise be thine.

445183

INTRODUCTORY

In the wild end of a moorland parish, far out of the sight
of any house, there stands a cairn among the heather, and a
little by east of it, in the going down of the braeside, a monu-
ment with some verses half defaced. It was here that Claver-
house shot with his own hand the Praying Weaver of Balweary,
and the chisel of Old Mortality has clinked on that lonely
gravestone. Public and domestic history have thus marked
with a bloody finger this hollow among the hills; and since
the Cameronian gave his life there, two hundred years ago,
in a glorious folly, and without comprehension or regret, the
silence of the moss has been broken once again by the report
of firearms and the cry of the dying.

The Deil's Hags was the old name. But the place is now
called Francie's Cairn. For a while it was told that Francie
\valked. Aggie Hogg met him in the gloaming by the cairnside,
and he spoke to her, with chattering teeth, so that his words
were lost. He pursued Rob Todd (if anyone could have be-
lieved Robbie) for the space of half a mile with pitiful en»
treaties. But the age is one of incredulity ; these superstitious
decorations speedily fell off; and the facts of the story itself,
like the bones of a giant buried there and half dug up, sur-
vived, naked and imperfect, in the memory of the scattered
neighbours. To this day, of winter nights, when the sleet is
on the window and the cattle are quiet in the byre, there will
be told again, amid the silence of the young and the additions
and corrections of the old, the tale of the Justice-Clerk and
of his son, young Hermiston, that vanished from men's knowl-
edge; of the two Kirsties and the Four Black Brothers of
the Cauldstaneslap; and of Frank Innes, "the young fool
advocate," that came into these moorland parts to find his
destiny.

CONTENTS

Page

Weir of Hermiston i

Chapter

I Life and Death of Mrs. Weir ..... 3

II Father and Son 22

III In the Matter of the Hanging of Duncan

Jopp 30

IV Opinion of the Bench 50

V Winter on the Moors :

I At Hermiston . 62

II Kirstie 67

III A Border Family 71

VI A Leaf from Christina's Psalm-Book ... 93

VII Enter Mephistopheles 127

VIII A Nocturnal Visit 150

IX At the Weaver's Stone 160

Editorial Note 169

Glossary of Scottish Words 181

The Misadventures of John Nicholson. . . . 185
Chapter

I In which John sows the Wind 187

II In which John reaps the Whirlwind . . 195

III In which John enjoys the Harvest Home 202

IV The Second Sowing 210

V The Prodigal's Return 217

VI The House at Murrayfield 226

x CONTENTS

Chapter Page

VII A Tragi-Comedy in a Cab 242

VIII Singular Instance of the Utility of Pass-

Keys 255

IX In which Mr. Nicholson accepts the Prin-
ciple of an Allowance ...... 270

The Story of a Lie 281

Chapter

I Introduces the Admiral 283

II A Letter to the Papers 291

III In the Admiral's Name 298

IV Esther on the Filial Relation .... 308
V The Prodigal Father makes his Debut at

Home 313

VI The Prodigal Father goes on from

Strength to Strength 322

VII The Elopement 336

VIII Battle Royal 349

IX In which the Liberal Editor appears as

"Deus ex Machina" 361

The Body-Snatcher 367

WEIR OF HERMISTON

WEIR OF HERMISTON

CHAPTER I

LIFE AND DEATH OF MRS. WEIR

THE Lord Justice-Clerk was a stranger in
that part of the country; but his lady
wife was known there from a child, as
her race had been before her. The old " riding
Rutherfords of Hermiston," of whom she was
the last descendant, had been famous men of yore,
ill neighbours, ill subjects, and ill husbands to their
wives though not their properties. Tales of them
were rife for twenty miles about; and their
name was even printed in the page of our Scots
histories, not always to their credit. One bit the
dust at Flodden ; one was hanged at his peel door
by James the Fifth; another fell dead in a ca-
rouse with Tom Dalzell; while a fourth (and that
was Jean's own father) died presiding at a Hell-
Fire Club, of which he was the founder. There
were many heads shaken in Crossmichael at that
judgment; the more so as the man had a villainous
reputation among high and low, and both with the
godly and the worldly. At that very hour of his
demise, he had ten going pleas before the session,
eight of them oppressive. And the same doom

4, WEIR OF HERMISTON

extended even to his agents; his grieve, that had
been his right hand in many a left-hand business,
being cast from his horse one night and drowned
in a peat-hag on the Kye skairs ; and his very doer
(although lawyers have long spoons) surviving him
not long, and dying on a sudden in a bloody flux.

In all these generations, while a male Rutherford
was in the saddle with his lads, or brawling in a
change-house, there would be always a white-
faced wife immured at home in the old peel or the
later mansion-house. It seemed this succession of
martyrs bided long, but took their vengeance in the
end, and that was in the person of the last descend-
ant, Jean. She bore the name of the Rutherfords,
but she was the daughter of their trembling
wives. At the first she was not wholly with-
out charm. Neighbours recalled in her, as a child,
a strain of elfin wilfulness, gentle little mutinies,
sad little gaieties, even a morning gleam of beauty
that was not to be fulfilled. She withered in the
growing, and (whether it was the sins of her
sires or the sorrows of her mothers) came to her
maturity depressed, and, as it were, defaced; no
blood of life in her, no grasp or gaiety; pious,
anxious, tender, tearful, and incompetent.

It was a wonder to many that she had married
— seeming so wholly of the stuff that makes old
maids. But chance cast her in the path of Adam
Weir, then the new Lord-Advocate, a recognised,
risen man, the conqueror of many obstacles, and
thus late in the day beginning to think upon a
wife. He was one who looked rather to obedience

WEIR OF HERMISTON 5

than beauty, yet it would seem he was struck with
her at the first look. " Wha 's she?" he said,
turning to his host; and, when he had been told,
" Ay," says he, " she looks menseful. She minds

me "; and then, after a pause (which some

have been daring enough to set down to sentimen-
tal recollections), "Is she releegious?" he asked,
and was shortly after, at his own request, presented.
The acquaintance, which it seems profane to call
a courtship, was pursued with Mr. Weir's accus-
tomed industry, and was long a legend, or rather a
source of legends, in the Parliament House. He
was described coming, rosy with much port, into
the* drawing-room, walking direct up to the lady,
and assailing her with pleasantries, to which the
embarrassed fair one responded, in what seemed
a kind of agony, " Eh, Mr. Weir! " or " O, Mr.
Weir ! " or " Keep me, Mr. Weir! " On the very
eve of their engagement it was related that one
had drawn near to the tender couple, and had
overheard the lady cry out, with the tones of one
who talked for the sake of talking, " Keep me, Mr.
Weir, and what became of him ? " and the pro-
found accents of the suitor's reply, " Haangit,
mem, haangit." The motives upon either side
were much debated. Mr. Weir must have sup-
posed his bride to be somehow suitable; perhaps
he belonged to that class of men who think a weak
head the ornament of women — an opinion inva-
riably punished in this life. Her descent and her
estate were beyond question. Her wayfaring an-
cestors and her litigious father had done well by

6 WEIR OF HERMISTON

Jean. There was ready money and there were
broad acres, ready to fall wholly to the husband,
to lend dignity to his descendants, and to himself
a title, when he should be called upon the Bench.
On the side of Jean there was perhaps some fasci-
nation of curiosity as to this unknown male animal
that approached her with the roughness of a
ploughman and the aplomb of an advocate. Being
so trenchantly opposed to all she knew, loved, or
understood, he may well have seemed to her the
extreme, if scarcely the ideal, of his sex. And be-
sides, he was an ill man to refuse. A little over
forty at the period of his marriage, he looked
already older, and to the force of manhood added
the senatorial dignity of years; it was, perhaps,
with an unreverend awe, but he was awful. The
Bench, the Bar, and the most experienced and
reluctant witness, bowed to his authority — and
why not Jeannie Rutherford?

The heresy about foolish women is always pun-
ished, I have said, and Lord Hermiston began
to pay the penalty at once. His house in George
Square was wretchedly ill-guided; nothing an-
swerable to the expense of maintenance but the
cellar, which was his own private care. When
things went wrong at dinner, as they continually
did, my lord would look up the table at his wife:
" I think these broth would be better to swim in
than to sup." Or else to the butler : " Here,
M'Killop, awa' wi' this Raadical gigot — tak' it to
the French, man, and bring me some puddocks!
It seems rather a sore kind of a business that I

WEIR OF HERMISTON 7

should be all day in Court haanging Raadicals,
and get nawthing to my denner." Of course this
was but a manner of speaking, and he had never
hanged a man for being a Radical in his life; the
law, of which he was the faithful minister, direct-
ing otherwise. And of course these growls were
in the nature of pleasantry, but it was of a recon-
dite sort ; and uttered as they were in his resound-
ing voice, and commented on by that expression
which they called in the Parliament House " Her-
miston's hanging face" — they struck mere dis-
may into the wife. She sat before him speechless
and fluttering; at each dish, as at a fresh ordeal,
her eye hovered toward my lord's countenance
and fell again; if he but ate in silence, unspeak-
able relief was her portion; if there were com-
plaint, the world was darkened. She would seek
out the cook, who was always her sister in the
Lord. " O, my dear, this is the most dreidful
thing that my lord can never be contented in his
own house ! " she would begin ; and weep and pray
with the cook ; and then the cook would pray with
Mrs. Weir; and the next day's meal would never
be a penny the better — and the next cook (when
she came) would be worse, if anything, but just as
pious. It was often wondered that Lord Hermis-
ton bore it as he did; indeed he was a stoical old
voluptuary, contented with sound wine and plenty
of it. But there were moments when he over-
flowed. Perhaps half-a-dozen times in the history
of his married life — " Here ! tak' it awa', and
bring me a piece bread and kebbuck ! " he had

8 WEIR OF HERMISTON

exclaimed, with an appalling explosion of his voice
and rare gestures. None thought to dispute or to
make excuses; the service was arrested; Mrs.
Weir sat at the head of the table whimpering with-
out disguise; and his lordship opposite munched
his bread and cheese in ostentatious disregard.
Once only, Mrs. Weir had ventured to appeal. He
was passing her chair on his way into the study.

" O, Edom ! " she wailed, in a voice tragic with
tears, and reaching out to him both hands, in one of
which she held a sopping pocket-handkerchief.

He paused and looked upon her with a face of
wrath, into which there stole, as he looked, a
twinkle of humour.

" Noansense ! " he said. " You and your noan-
sense! What do I want with a Christian faim'ly?
I want Christian broth! Get me a lass that
can plain boil a potato, if she was a whure
off the streets." And with these words, which
echoed in her tender ears like blasphemy, he had
passed on to his study and shut the door behind
him.

Such was the housewifery in George Square.
It was better at Hermiston, where Kirstie Elliott,
the sister of a neighbouring bonnet-laird, and an
eighteenth cousin of the lady's, bore the charge of
all, and kept a trim house and a good country table.
Kirstie was a woman in a thousand, clean, capable,
notable; once a moorland Helen, and still comely
as a blood horse and healthy as the hill wind.
High in flesh and voice and colour, she ran the
house with her whole intemperate soul, in a bustle,

WEIR OF HERMISTON 9

not without buffets. Scarce more pious than de-
cency in those days required, she was the cause of
many an anxious thought and many a tearful
prayer to Mrs. Weir. Housekeeper and mistress
renewed the parts of Martha and Mary; and
though with a pricking conscience, Mary reposed
on Martha's strength as on a rock. Even Lord
Hermiston held Kirstie in a particular regard.
There were few with whom he unbent so gladly,
few whom he favoured with so many pleasantries.
" Kirstie and me maun have our joke," he would
declare, in high good-humour, as he buttered Kir-
stie's scones and she waited at table. A man who
had no need either of love or of popularity, a keen
reader of men and of events, there was perhaps
only one truth for which he was quite unprepared :
he would have been quite unprepared to learn that
Kirstie hated him. He thought maid and master
were well matched; hard, handy, healthy, broad
Scots folk, without a hair of nonsense to the pair of
them. And the fact was that she made a goddess
and an only child of the effete and tearful lady;
and even as she waited at table her hands would
sometimes itch for my lord's ears.

Thus, at least, when the family were at Hermis-
ton, not only my lord, but Mrs. Weir too, enjoyed
a holiday. Free from the dreadful looking-for of
the miscarried dinner, she would mind her seam,
read her piety books, and take her walk (which was
my lord's orders), sometimes by herself, sometimes
with Archie, the only child of that scarce natural
union. The child was her next bond to life. Her

io WEIR OF HERMISTON

frosted sentiment bloomed again, she breathed
deep of life, she let loose her heart, in that society.
The miracle of her motherhood was ever new to
her. The sight of the little man at her skirt intoxi-
cated her with the sense of power, and froze her
with the consciousness of her responsibility. She
looked forward, and, seeing him in fancy grow up
and play his diverse part on the world's theatre,
caught in her breath and lifted up her courage
with a lively effort. It was only with the child
that she forgot herself and was at moments
natural; yet it was only with the child that she
had conceived and managed to pursue a scheme of
conduct. Archie was to be a great man and a
good; a minister if possible, a saint for certain.
She tried to engage his mind upon her favour-
ite books, Rutherford's Letters, Scougal's Grace
Abounding, and the like. It was a common prac-
tice of hers (and strange to remember now) that
she would carry the child to the Deil's Hags,
sit with him on the Praying Weaver's stone and
talk of the Covenanters till their tears ran down.
Her view of history was wholly artless, a design
in snow and ink; upon the one side, tender inno-
cents with psalms upon their lips; upon the other,
the persecutors, booted, bloody-minded, flushed
with wine; a suffering Christ, a raging Beelze-
bub. Persecutor was a word that knocked upon
the woman's heart; it was her highest thought of
wickedness, and the mark of it was on her house.
Her great-great-grandfather had drawn the sword
against the Lord's anointed on the field of Rullion

WEIR OF HERMISTON u

Green, and breathed his last (tradition said) in the
arms of the detestable Dalzell. Nor could she blind
herself to this, that had they lived in these old days,
Hermiston himself would have been numbered
alongside of Bloody MacKenzie and the politic
Lauderdale and Rothes, in the band of God's im-
mediate enemies. The sense of this moved her
to the more fervour ; she had a voice for that name
of persecutor that thrilled in the child's marrow;
and when one day the mob hooted and hissed them
all in my lord's travelling-carriage, and cried,
" Down with the persecutor ! down with Hanging
Hermiston ! " and mamma covered her eyes and
wept, and papa let down the glass and looked out
upon the rabble with his droll formidable face, bit-
ter and smiling, as they said he sometimes looked
when he gave sentence, Archie was for the moment
too much amazed to be alarmed, but he had scarce
got his mother by herself before his shrill voice was
raised demanding an explanation; why had they
called papa a persecutor?

" Keep me, my precious ! " she exclaimed.
" Keep me, my dear ! this is poleetical. Ye must
never ask me anything poleetical, Erchie. Your
faither is a great man, my dear, and it 's no for
me or you to be judging him. It would be telling
us all if we behaved ourselves in our several sta-
tions the way your faither does in his high office;
and let me hear no more of any such disrespectful
and undutiful questions ! No that you meant to be
undutiful, my lamb ; your mother kens that — she
kens it well, dearie ! " and so slid off to safer topics,

12 WEIR OF HERMISTON

and left on the mind of the child an obscure but
ineradicable sense of something wrong.

Mrs. Weir's philosophy of life was summed in
one expression — tenderness. In her view of the
universe, which was all lighted up with a glow out
of the doors of hell, good people must walk there
in a kind of ecstasy of tenderness. The beasts
and plants had no souls; they were here but for
a day, and let their day pass gently! And as for
the immortal men, on what black, downward path
were many of them wending, and to what a horror
of an immortality ! " Are not two sparrows,"
" Whosoever shall smite thee," " God sendeth His
rain," " Judge not that ye be not judged " — these
texts made her body of divinity; she put them on
in the morning with her clothes and lay down to
sleep with them at night; they haunted her like a
favourite air, they clung about her like a favourite
perfume. Their minister was a marrowy ex-
pounder of the law, and my lord sat under him
with relish ; but Mrs. Weir respected him from far
off; heard him (like the cannon of a beleaguered
city) usefully booming outside on the dogmatic
ramparts ; and meanwhile, within and out of shot,
dwelt in her private garden, which she watered
with grateful tears. It seems strange to say of this
colourless and ineffectual woman, but she was a
true enthusiast, and might have made the sunshine
and the glory of a cloister. Perhaps none but
Archie knew she could be eloquent; perhaps none
but he had seen her — her colour raised, her hands
clasped or quivering — glow with gentle ardour.

WEIR OF HERMISTON 13

There is a corner of the policy of Hermiston, where
you come suddenly in view of the summit of Black
Fell, sometimes like the mere grass top of a hill,
sometimes (and this is her own expression) like
a precious jewel in the heavens. On such days,
upon the sudden view of it, her hand would tighten
on the child's fingers, her voice rise like a song.
"I to the hills!" she would repeat. "And O,
Erchie, are nae these like the hills of Naphtali ? "
and her easy tears would flow.

Upon an impressionable child the effect of this
continual and pretty accompaniment to life was
deep. The woman's quietism and piety passed on
to his different nature undiminished; but whereas
in her it was a native sentiment, in him it was only
an implanted dogma. Nature and the child's pug-
nacity at times revolted. A cad from the Potter-
row once struck him in the mouth ; he struck back,
the pair fought it out in the back stable lane to-
wards the Meadows, and Archie returned with a
considerable decline in the number of his front
teeth, and unregenerately boasting of the losses of
the foe. It was a sore day for Mrs. Weir; she
wept and prayed over the infant backslider until
my lord was due from court, and she must resume
that air of tremulous composure with which she
always greeted him. The Judge was that day in an
observant mood, and remarked upon the absent
teeth.

" I am afraid Erchie will have been fechting
with some of they blagyard lads," said Mrs. Weir.

My lord's voice rang out as it did seldom in the

i4 WEIR OF HERMISTON

privacy of his own house. " I '11 have norm of that,
sir ! " he cried. " Do you hear- me ? — nonn of
that ! No son of mine shall be speldering in the
glaur with any dirty raibble."

The anxious mother was grateful for so much
support; she had even feared the contrary. And
that night when she put the child to bed — " Now,
my dear, ye see ! " she said, " I told you what your
faither would think of it, if he heard ye had fallen
into this dreidful sin; and let you and me pray to
God that ye may be keepit from the like tempta-
tion or stren'thened to resist it ! "

The womanly falsity of this was thrown away.
Ice and iron cannot be welded; and the points of
view of the Justice-Clerk and Mrs. Weir were not
less unassimilable. The character and position of
his father had long been a stumbling-block to
Archie, and with every year of his age the diffi-
culty grew more instant. The man was mostly
silent; when he spoke at all, it was to speak of
the things of the world, always in a worldly spirit,
often in language that the child had been schooled
to think coarse, and sometimes with words that he
knew to be sins in themselves. Tenderness was the
first duty, and my lord was invariably harsh. God
was love; the name of my lord (to all who knew
him) was fear. In the world, as schematised for
Archie by his mother, the place was marked for
such a creature. There were some whom it was
good to pity and well (though very likely useless)
to pray for; they were named reprobates, goats,
God's enemies, brands for the burning ; and Archie

WEIR OF HERMISTON 15

tallied every mark of identification, and drew the
inevitable private inference that the Lord Justice-
Clerk was the chief of sinners.

The mother's honesty was scarce complete.
There was one influence she feared for the child
and still secretly combated; that was my lord's;
and half unconsciously, half in a wilful blindness,
she continued to undermine her husband with his
son. As long as Archie remained silent, she did
so ruthlessly, with a single eye to heaven and the
child's salvation; but the day came when Archie
spoke. It was 1801, and Archie was seven, and
beyond his years for curiosity and logic, when he
brought the case up openly. If judging were sin-
ful and forbidden, how came papa to be a judge?
to have that sin for a trade ? to bear the name of it
for a distinction?

" I can't see it," said the little Rabbi, and
wagged his head.

Mrs. Weir abounded in commonplace replies.

" No, I cannae see it," reiterated Archie. " And
I '11 tell you what, mamma, I don't think you and
me 's justifeed in staying with him."

The woman awoke to remorse; she saw herself
disloyal to her man, her sovereign and bread-winner,
in whom (with what she had of worldliness) she
took a certain subdued pride. She expatiated in
reply on my lord's honour and greatness ; his use-
ful services in this world of sorrow and wrong,
and the place in which he stood, far above where
babes and innocents could hope to see or criticise.
But she had builded too well — Archie had his

16 WEIR OF HERMISTON

answers pat: Were not babes and innocents the
type of the kingdom of heaven ? Were not honour
and greatness the badges of the world? And at
any rate, how about the mob that had once seethed
about the carriage?

" It 's all very fine," he concluded, " but in my
opinion, papa has no right to be it. And it seems
that 's not the worst yet of it. It seems he 's called
■ the Hanging Judge ' — it seems he 's crooool.
I '11 tell you what it is, mamma, there 's a tex'
borne in upon me: it were better for that man
if a milestone were bound upon his back and
him flung into the deepestmost pairts of the
sea."

" O, my lamb, ye must never say the like of
that ! " she cried. " Ye 're to honour faither and
mother, dear, that your days may be long in the
land. It 's Atheists that cry out against him —
French Atheists, Erchie! Ye would never surely
even yourself down to be saying the same thing as
French Atheists? It would break my heart to
think that of you. And O, Erchie, here arena you
setting up to judge? And have ye no forgot
God's plain command — the First with Promise,
dear? Mind you upon the beam and the
mote!"

Having thus carried the war into the enemy's
camp, the terrified lady breathed again. And no
doubt it is easy thus to circumvent a child with
catchwords, but it may be questioned how far it
is effectual. An instinct in his breast detects the
quibble, and a voice condemns it. He will instantly

WEIR OF HERMISTON 17

submit, privately hold the same opinion. For even
in this simple and antique relation of the mother
and the child, hypocrisies are multiplied.

When the Court rose that year and the family
returned to Hermiston, it was a common remark
in all the country that the lady was sore failed.
She seemed to loose and seize again her touch with
life, now sitting inert in a sort of durable bewilder-
ment, anon waking to feverish and weak activity.
She dawdled about the lassies at their work, looking
stupidly on ; she fell to rummaging in old cabinets
and presses, and desisted when half through; she
would begin remarks with an air of animation and
drop them without a struggle. Her common ap-
pearance was of one who has forgotten something
and is trying to remember; and when she over-
hauled, one after another, the worthless and touch-
ing mementoes of her youth, she might have been
seeking the clue to that lost thought. During this
period she gave many gifts to the neighbours and
house lassies, giving them with a manner of regret
that embarrassed the recipients.

The last night of all she was busy on some
female work, and toiled upon it with so manifest
and painful a devotion that my lord (who was not
often curious) inquired as to its nature.

She blushed to the eyes. " O, Edom, it 's for
you ! " she said. " It 's slippers. I — I hae never
made ye any."

" Ye daft auld wife ! " returned his lordship.
", A bonny figure I would be, palmering about in
bauchles ! "

18 WEIR OF HERMISTON

The next day, at the hour of her walk, Kirstie
interfered. Kirstie took this decay of her mistress
very hard ; bore her a grudge, quarrelled with and
railed upon her, the anxiety of a genuine love wear-
ing the disguise of temper. This day of all days
she insisted disrespectfully, with rustic fury, that
Mrs. Weir should stay at home. But, " No, no,"
she said, " it 's my lord's orders," and set forth as
usual. Archie was visible in the acre bog, engaged
upon some childish enterprise, the instrument of
which was mire; and she stood and looked at him
awhile like one about to call ; then thought other-
wise, sighed, and shook her head, and proceeded
on her rounds alone. The house lassies were at the
burnside washing, and saw her pass with her loose,
weary, dowdy gait.

" She 's a terrible feckless wife, the mistress ! "
said the one.

" Tut," said the other, " the wumman 's seeck."

" Weel, I canna see nae differ in her," returned
the first. " A fushionless quean, a feckless
carline."

The poor creature thus discussed rambled awhile
in the grounds without a purpose. Tides in her
mind ebbed and flowed, and carried her to and
fro like seaweed. She tried a path, paused, re-
turned, and. tried another ; questing, forgetting her
quest ; the spirit of choice extinct in her bosom, or
devoid of sequency. On a sudden, it appeared as
though she had remembered, or had formed a reso-
lution, wheeled about, returned with hurried steps,
and appeared in the dining-room, where Kirstie

WEIR OF HERMISTON 19

was at the cleaning, like one charged with an
important errand.

" Kirstie ! " she began, and paused ; and then
with conviction, " Mr. Weir isna speeritually
minded, but he has been a good man to me."

It was perhaps the first time since her husband's
elevation that she had forgotten the handle to his
name, of which the tender, inconsistent woman
was not a little proud. And when Kirstie looked
up at the speaker's face she was aware of a change.

" Godsake, what 's the maitter wi' ye, mem ? "
cried the housekeeper, starting from the rug.

" I do not ken," answered her mistress, shak-
ing her head. " But he is not speeritually minded,
my dear."

" Here, sit down with ye ! Godsake, what ails
the wife ? " cried Kirstie, and helped and forced
her into my lord's own chair by the cheek of the
hearth.

"Keep me, what's this?" she gasped. "Kir-
stie, what's this? I'm frich'ened."

They were her last words.

It was the lowering nightfall when my lord
returned. He had the sunset in his back, all clouds
and glory; and before him, by the wayside, spied
Kirstie Elliott waiting. She was dissolved in tears,
and addressed him in the high, false note of bar-
barous mourning, such as still lingers modified
among Scots heather.

" The Lord peety ye, Hermiston ! the Lord pre-
pare ye! " she keened out. " Weary upon me, that
I should have to tell it ! "

20 WEIR OF HERMISTON

He reined in his horse and looked upon her with
the hanging face.

" Has the French landit? " cried he.

" Man, man," she said, " is that a' ye can think
of? The Lord prepare ye, the Lord comfort and
support ye ! "

" Is onybody deid ? " says his lordship. " It 's
no Erchie ? "

" Bethankit, no ! " exclaimed the woman, startled
into a more natural tone. " Na, na, it 's no sae
bad as that. It 's the mistress, my lord ; she just
fair flittit before my e'en. She just gi'ed a sab
and was by with it. Eh, my bonny Miss Jeannie,
that I mind sae weel ! " And forth again upon that
pouring tide of lamentation in which women of her
class excel and overabound.

Lord Hermiston sat in the saddle beholding her.
Then he seemed to recover command upon himself.

" Weel, it 's something of the suddenest," said
he. / " But she was a dwaibly body from the
first."

And he rode home at a precipitate amble with
Kirstie at his horse's heels.

Dressed as she was for her last walk, they had
laid the dead lady on her bed. She was never inter-
esting in life; in death she was not impressive;
and as her husband stood before her, with his
hands crossed behind his powerful back, that
which he looked upon was the very image of the
insignificant.

" Her and me were never cut out for one
another," he remarked at last. " It was a daft-like

WEIR OF HERMISTON 21

marriage." And then, with a most unusual gen-
tleness of tone, " Puir bitch," said he, " puir
bitch ! " Then suddenly: " Where 's Erchie? "

Kirstie had decoyed him to her room and given
him " a jeely-piece."

" Ye have some kind of gumption, too," ob-
served the Judge, and considered his housekeeper
grimly. " When all 's said," he added, " I micht
have done waur — I micht have been marriet upon
a skirling Jezebel like you ! "

" There 's naebody thinking* of you, Hermis-
ton ! " cried the offended woman. " We think of
her that 's out of her sorrows. And could she have
done waur? Tell me that, Hermiston — tell me
that before her clay-cauld corp ! "

"Weel, there's some of them gey an' ill to
please," observed his lordship.

CHAPTER II

FATHER AND SON

MY Lord Justice-Clerk was known to
many ; the man Adam Weir perhaps to
none. He had nothing to explain or
to conceal ; he sufficed wholly and silently to him-
self; and that part of our nature which goes out
(too often with false coin) to acquire glory or love,
seemed in him to be omitted. He did not try to
be loved, he did not care to be; it is probable the
very thought of it was a stranger to his mind. He
was an admired lawyer, a highly unpopular judge;
and he looked down upon those who were his in-
feriors in either distinction, who were lawyers of
less grasp or judges not so much detested. In all
the rest of his days and doings, not one trace of
vanity appeared ; and he went on through life with
a mechanical movement, as of the unconscious,
that was almost august.

He saw little of his son. In the childish mala-
dies with which the boy was troubled, he would
make daily inquiries and daily pay him a visit,
entering the sick-room with a facetious and appal-
ling countenance, letting off a few perfunctory
jests, and going again swiftly, to the patient's
relief. Once, a court holiday falling opportunely,

WEIR OF HERMISTON 23

my lord had his carriage, and drove the child him-
self to Hermiston, the customary place of conva-
lescence. It is conceivable he had been more than
usually anxious, for that journey always remained
in Archie's memory as a thing apart, his father
having related to him from beginning to end, and
with much detail, three authentic murder cases.
Archie went the usual round of other Edinburgh
boys, the high school and the college ; and Hermis-
ton looked on, or rather looked away, with scarce
an affectation of interest in his progress. Daily,
indeed, upon a signal after dinner, he was brought
in, given nuts and a glass of port, regarded sardoni-
cally, sarcastically questioned. " Well, sir, and
what have you donn with your book to-day ? "
my lord might begin, and set him posers in law
Latin. To a child just stumbling into Corderius,
Papinian and Paul proved quite invincible. But
papa had memory of no other. He was not harsh
to the little scholar, having a vast fund of patience
learned upon the Bench, and was at no pains
whether to conceal or to express his disappoint-
ment. " Well, ye have a long jaunt before ye
yet ! " he might observe, yawning, and fall back on
his own thoughts (as like as not) until the time
came for separation, and my lord would take the
decanter and the glass, and be off to the back
chamber looking on the Meadows, where he toiled
on his cases till the hours were small. There was
no " fuller man " on the Bench ; his memory was
marvellous, though wholly legal; if he had to
" advise " extempore, none did it better ; yet there

a4 WEIR OF HERMISTON

was none who more earnestly prepared. As he
thus watched in the night, or sat at table and forgot
the presence of his son, no doubt but he tasted
deeply of recondite pleasures. To be wholly
devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have
succeeded in life ; and perhaps only in law and the
higher mathematics may this devotion be main-
tained, suffice to itself without reaction, and find
continual rewards without excitement. This at-
mosphere of his father's sterling industry was the
best of Archie's education. Assuredly it did not
attract him; assuredly it rather rebutted and de-
pressed. Yet it was still present, unobserved like
the ticking of a clock, an arid ideal, a tasteless
stimulant in the boy's life.

But Hermiston was not all of one piece. He
was, besides, a mighty toper ; he could sit at wine
until the day dawned, and pass directly from the
table to the Bench with a steady hand and a clear
head. Beyond the third bottle, he showed the ple-
beian in a larger print; the low, gross accent, the
low, foul mirth, grew broader and commoner; he
became less formidable, and infinitely more dis-
gusting. Now, the boy had inherited from Jean
Rutherford a shivering delicacy, unequally mated
with potential violence. In the playing-fields, and
amongst his own companions, he repaid a coarse
expression with a blow ; at his father's table (when
the time came for him to join these revels) he
turned pale and sickened in silence. Of all the
guests whom he there encountered, he had tolera-
tion for only one: David Keith Carnegie, Lord

WEIR OF HERMISTON 25

Glenalmond. Lord Glenalmond was tall and ema-
ciated, with long features and long delicate hands.
He was often compared with the statue of Forbes
of Culloden in the Parliament House; and his
blue eye, at more than sixty, preserved some of the
fire of youth. His exquisite disparity with any
of his fellow guests, his appearance as of an art-
ist and an aristocrat stranded in rude company,
riveted the boy's attention; and as curiosity and
interest are the things in the world that are the
most immediately and certainly rewarded, Lord
Glenalmond was attracted to the boy.

"And so this is your son, Hermiston?" he
asked, laying his hand on Archie's shoulder.
"He's getting a big lad."

" Hout ! " said the gracious father, " just his
mother over again — daurna say boo to a goose ! "

But the stranger retained the boy, talked to him,
drew him out, found in him a taste for letters, and
a fine, ardent, modest, youthful soul; and encour-
aged him to be a visitor on Sunday evenings in his
bare, cold, lonely dining-room, where he sat and
read in the isolation of a bachelor grown old in
refinement. The beautiful gentleness and grace of
the old Judge, and the delicacy of his person,
thoughts, and language, spoke to Archie's heart in
its own tongue. He conceived the ambition to be
such another ; and, when the day came for him to
choose a profession, it was in emulation of Lord
Glenalmond, not of Lord Hermiston, that he chose
the Bar. Hermiston looked on at this friendship
with some secret pride, but openly with the intoler-

26 WEIR OF HERMISTON

ance of scorn. He scarce lost an opportunity to put
them down with a rough jape ; and, to say truth, it
was not difficult, for they were neither of them
quick. He had a word of contempt for the whole
crowd of poets, painters, fiddlers, and their admir-
ers, the bastard race of amateurs, which was con-
tinually on his lips. " Signor Feedle-eerie 1 " he
would say. " Oh, for Goad's sake, no more of the
signor ! "

" You and my father are great friends, are you
not ? " asked Archie once.

" There is no man that I more respect, Archie,"
replied Lord Glenalmond. " He is two things of
price. He is a great lawyer, and he is upright
as the day."

" You and he are so different," said the boy,
his eyes dwelling on those of his old friend, like a
lover's on his mistress's.

"Indeed so," replied the Judge; "very differ-
ent. And so I fear are you and he. Yet I would
like it very ill if my young friend were to mis-
judge his father. He has all the Roman virtues:
Cato and Brutus were such ; I think a son's heart
might well be proud of such an ancestry of one."

" And I would sooner he were a plaided herd,"
cried Archie, with sudden bitterness.

" And that is neither very wise, nor I believe en-
tirely true," returned Glenalmond. " Before you
are done you will find some of these expressions
rise on you like a remorse. They are merely liter-
ary and decorative ; they do not aptly express your
thought, nor is your thought clearly apprehended,

WEIR OF HERMISTON 27

and no doubt your father (if he were here) would
say ' Signor Feedle-eerie ! ' "

With the infinitely delicate sense of youth,
Archie avoided the subject from that hour. It
was perhaps a pity. Had he but talked — talked
freely — let himself gush out in words (the way
youth loves to do and should), there might have
been no tale to write upon the Weirs of Hermiston.
But the shadow of a threat of ridicule sufficed; in
the slight tartness of these words he read a pro-
hibition; and it is likely that Glenalmond meant
it so.

Besides the veteran, the boy was without con-
fidant or friend. Serious and eager, he came
through school and college, and moved among a
crowd of the indifferent, in the seclusion of his shy-
ness. He grew up handsome, with an open, speak-
ing countenance, with graceful, youthful ways;
he was clever, he took prizes, he shone in the Specu-
lative Society.1 It should seem he must become
the centre of a crowd of friends; but something
that was in part the delicacy of his mother, in part
the austerity of his father, held him aloof from
all. It is a fact, and a strange one, that among
his contemporaries Hermiston's son was thought to
be a chip of the old block. " You 're a friend of
Archie Weir's ? " said one to Frank Innes ; and
Innes replied, with his usual flippancy and more
than his usual insight : " I know Weir, but I never
met Archie." No one had met Archie, a malady

1 A famous debating society of the students of Edinburgh
University.

28 WEIR OF HERMISTON

most incident to only sons. He flew his private
signal, and none heeded it; it seemed he was
abroad in a world from which the very hope of
intimacy was banished ; and he looked round about
him on the concourse of his fellow-students, and
forward to the trivial days and acquaintances that
were to come, without hope or interest.

As time went on, the tough and rough old sin-
ner felt himself drawn to the son of his loins and
sole continuator of his new family, with softnesses
of sentiment that he could hardly credit and was
wholly impotent to express. With a face, voice,
and manner trained through forty years to terrify
and repel, Rhadamanthus may be great, but he
will scarce be engaging. It is a fact that he tried
to propitiate Archie, but a fact that cannot be too
lightly taken; the attempt was so unconspicu-
ously made, the failure so stoically supported.
Sympathy is not due to the steadfast iron natures.
If he failed to gain his son's friendship, or even his
son's toleration, on he went up the great, bare
staircase of his duty, uncheered and undepressed.
There might have been more pleasure in his rela-
tions with Archie, so much he may have recog-
nised at moments ; . but pleasure was a by-product
of the singular chemistry of life, which only fools
expected.

An idea of Archie's attitude, since we are all
grown up and have forgotten the days of our
youth, it is more difficult to convey. He made no
attempt whatsoever to understand the man with
whom he dined and breakfasted. Parsimony of

WEIR OF HERMISTON 29

pain, glut of pleasure, these are the two alternating
ends of youth ; and Archie was of the parsimo-
nious. The wind blew cold out of a certain quarter
— he turned his back upon it ; stayed as little as was
possible in his father's presence; and when there,
averted his eyes as much as was decent from his
father's face. The lamp shone for many hundred
days upon these two at table — my lord ruddy,
gloomy, and unreverent; Archie with a potential
brightness that was always dimmed and veiled
in that society; and there were not, perhaps, in
Christendom two men more radically strangers.
The father, with a grand simplicity, either spoke of
what interested himself, or maintained an unaf-
fected silence. The son turned in his head for some
topic that should be quite safe, that would spare
him fresh evidences either of my lord's inherent
grossness or of the innocence of his inhumanity;
treading gingerly the ways of intercourse, like a
lady gathering up her skirts in a by-path. If he
made a mistake, and my lord began to abound in
matter of offence, Archie drew himself up, his brow
grew dark, his share of the talk expired; but my
lord would faithfully and cheerfully continue to
pour out the worst of himself before his silent and
offended son.

" Well, it 's a poor hert that never rejoices," he
would say, at the conclusion of such a nightmare
interview. " But I must get to my plew-stilts."
And he would seclude himself as usual in the back
room, and Archie go forth into the night and the
city quivering with animosity and scorn.

CHAPTER III

IN THE MATTER OF THE HANGING OF
DUNCAN JOPP

IT chanced in the year 1813 that Archie strayed
one day into the Judiciary Court. The macer
made room for the son of the presiding judge.
In the dock, the centre of men's eyes, there stood a
whey-coloured, misbegotten caitiff, Duncan Jopp,
on trial for his life. His story, as it was raked
out before him in that public scene, was one of dis-
grace and vice and cowardice, the very nakedness
of crime; and the creature heard and it seemed at
times as though he understood — as if at times
he forgot the horror of the place he stood in, and
remembered the shame of what had brought him
there. He kept his head bowed and his hands
clutched upon the rail; his hair dropped in his
eyes and at times he flung it back; and now he
glanced about the audience in a sudden fellness of
terror, and now looked in the face of his judge and
gulped. There was pinned about his throat a
piece of dingy flannel; and this it was perhaps
that turned the scale in Archie's mind between dis-
gust and pity. The creature stood in a vanishing
point; yet a little while, and he was still a man,
and had eyes and apprehension ; yet a little longer,

WEIR OF HERMISTON 31

I

and with a last sordid piece of pageantry, ne
would cease to be. And here, in the meantime,
with a trait of human nature that caught at the be-
holder's breath, he was tending a sore throat.

Over against him, my Lord Hermiston occupied
the Bench in the red robes of criminal jurisdiction,
his face framed in the white wig. Honest all
through, he did not affect the virtue of impartiality ;
this was no case for refinement; there was a man
to be hanged, he would have said, and he was hang-
ing him. Nor was it possible to see his lordship,
and acquit him of gusto in the task. It was
plain he gloried in the exercise of his trained facul-
ties, in the clear sight which pierced at once into the
joint of fact, in the rude, unvarnished jibes with
which he demolished every figment of defence. He
took his ease and jested, unbending in that solemn
place with some of the freedom of the tavern ; and
the rag of man with the flannel round his neck was
hunted gallowsward with jeers.

Duncan had a mistress, scarce less forlorn and
greatly older than himself, who came up, whim-
pering and curtseying, to add the weight of her
betrayal. My lord gave her the oath in his most
roaring voice and added an intolerant warning.

"Mind what ye say now, Janet,,, said he. "I
have an e'e upon ye ; I 'm ill to jest with.,,

Presently, after she was tremblingly embarked
on her story, " And what made ye do this, ye auld
runt?" the Court interposed. "Do ye mean to
tell me ye was the pannel's mistress ? "

" If you please, ma loard," whined the female.

32 WEIR OF HERMISTON

" Godsake ! ye made a bonny couple," observed
his lordship; and there was something so formid-
able and ferocious in his scorn that not even the
galleries thought to laugh.

The summing up contained some jewels.

" These two peetiable creatures seem to have
made up thegither, it 's not for us to explain why."

— " The pannel, who (whatever else he may be)
appears to be equally ill set out in mind and boady."

— " Neither the pannel nor yet the old wife appears
to have had so much common-sense as even to tell
a lie when it was necessary." And in the course of
sentencing, my lord had this obiter dictum: " I
have been the means, under God, of haanging a
great number, but never just such a disjaskit ras-
cal as yourself." The words were strong in them-
selves; the light and heat and detonation of their
delivery, and the savage pleasure of the speaker in
his task, made them tingle in the ears.

When all was over, Archie came forth again

into a changed world. Had there been the least

redeeming greatness in the crime, any obscurity,

any dubiety, perhaps he might have understood.

But the culprit stood, with his sore throat, in the

sweat of his mortal agony, without defense or

excuse ; a thing to cover up with blushes ; a being

so much sunk beneath the zones of sympathy that

pity might seem harmless. [_And the Judge had

/ pursued him with a monstrous, relishing gaiety,

I horrible to be conceived, a trait for nightmares.

I It is one thing to spear a tiger, another to crush a

toad; there are aesthetics even of the slaughter-

WEIR OF HERMISTON 33

house; and the loathsomeness of Duncan Jopp
enveloped and infected the image of his judge.

Archie passed by his friends in the High Street
with incoherent words and gestures. He saw
Holyrood in a dream, remembrance of its romance
awoke in him and faded ; he had a vision of the old
radiant stories, of Queen Mary and Prince Charlie,
of the hooded stag, of the splendour and crime, the
velvet and bright iron of the past; and dismissed
them with a cry of pain. He lay and moaned in
the Hunter's Bog, and the heavens were dark above
him and the grass of the field an offence. " This
is my father," he said. " I draw my life from
him; the flesh upon my bones is his, the bread I
am fed with is the wages of these horrors." He
recalled his mother, and ground his forehead in the
earth. He thought of flight, and where was he to
flee to ? of other lives, but was there any life worth
living in this den of savage and jeering animals ?

The interval before the execution was like a
violent dream. He met his father; he would not
look at him, he could not speak to him. It seemed
there was no living creature but must have been
swift to recognise that imminent animosity, but
the hide of the Lord Justice-Clerk remained im-
penetrable. Had my lord been talkative, the truce
could never have subsisted ; but he was by fortune
in one of his humours of sour silence; and under
the very guns of his broadside Archie nursed the
enthusiasm of rebellion. It seemed to him, from the
top of his nineteen years' experience, as if he were
marked at birth to be the perpetrator of some signal

3 ''

34 WEIR OF HERMISTON

action, to set back fallen Mercy, to overthrow
the usurping devil that sat, horned and hoofed,
on her throne. Seductive Jacobin figments, which
he had often refuted at the Speculative, swam up
in his mind and startled him as with voices; and
he seemed to himself to walk accompanied by an
almost tangible presence of new beliefs and duties.

On the named morning he was at the place of
execution. He saw the fleering rabble, the flinch-
ing wretch produced. He looked on for awhile
at a certain parody of devotion, which seemed to
strip the wretch of his last claim to manhood.
Then followed the brutal instant of extinction, and
the paltry dangling of the remains like a broken
jumping- jack. He had been prepared for some-
thing terrible, not for this tragic meanness. He
stood a moment silent, and then — "I denounce
this God-defying murder," he shouted; and his
father, if he must have disclaimed the sentiment;
might have owned the stentorian voice with whicfi
it was uttered.

Frank Innes dragged him from the spot. The
two handsome lads followed the same course of
study and recreation, and felt a certain mutual at-
traction, founded mainly on good looks. It had
never gone deep; Frank was by nature a thin,
jeering creature, not truly susceptible whether of
feeling or inspiring friendship; and the relation
between the pair was altogether on the outside, a
thing of common knowledge and the pleasantries
that spring from a common acquaintance. The
more credit to Frank that he was appalled by

WEIR OF HERMISTON 35

Archie's outburst, and at least conceived the design
of keeping him in sight, and, if possible, in hand,
for the day. But Archie, who had just defied —
was it God or Satan? — would not listen to the
word of a college companion..

" I will not go with you," he said. " I do not
desire your company, sir ; I would be alone."

"Here, Weir, man, don't be absurd," said
Innes, keeping a tight hold upon his sleeve. "I
will not let you go until I know what you mean to
do with yourself; it's no use brandishing that
staff." For indeed at that moment Archie had
made a sudden — perhaps a warlike — movement.
" This has been the most insane affair ; you know
it has. You know very well that I 'm playing the
good Samaritan. All I wish is to keep you quiet."

"If quietness is what you wish, Mr. Innes,"
said Archie, " and you will promise to leave me
entirely to myself, I will tell you so much, that I
am going to walk in the country and admire the
beauties of nature."

" Honour bright ? " asked Frank.

" I am not in the habit of lying, Mr. Innes," re-
torted Archie. " I have the honour of wishing you
good-day."

" You won't forget the Spec. ? " asked Innes.

" The Spec? " said Archie. " Oh, no, I won't
forget the Spec."

And the one young man carried his tortured
spirit forth of the city and all the day long, by one
road and another, in an endless pilgrimage of
misery ; while the other hastened smilingly to

36 WEIR OF HERMISTON

spread the news of Weir's access of insanity, and
to drum up for that night a full attendance at the
Speculative, where farther eccentric developments
might certainly be looked for. I doubt if Innes
had the least belief in his prediction; I think it
flowed rather from a wish to make the story as
good and the scandal as great as possible; not
from any ill-will to Archie — from the mere
pleasure of beholding interested faces. But for all
that his words were prophetic. Archie did not for-
get the Spec; he put in an appearance there at
the due time, and, before the evening was over,
had dealt a memorable shock to his companions.
It chanced he was the president of the night.
He sat in the same room where the society still
meets — only the portraits were not there; the
men who afterwards sat for them were then but
beginning their career. The same lustre of many
tapers shed its light over the meeting; the same
chair, perhaps, supported him that so many of
us have sat in since. At times he seemed to forget
the business of the evening, but even in these peri-
ods he sat with a great air of energy and determina-
tion. At times he meddled bitterly and launched
with defiance those fines which are the precious and
rarely used artillery of the president. He little
thought, as he did so, how he resembled his father,
but his friends remarked upon it, chuckling. So
far, in his high place above his fellow-students, he
seemed set beyond the possibility of any scandal;
but his mind was made up — he was determined to
fulfil the sphere of his offence. He signed to Innes

WEIR OF HERMISTON 37

(whom he had just fined, and who just impeached
his ruling) to succeed him in the chair, stepped
down from the platform, and took his place by the
chimney-piece, the shine of many wax tapers from
above illuminating his pale face, the glow of the
great red fire relieving from behind his slim figure.
He had to propose, as an amendment to the next
subject in the case book, " Whether capital pun-
ishment be consistent with God's will or man's
policy? "

A breath of embarrassment, of something like
alarm, passed round the room, so daring did these
words appear upon the lips of Hermiston's only
son. But the amendment was not seconded; the
previous question was promptly moved and unani-
mously voted, and the momentary scandal smug-
gled by. Innes triumphed in the fulfilment of his
prophecy. He and Archie were now become the
heroes of the night; but whereas every one
crowded about Innes, when the meeting broke up,
but one of all his companions came to speak to
Archie.

" Weir, man ! that was an extraordinary raid of
yours ! " observed this courageous member, taking
him confidentially by the arm as they went out.

" I don't think it a raid," said Archie grimly.
" More like a war. I saw that poor brute hanged
this morning, and my gorge rises at it yet."

" Hut-tut ! " returned his companion, and, drop-
ping his arm like something hot, he sought the less
tense society of others.

Archie found himself alone. The last of the

38 WEIR OF HERMISTON

faithful — or was it only the boldest of the curious ?

— had fled, [fie watched the black huddle of his
fellow-students draw off down and up the street,
in whispering or boisterous gangs. And the iso-
lation of the moment weighed upon him like an
omen and an emblem of his destiny in lifey* Bred
up in unbroken fear himself, among trembling
servants, and in a house which (at the least ruffle
in the master's voice) shuddered into silence, he
saw himself on the brink of the red valley of war,
and measured the danger and length of it with
awe. He made a detour in the glimmer and
shadow of the streets, came into the back stable
lane, and watched for a long while the light burn
steady in the Judge's room. The longer he gazed
upon that illuminated window-blind, the more
blank became the picture of the man who sat behind
it, endlessly turning over sheets of process, paus-
ing to sip a glass of port, or rising and passing
heavily about his book-lined walls to verify some
reference. He could not combine the brutal judge
and the industrious, dispassionate student; the
connecting link escaped him; from such a dual
nature, it was impossible he should predict be-
haviour; and he asked himself if he had done well
to plunge into a business of which the end could not
be foreseen; and presently after, with a sickening
decline of confidence, if he had done loyally to
strike his father. For he had struck him — de-
fied him twice over and before a cloud of witnesses

— struck him a public buffet before crowds.
Who had called him to judge his father in these

WEIR OF HERMISTON

39

precarious and high questions? The office was
usurped. It might have become a stranger; in a
son — there was no blinking it — in a son, it was
disloyal. And now, between these two natures so
antipathetic, so hateful to each other, there was
depending an unpardonable affront : and the provi-
dence of God alone might foresee the manner in
which it would be resented by Lord Hermiston.

These misgivings tortured him all night and
arose with him in the winter's morning; they
followed him from class to class, they made him
shrinkingly sensitive to every shade of manner in
his companions, they sounded in his ears through
the current voice of the professor ; and he brought
them home with him at night unabated and indeed
increased. The cause of this increase lay in a
chance encounter with the celebrated Dr. Gregory.
Archie stood looking vaguely in the lighted win-
dow of a book shop, trying to nerve himself for
the approaching ordeal. My lord and he had met
and parted in the morning as they had now done
for long, with scarcely the ordinary civilities of
life; and it was plain to the son that nothing had
yet reached the father's ears. Indeed, when he
recalled the awful countenance of my lord, a timid
hope sprang up in him that perhaps there would be
found no one bold enough to carry tales. If this
were so, he asked himself, would he begin again?
and he found no answer. It was at this moment
that a hand was laid upon his arm, and a voice said
in his ear, " My dear Mr. Archie, you had better
come and see me."

4o WEIR OF HERMISTON

He started, turned around, and found himself
face to face with Dr. Gregory. " And why should
I come to see you ? " he asked, with the defiance
of the miserable.

" Because you are looking exceedingly ill," said
the doctor, " and you very evidently want looking
after, my young friend. Good folk are scarce, you
know ; and it is not every one that would be quite
so much missed as yourself. It is not every one
that Hermiston would miss."

And with a nod and smile, the doctor passed on.

A moment after, Archie was in pursuit, and
had in turn, but more roughly, seized him by the
arm.

" What do you mean ? what did you mean by
saying that? What makes you think that Her-
mis — my father would have missed me? "

The doctor turned about and looked him all over
with a clinical eye. A far more stupid man than
Dr. Gregory might have guessed the truth; but
ninety-nine out of a hundred, even if they had
been equally inclined to kindness, would have
blundered by some touch of charitable exaggera-
tion. The doctor was better inspired. He knew
the father well; in that white face of intelligence
and suffering, he divined something of the son;
and he told, without apology or adornment, the
plain truth.

" When you had the measles, Mr. Archibald,
you had them gey and ill ; and I thought you were
going to slip between my fingers," he said. " Well,
your father was anxious. How did I know it?

WEIR OF HERMISTON 41

says you. Simply because I am a trained observer.
The sign that I saw him make, ten thousand would
would have missed ; and perhaps — perhaps, I say,
because he 's a hard man to judge of — but per-
haps he never made another. A strange thing to
consider! It was this. One day I came to him:
' Hermiston/ said I, * there 's a change/ He
never said a word, just glowered at me (if ye '11
pardon the phrase) like a wild beast. * A change
for the better/ said I. And I distinctly heard him
take his breath."

The doctor left no opportunity for anti-climax;
nodding his cocked hat (a piece of antiquity to
which he clung) and repeating " Distinctly " with
raised eyebrows, he took his departure, and left
Archie speechless in the street.

The anecdote might be called infinitely little, and
yet its meaning for Archie was immense. " I did
not know the old man had so much blood in him."
He had never dreamed this sire of his, this aborigi-
nal antique, this adamantine Adam, had even so
much of a heart as to be moved in the least degree
for another — and that other himself, who had in-
sulted him ! With the generosity of youth, Archie
was instantly under arms upon the other side : had
instantly created a new image of Lord Hermiston,
that of a man who was all iron without and all sen-
sibility within. The mind of the vile jester, the
tongue that had pursued Duncan Jopp with un-
manly insults, the unbeloved countenance that he
had known and feared for so long, were all for-
gotten ; and he hastened home, impatient to confess

42 WEIR OF HERMISTON

his misdeeds, impatient to throw himself on the
mercy of this imaginary character.

He was not to be long without a rude awaken-
ing. \J& was in the gloaming when he drew near
the doorstep of the lighted house, and was aware
of the figure of his father approaching from the
opposite side. Little daylight lingered; but on
the door being opened, the strong yellow shine of
the lamp gushed out upon the landing and shone
full on Archie, as he stood, in the old-fashioned
observance of respect, to yield precedenceT] The
Judge came without haste, stepping stately and
firm; his chin raised, his face (as he entered the
lamplight) strongly illumined, his mouth set hard.
There was never a wink of change in his expres-
sion; without looking to the right or left, he
mounted the stair, passed close to Archie, and en-
tered the house. Instinctively, the boy, upon his
first coming, had made a movement to meet him;
instinctively, he recoiled against the railing, as the
old man swept by him in a pomp of indignation.
Words were needless ; he knew all — perhaps more
than all — and the hour of judgment was at hand.

It is possible that, in this sudden revulsion of
hope and before these symptoms of impending
danger, Archie might have fled. But not even
that was left to him. My lord, after hanging up
his cloak and hat, turned round in the lighted entry,
and made him an imperative and silent gesture
with his thumb, and with the strange instinct of
obedience, Archie followed him into the house.

All dinner time there reigned over the Judge**

WEIR OF HERMISTON 43

table a palpable silence, and as soon as the solids
were despatched he rose to his feet.

" M'Killop, tak' the wine into my room/' said
he ; and then to his son : " Archie, you and me has
to have a talk."

It was at this sickening moment that Archie's
courage, for the first and last time, entirely de-
serted him. " I have an appointment," said he.

" It '11 have to be broken, then," said Hermiston,
and led the way into his study.

The lamp was shaded, the fire trimmed to a
nicety, the table covered deep with orderly docu-
ments, the backs of law books made a frame upon
all sides that was only broken by the window and
the doors.

For a moment Hermiston warmed his hands at
the fire, presenting his back to Archie; then sud-
denly disclosed on him the terrors of the Hanging
Face.

" What 's this I hear of ye! " he asked.

There was no answer possible to Archie.

" I '11 have to tell ye, then," pursued Hermiston.
" It seems ye 've been skirling against the father
that begot ye, and one of His Maijesty's Judges in
this land; and that in the public street, and while
an order of the Court was being executit. Forbye
which, it would appear that ye 've been airing your
opeenions in a Coallege Debatin' Society," he
paused a moment: and, then, with extraordinary
bitterness, added : " Ye damned eediot."

" I had meant to tell you," stammered Archie.
" I see you are well informed."

44 WEIR OF HERMISTON

" Muckle obleeged to ye," said his lordship, and
took his usual seat. " And so you disapprove of
caapital punishment ? " he added.

" I am sorry, sir, I do," said Archie.

" I am sorry, too," said his lordship. " And
now, if you please, we shall approach this business
with a little more parteecularity. I hear that at
the hanging of Duncan Jopp — and, man ! ye had
a fine client there — in the middle of all the riff-
raff of the ceety, ye thought fit to cry out, ' This
is a damned murder, and my gorge rises at the man
that haangit him/ "

" No, sir, these were not my words," cried
Archie.

" What were ye'r words, then ? " asked the
Judge.

" I believe I said, ' I denounce it as a murder ! ' "
said the son, " I beg your pardon — a God-defy-
ing murder. I have no wish to conceal the truth,"
he added, and looked his father for a moment in the
face.

" God, it would only need that of it next ! " cried
Hermiston. " There was nothing about your
gorge rising, then ? "

" That was afterwards, my lord, as I was leaving
the Speculative. I said I had been to see the miser-
able creature hanged, and my gorge rose at it."

" Did ye, though ? " said Hermiston. " And I
suppose ye knew who haangit him? "

" I was present at the trial, I ought to tell you
that, I ought to explain. I ask your pardon before-
hand for any expression that may seem undutiful.

WEIR OF HERMISTON 45

The position in which I stand is wretched," said
the unhappy hero, now fairly face to face with the
business he had chosen. " I have been reading
some of your cases. I was present while Jopp
was tried. It was a hideous business. Father, it
was a hideous thing! Grant he was vile, why
should you hunt him with a vileness equal to his
own ? It was done with glee — that is the word —
you did it with glee; and I looked on, God help
me ! with horror."

" You 're a young gentleman that doesna ap-
prove of caapital punishment," said Hermiston.
" Weel, I 'm an auld man that does. I was glad to
get Jopp haangit, and what for would I pretend I
wasna ? You 're all for honesty, it seems ; you
could n't even steik your mouth on the public
street. What for should I steik mines upon the
Bench, the King's officer, bearing the sword, a
dreid to evil-doers, as I was from the beginning,
and as I will be to the end ! Mair than enough of
it ! Heedious ! I never gave twa thoughts to hee-
diousness, I have no call to be bonny. I 'm a man
that gets through with my day's business, and let
that suffice."

The ring of sarcasm had died out of his voice
as he went on; the plain words became invested
with some of the dignity of the justice-seat.

" It would be telling you if you could say as
much," the speaker resumed. " But ye cannot.
Ye Ve been reading some of my cases, ye say.
But it was not for the law in them, it was to spy
out your faither's nakedness, a fine employment

46 WEIR OF HERMISTON

in a son. You 're splairging ; you 're running at
lairge in life like a wild nowt. It 's impossible you
should think any longer of coming to the Bar.
You 're not fit for it ; no splairger is. And another
thing : son of mines or no son of mines, you have
flung fylement in public on one of the Senators of
the Coallege of Justice, and I would make it my
business to see that ye were never admitted there
yourself. There is a kind of a decency to be ob-
servit. Then comes the next of it — what am I
to do with ye next ? Ye '11 have to find some kind
of a trade, for I '11 never support ye in idleset.
What do ye fancy ye '11 be fit for ? The pulpit ?
Na, they could never get diveenity into that bloack-
head. Him that the law of man whammles is no
likely to do muckle better by the law of God . What
would ye make of hell ? Wouldna your gorge rise
at that ? Na, there 's no room for splairgers under
the fower quarters of John Calvin. What else is
there? Speak up. Have ye got nothing of your
own ? "

" Father, let me go to the Peninsula," said
Archie. " That 's all I 'm fit for — to fight."

"All? quo' he!" returned the Judge. "And
it would be enough too, if I thought it. But I '11
never trust ye so near the French, you that 's so
Frenchifeed."

" You do me injustice there, sir," said Archie.
" I am loyal ; I will not boast ; but any interest I
may have ever felt in the French "

" Have ye been so loyal to me? " interrupted his
father.

WEIR OF HERMISTON 47

There came no reply.

" I think not," continued Hermiston. " And I
would send no man to be a servant to the King,
God bless him! that has proved such a shauchling
son to his own faither. You can splairge here on
Edinburgh street, and where 's the hairm ? It
doesna play buff on me! And if there were twenty
thousand eediots like yourself, sorrow a Duncan
Jopp would hang the fewer. But there 's no
splairging possible in a camp ; and if you were to
go to it, you would find out for yourself whether
Lord Well'n'ton approves of caapital punishment
or not. You a sodger ! " he cried, with a sudden
burst of scorn. " Ye auld wife, the sodgers would
bray at ye like cuddies ! "

As at the drawing of a curtain, Archie was
aware of some illogicality in his position, and stood
abashed. He had a strong impression, besides, of
the essential valour of the old gentleman before
him, how conveyed it would be hard to say.

" Well, have ye no other proposeetion ? " said
my lord again.

" You have taken this so calmly, sir, that I can-
not but stand ashamed," began Archie.

" I 'm nearer voamiting, though, than you would
fancy," said my lord.

The blood rose to Archie's brow.

" I Deg your pardon, I should have said that
you had accepted my affront. ... I admit it was
an affront ; I did not think to apologise, but I do,
I ask your pardon ; it will not be so again, I pass
you my word of honour. ... I should have said

48 WEIR OF HERMISTON

that I admired your magnanimity with — this —
offender," Archie concluded with a gulp.

" I have no other son, ye see," said Hermiston.
" A bonny one I have gotten ! But I must just do
the best I can wi' him, and what am I to do ? If ye
had been younger, I would have wheepit ye for this
rideeculous exhibeetion. The way it is, I have just
to grin and bear. But one thing is to be clearly
understood. As a faither, I must grin and bear
it ; but if I had been the Lord Advocate instead of
the Lord Justice-Clerk, son or no son, Mr. Erchi-
bald Weir would have been in a jyle the night."

Archie was now dominated. Lord Hermiston
was coarse and cruel ; and yet the son was aware
of a bloomless nobility, an ungracious abnegation
of the man's self in the man's office. / At every
word, this sense of the greatness of Lord Hermis-
ton's spirit struck more home; and along with it
that of his own impotence, who had struck — and
perhaps basely struck — at his own father, and
not reached so far as to have even nettled him.

" I place myself in your hands without reserve,"
he said.

" That 's the first sensible word I 've had of ye
the night," said Hermiston. " I can tell ye, that
would have been the end of it, the one way or the
other ; but it 's better ye should come there your-
self, than what I would have had to hirstle ye.
Weel, by my way of it — and my way is the best —
there 's just the one thing it 's possible that ye might
be with decency, and that 's a laird. Ye '11 be out of
hairm's way at the least of it. If ye have to rowt,

WEIR OF HERMISTON 49

ye can rowt amang the kye; and the maist feck
of the caapital punishment ye 're like to come
across '11 be guddling trouts. Now, I 'm for no
I idle lairdies ; every man has to work, if it 's only
j at peddling ballants ; to work, or to be wheeped, or
to be haangit. If I set ye down at Hermiston, I '11
have to see you work that place the way it has
never been workit yet; ye must ken about the
sheep like a herd ; ye must be my grieve there, and
I '11 see that I gain by ye. Is that understood ? "
" I will do my best," said Archie.
" Well, then, I '11 send Kirstie word the morn,
and ye can go yourself the day after," said Hermis-
ton. " And just try to be less of an eediot ! " he
concluded, with a freezing smile, and turned im-
mediately to the papers on his desk.

CHAPTER IV

OPINION OF THE BENCH

LATE the same night, after a disordered walk,
Archie was admitted into Lord Glenal-
-J mond's dining-room where he sat, with a
book upon his knee, beside three frugal coals of
fire. In his robes upon the Bench, Glenalmond
had a certain air of burliness: plucked of these,
it was a may-pole of a man that rose unsteadily
from his chair to give his visitor welcome. Archie
had suffered much in the last days, he had suf-
fered again that evening; his face was white and
drawn, his eyes wild and dark. But Lord Glen-
almond greeted him without the least mark of
surprise or curiosity.

" Come in, come in," said he. " Come in and
take a seat. Carstairs " (to his servant), "make
up the fire, and then you can bring a bit of supper,"
and again to Archie, with a very trivial accent : " I
was half expecting you," he added.

" No supper," said Archie. " It is impossible
that I should eat."

" Not impossible," said the tall old man, laying
his hand upon his shoulder, " and, if you will be-
lieve me, necessary."

WEIR OF HERM1STON 51

"You know what brings me?" said Archie, as
soon as the servant had left the room.

" I have a guess, I have a guess," replied Glen-
almond. " We will talk of it presently — when
Carstairs has come and gone, and you have had a
piece of my good Cheddar cheese and a pull at the
porter tankard : not before."

" It is impossible I should eat," repeated
Archie.

"Tut, tut!" said Lord Glenalmond. "You
have eaten nothing to-day, and, I venture to add,
nothing yesterday. There is no case that may
not be made worse; this may be a very disagree-
able business, but if you were to fall sick and die,
it would be still more so, and for all concerned —
for all concerned."

" I see you must know all," said Archie.
" Where did you hear it? "

" In the mart of scandal, in the Parliament
House," said Glenalmond. " It runs riot below
among the Bar and the public, but it sifts up to us
upon the Bench, and rumour has some of her voices
even in the divisions."

Carstairs returned at this moment, and rapidly
laid out a little supper ; during which Lord Glenal-
mond spoke at large and a little vaguely on in-
different subjects, so that it might be rather said of
him that he made a cheerful noise, than that he
contributed to human conversation; and Archie
sat upon the other side, not heeding him, brooding
over his wrongs and errors.

But so soon as the servant was gone, he broke

52 WEIR OF HERMISTON

forth again at once. " Who told my father ? Who
dared to tell him ? Could it have been you ? "

" No, it was not me," said the Judge ; " although
— to be quite frank with you, and after I had seen
and warned you — it might have been me. I believe
it was Glenkindie."

" That shrimp ! " cried Archie.

" As you say, that shrimp," returned my lord ;
" although really it is scarce a fitting mode of ex-
pression for one of the Senators of the College of
Justice. We were hearing the parties in a long,
crucial case, before the fifteen; Creech was mov-
ing at some length for an infeftment; when
I saw Glenkindie lean forward to Hermiston with
his hand over his mouth and make him a secret
communication. No one could have guessed its
nature from your father; from Glenkindie, yes,
his malice sparkled out of him a little grossly. But
your father, no. A man of granite. The next
moment he pounced upon Creech. ' Mr Creech/
says he, ' I '11 take a look of that sasine,' and for
thirty minutes after," said Glenalmond, with a
smile, " Messrs. Creech and Co. were fighting a
pretty up-hill battle, which resulted, I need hardly
add, in their total rout. The case was dismissed.
No, I doubt if ever I heard Hermiston better in-
spired. He was literally rejoicing in apicibus
juris"

Archie was able to endure no longer. He thrust
his plate away and interrupted the deliberate and
insignificant stream of talk. " Here," he said,
" I have made a fool of myself, if I have not made

WEIR OF HERMISTON 53

something worse. Do you judge between us —
judge between a father and a son. I can speak to
you; it is not like ... I will tell you what I
feel and what I mean to do; and you shall be the
judge," he repeated.

" I decline jurisdiction," said Glenalmond with
extreme seriousness. " But, my dear boy, if it will
do you any good to talk, and if it will interest you
at all to hear what I may choose to say when I
have heard you, I am quite at your command. Let
an old man say it, for once, and not need to blush 1
I love you like a son."

There came a sudden sharp sound in Archie's
throat. " Ay," he cried, " and there it is ! Love !
Like a son! And how do you think I love my
father?"

" Quietly, quietly," says my lord.

" I will be very quiet," replied Archie. " And
I will be baldly frank. I do not love my father ; I
wonder sometimes if I do not hate him. There 's
my shame; perhaps my sin; at least, and in the
sight of God, not my fault. How was I to love
him? He has never spoken to me, never smiled
upon me; I do not think he ever touched me.
You know the way he talks? You do not talk
so, yet you can sit and hear him without shudder-
ing, and I cannot. My soul is sick when he begins
with it; I could smite him in the mouth. And
all that ■$ nothing. I was at the trial of this Jopp.
You were not there, but you must have heard him
often ; the man 's notorious for it, for being —
look at my position! he's my father and this is

54 WEIR OF HERMISTON

how I have to speak of him — notorious for being
a brute and cruel and a coward. Lord Glenal-
mond, I give you my word, when I came out of that
Court, I longed to die — the shame of it was be-
yond my strength : but I — I " he rose from

his seat and began to pace the room in a disorder.
" Well, who am I ? A boy, who have never been
tried, have never done anything except this two-
penny impotent folly with my father. But I tell
you, my lord, and I know myself, I am at least that
kind of a man — or that kind of a boy, if you pre-
fer it — that I could die in torments rather than
that any one should suffer as that scoundrel suf-
fered. Well, and what have I done ? I see it now.
I have made a fool of myself, as I said in the begin-
ning ; and I have gone back, and asked my father's
pardon, and placed myself wholly in his hands —
and he has sent me to Hermiston," with a wretched
smile, " for life, I suppose — and what can I say?
he strikes me as having done quite right, and let
me off better than I had deserved."

" My poor, dear boy ! " observed Glenalmond.
" My poor dear and, if you will allow me to say so,
very foolish boy! You are only discovering where
you are ; to one of your temperament, or of mine,
a painful discovery. The world was not made for
us ; it was made for ten hundred millions of men,
all different from each other and from us ; there 's
no royal road there, we just have to sclamber and
tumble. Don't think that I am at all disposed to
be surprised; don't suppose that I ever think of
blaming you ; indeed I rather admire ! But there

WEIR OF HERMISTON 55

fall to be offered one or two observations on the
case which occur to me and which (if you will
listen to them dispassionately) may be the means
of inducing you to view the matter more calmly.
First of all, I cannot acquit you of a good deal of
what is called intolerance. You seem to have been
very much offended because your father talks a
little sculduddery after dinner, which it is perfectly
licit for him to do, and which (although I am not
very fond of it myself) appears to be entirely an
affair of taste. Your father, I scarcely like to re-
mind you, since it is so trite a commonplace, is
older than yourself. At least, he is major and sui
juris, and may please himself in the matter of his
conversation. And, do you know, I wonder if he
might not have as good an answer against you
and me? We say we sometimes find him coarse,
but I suspect he might retort that he finds us always
dull. Perhaps a relevant exception.'*

He beamed on Archie, but no smile could be
elicited.

" And now," proceeded the Judge, " for ' Ar-
chibald on Capital Punishment.' This is a very
plausible academic opinion ; of course I do not and
I cannot hold it ; but that 's not to say that many
able and excellent persons have not done so in the
past. Possibly, in the past also, I may have a little
dipped myself in the same heresy. My third client,
or possibly my fourth, was the means of a return in
my opinions. I never saw the man I more believed
in; I would have put my hand in the fire, I
would have gone to the cross for him; and when

56 WEIR OF HERMISTON

it came to trial he was gradually pictured before
me, by undeniable probation, in the light of so
gross, so cold-blooded, and so black-hearted a vil-
lain, that I had a mind to have cast my brief upon
the table. I was then boiling against the man with
even. a more tropical temperature than I had been
boiling for him. But I said to myself : ' No, you
have taken up his case; and because you have
changed your mind it must not be suffered to let
drop. All that rich tide of eloquence that you pre-
pared last night with so much enthusiasm is out
of place, and yet you must not desert him, you
must say something.' So I said something, and I
got him off. It made my reputation. But an ex-
perience of that kind is formative. A man must
not bring his passions to the Bar — or to the
Bench."

This story had slightly rekindled Archie's in-
terest. " I could never deny," he began — "I
mean I can conceive that some men would be bet-
ter dead. But who are we to know all the springs
of God's unfortunate creatures? Who are we to
trust ourselves where it seems that God himself
must think twice before He treads, and to do it
with delight? Yes, with delight. Tigris ut
aspera"

" Perhaps not a pleasant spectacle," said Glen-
almond. " And yet, do you know, I think some-
how a great one."

" I 've had a long talk with him to-night," said
Archie.

" I was supposing so," said Glenalmond.

WEIR OF HERMISTON 57

" And he struck me — I cannot deny that he
struck me as something very big," pursued the
son. " Yes, he is big. He never spoke about him-
self; only about me. I suppose I admired him.
The dreadful part "

" Suppose we did not talk about that," inter-
rupted Glenalmond. " You know it very well, it
cannot in any way help that you should brood upon
it, and I sometimes wonder whether you and I —
who are a pair of sentimentalists — are quite good
judges of plain men."

" How do you mean ? " asked Archie.

"Fair judges, I mean," replied Glenalmond.
"Can we be just to them? Do we not ask too
much ? There was a word of yours just now that
impressed me a little when you asked me who we
were to know all the springs of God's unfortunate
creatures. You applied that, as I understood, to
capital cases only. But does it — I ask myself —
does it not apply all through? Is it any less diffi-
cult to judge of a good man or of a half-good
man, than of the worst criminal at the Bar? And
may not each have relevant excuses ? "

" Ah, but we do not talk of punishing the good,"
cried Archie.

" No, we do not talk of it," said Glenalmond.
" But I think we do it. Your father, for
instance."

" You think I have punished him ? " cried
Archie.

Lord Glenalmond bowed his head.

"I think I have," said Archie. "And the

58 WEIR OF HERMISTON

worst is, I think he feels it! How much, who can
tell, with such a being? But I think he does."

" And I am sure of it," said Glenalmond.

" Has he spoken to you, then? " cried Archie.

" Oh, no," replied the Judge.

" I tell you honestly," said Archie, " I want to
make it up to him. I will go, I have already
pledged myself to go, to Hermiston. That was to
him. And now I pledge myself to you, in the sight
of God, that I will close my mouth on capital
punishment and all other subjects where our views
may clash, for — how long shall I say ? when shall
I have sense enough ? — ten years. Is that well ? "

" It is well," said my lord.

" As far as it goes," said Archie. " It is
enough as regards myself, it is to lay down enough
of my conceit. But as regards him, whom I have
publicly insulted ? What am I to do to him ? How
do you pay attentions to a — an Alp like that ? "

* Only in one way," replied Glenalmond.
" Only by obedience, punctual, prompt, and
scrupulous."

" And I promise that he shall have it," answered
Archie. " I offer you my hand in pledge of it."

" And I take your hand as a solemnity," re-
plied the Judge. " God bless you, my dear, and
enable you to keep your promise. God guide you
in the true way, and spare your days, and preserve
to you your honest heart." At that, he kissed
the young man upon the forehead in a gracious,
distant, antiquated way; and instantly launched,
with a marked change of voice, into another

WEIR OF HERMISTON 59

subject. " And now, let us replenish the tankard ;
and I believe, if you will try my Cheddar again,
you would find you had a better appetite. The
Court has spoken, and the case is dismissed."

" No, there is one thing I must say," cried
Archie. " I must say it in justice to himself. I
know — I believe faithfully, slavishly, after our
talk — he will never ask me anything unjust. I
am proud to feel it, that we have that much in
common, I am proud to say it to you."

The Judge, with shining eyes, raised his tank-
ard. " And I think perhaps that we might permit
ourselves a toast," said he. " I should like to pro-
pose the health of a man very different from me
and very much my superior — a man from whom
I have often differed, who has often (in the trivial
expression) rubbed me the wrong way, but whom
I have never ceased to respect and, I may add, to be
not a little afraid of. Shall I give you his name? "

" The Lord Justice-Clerk, Lord Hermiston,"
said Archie, almost with gaiety; and the pair
drank the toast deeply.

It was not precisely easy to re-establish, after
these emotional passages, the natural flow of con-
versation. But the Judge eked out what was want-
ing with kind looks, produced his snuff-box (which
was very rarely seen) to fill in a pause, and at last,
despairing of any further social success, was upon
the point of getting down a book to read a favour-
ite passage, when there came a rather startling
summons at the front door, and Carstairs ushered
in my Lord Glenkindie, hot from a midnight

So WEIR OF HERMISTON

supper. I am not aware that Glenkindie was
ever a beautiful object, being short, and gross-
bodied, and with an expression of sensuality com-
parable to a bear's. At that moment, coming in
hissing from many potations, with a flushed coun-
tenance and blurred eyes, he was strikingly
contrasted with the tall, pale, kingly figure of Glen-
almond. A rush of confused thought came over
Archie — of shame that this was one of his
father's elect friends; of pride, that at the least
of it Hermiston could carry his liquor ; and last of
all, of rage, that he should have here under his
eye the man that had betrayed him. And then
that too passed away; and he sat quiet, biding
his opportunity.

The tipsy Senator plunged at once into an expla-
nation with Glenalmond. There was a point re-
served yesterday, he had been able to make neither
head nor tail of it, and seeing lights in the house,
he had just dropped in for a glass of porter — and
at this point he became aware of the third person.
Archie saw the cod's mouth and the blunt lips of
Glenkindie gape at him for a moment, and the
recognition twinkle in his eyes.

" Who 's this? " said he. " What? is this pos-
sibly you, Don Quickshot? And how are ye?
And how 's your father ? And what 's all this we
hear of you ? It seems you 're a most extraordi-
nary leveller, by all tales. No king, no parliaments,
and your gorge rises at the macers, worthy men!
Hoot, too! Dear, dear me! Your father's son
too! Most rideekulous ! "

WEIR OF HERMISTON 61

Archie was on his feet, flushing a little at the
reappearance of his unhappy figure of speech, but
perfectly self-possessed. " My lord — and you,
Lord Glenalmond, my dear friend," he began,
" this is a happy chance for me, that I can make
my confession and offer my apologies to two of
you at once.,,

" Ah, but I don't know about that. Confession ?
It '11 be judeecial, my young friend," cried the
jocular Glenkindie. " And I 'm afraid to listen to
ye. Think if ye were to make me a coanvert ! "

" If you would allow me, my lord," returned
Archie, " what I have to say is very serious to me ;
and be pleased to be humourous after I am gone."

" Remember, I '11 hear nothing against the
macers ! " put in the incorrigible Glenkindie.

But Archie continued as though he had not
spoken. " I have played, both yesterday and to-
day, a part for which I can only offer the excuse of
youth. I was so unwise as to go to an execution;
it seems, I made a scene at the gallows; not con-
tent with which, I spoke the same night in a college
society against capital punishment. This is the
extent of what I have done, and in case you hear
more alleged against me, I protest my innocence.
I have expressed my regret already to my father,
who is so good as to pass my conduct over — in a
degree, and upon the condition that I am to leave
my law studies." . . .

CHAPTER V

WINTER ON THE MOORS
I. AT HERMISTON

r "^HE road to Hermiston runs for a great
part of the way up the valley of a stream,
JL a favourite with anglers and with midges,
full of falls and pools, and shaded by willows and
natural woods of birch. Here and there, but at
great distances, a by-way branches off, and a gaunt
farmhouse may be descried above in a fold of the
hill ; but the more part of the time, the road would
be quite empty of passage and the hills of habita-
tion. Hermiston parish is one of the least popu-
lous in Scotland; and, by the time you came that
length, you would scarce be surprised at the inimi-
table smallness of the kirk, a dwarfish, ancient place
seated for fifty, and standing in a green by the
burnside among twoscore gravestones. The manse
close by, although no more than a cottage, is
surrounded by the brightness of a flower-garden
and the straw roofs of bees; and the whole col-
ony, kirk and manse, garden and graveyard, finds
harbourage in a grove of rowans, and is all the year
round in a great silence broken only by the drone
of the bees, the tinkle of the burn, and the bell

WEIR OF HERMISTON 63

on Sundays. A mile beyond the kirk the road
leaves the valley by a precipitous ascent, and brings
you a little after to the place of Hermiston, where
it conies to an end in the back-yard before the
coach-house. All beyond and about is the great
field of the hills; the plover, the curlew, and the
lark cry there; the wind blows as it blows in a
ship's rigging, hard and cold and pure; and the
hilltops huddle one behind another like a herd of
cattle into the sunset*-*

The house was sixty years old, unsightly, com-
fortable; a farmyard and a kitchen garden on the
left, with a fruit wall where little hard green pears
came to their maturity about the end of October.

The policy (as who should say the park) was
of some extent, but very ill reclaimed ; heather and
moorfowl had crossed the boundary wall and
spread and roosted within; and it would have
tasked a landscape gardener to say where policy
ended and unpolicied nature began. My lord had
been led by the influence of Mr. Sheriff Scott into
a considerable design of planting ; many acres were
accordingly set out with fir, and the little feathery
besoms gave a false scale and lent a strange air of
a toy-shop to the moors. A great, rooty sweetness
of bogs was in the air, and at all seasons an infinite
melancholy piping of hill birds. Standing so high
and with so little shelter, it was a cold, exposed
house, splashed by showers, drenched by continu-
ous rains that made the gutters to spout, beaten
upon and buffeted by all the winds of heaven ; and
the prospect would be often black with tempest,

64 WEIR OF HERMISTON

and often white with the snows of winter. But the
house was wind and weather proof, the hearths
were kept bright, and the rooms pleasant with live
fires of peat; and Archie might sit of an evening
and hear the squalls bugle on the moorland, and
watch the fire prosper in the earthy fuel, and the
smoke winding up the chimney, and drink deep of
the pleasures of shelter.

Solitary as the place was, Archie did not want
neighbours. Every night, if he chose, he might go
down to the manse and share a " brewst " of toddy
with the minister — a hare-brained ancient gentle-
man, long and light and still active, though his
knees were loosened with age, and his voice broke
continually in childish trebles — and his lady wife,
a heavy, comely dame, without a word to say for
herself beyond good-even and good-day. Harum-
scarum, clodpole young lairds of the neighbour-
hood paid him the compliment of a visit. Young
Hay of Romanes rode down to call, on his crop-
eared pony ; young Pringle of Drumanno came up
on his bony grey. Hay remained on the hospi-
table field, and must be carried to bed ; Pringle got
somehow to his saddle about 3 a. m., and (as
Archie stood with the lamp on the upper doorstep)
lurched, uttered a senseless view halloa, and van-
ished out of the small circle of illumination like
a wraith. Yet a minute or two longer the clat-
ter of his break-neck flight was audible, then it was
cut off by the intervening steepness of the hill ; and
again, a great while after, the renewed beating of
phantom horse-hoofs, far in the valley of the

WEIR OF HERMISTON 65

Hermiston, showed that the horse at least, if not his
rider, was still on the homeward way.

There was a Tuesday club at the " Crosskeys "
in Crossmichael, where the young bloods of the
country-side congregated and drank deep on a per-
centage of the expense, so that he was left gainer
who should have drunk the most. Archie had no
great mind to this diversion, but he took it like a
duty laid upon him, went with a decent regularity,
did his manfullest with the liquor, held up his head
in the local jests, and got home again and was able
to put up his horse, to the admiration of Kirstie
and the lass that helped her. He dined at Driffel,
supped at Windielaws. He went to the new year's
ball at Huntsfield and was made welcome, and
thereafter rode to hounds with my Lord Muirfell,
upon whose name, as that of a legitimate Lord of
Parliament, in a work so full of Lords of Session,
my pen should pause reverently. Yet the same
fate attended him here as in Edinburgh. The habit
of solitude tends to perpetuate itself, and an aus-
terity of which he was quite unconscious, and a
pride which seemed arrogance, and perhaps was
chiefly shyness, discouraged and offended his new
companions. Hay did not return more than twice,
Pringle never at all, and there came a time when
Archie even desisted from the Tuesday Club, and
became in all things — what he had had the name
of almost from the first — the Recluse of Hermis-
ton. High-nosed Miss Pringle of Drumanno and
high-stepping Miss Marshall of the Mains were
understood to have had a difference of opinion about

5

66 WEIR OF HERMISTON

him the day after the ball — he was none the wiser,
he could not suppose himself to be remarked by
these entrancing ladies. At the ball itself my Lord
Muirfell's daughter, the Lady Flora, spoke to him
twice, and the second time with a touch of appeal,
so that her colour rose and her voice trembled a
little in his ear, like a passing grace in music. He
stepped back with a heart on fire, coldly and not
ungracefully excused himself, and a little after
watched her dancing with young Drumanno of the
empty laugh, and was harrowed at the sight, and
raged to himself that this was a world in which it
was given to Drumanno to please, and to himself
only to stand aside and envy. He seemed excluded,
as of right, from the favour of such society —
seemed to extinguish mirth wherever he came, and
was quick to feel the wound, and desist, and retire
into solitude. If he had but understood the figure
he presented, and the impression he made on these
bright eyes and tender hearts; if he had but
guessed that the Recluse of Hermiston, young,
graceful, well spoken, but always cold, stirred the
maidens of the county with the charm of Byronism
when Byronism was new, it may be questioned
whether his destiny might not even yet have been
modified. It may be questioned, and I think it
should be doubted. It was in his horoscope to be
parsimonious of pain to himself, or of the chance of
pain, even to the avoidance of any opportunity of
pleasure; to have a Roman sense of duty, an in-
stinctive aristocracy of manners and taste; to be
the son of Adam Weir and Jean Rutherford.

WEIR OF HER MIS TON 67

II. KIRSTIE

Kirstie was now over fifty, and might have sat
to a sculptor. Long of limb and still light of foot,
deep-breasted, robust-loined, her golden hair not
yet mingled with any trace of silver, the years had
but caressed and embellished her. By the lines of
a rich and vigorous maternity, she seemed destined
to be the bride of heroes and the mother of their
children; and behold, by the iniquity of fate, she
had passed through her youth alone, and drew near
to the confines of age, a childless woman. The
tender ambitions that she had received at birth had
been, by time and disappointment, diverted into a
certain barren zeal of industry and fury of interfer-
ence. She carried her thwarted ardours into house-
work, she washed floors with her empty heart. If
she could not win the love of one with love, she
must dominate all by her temper. Hasty, wordy,
and wrathful, she had a drawn quarrel with most
of her neighbours, and with the others not much
more than armed neutrality. The grieve's wife
had been " sneisty " ; the sister of the gardener,
who kept house for him, had shown herself " up-
sitten " ; and she wrote to Lord Hermiston about
once a year demanding the discharge of the
offenders, and justifying the demand by much
wealth of detail. For it must not be supposed that
the quarrel rested with the wife and did not take in
the husband also — or with the gardener's sister,
and did not speedily include the gardener himself.

68 WEIR OF HERMISTON

As the upshot of all this petty quarrelling and
intemperate speech, she was practically excluded
(like a lightkeeper on his tower) from the comforts
of human association; except with her own in-
door drudge, who, being but a lassie and entirely
at her mercy, must submit to the shifty weather of
" the mistress's " moods without complaint, and be
willing to take buffets or caresses according to
the temper of the hour. To Kirstie, thus situate
and in the Indian summer of her heart, which
was slow to submit to age, the gods sent this
equivocal good thing of Archie's presence. She
had known him in the cradle and paddled him when
he misbehaved; and yet, as she had not so much
as set eyes on him since he was eleven and had his
last serious illness, the tall, slender, refined, and
rather melancholy young gentleman of twenty
came upon her with the shock of a new acquaint-
ance. He was " Young Hermiston," " the laird
himsel' " ; he had an air of distinctive superiority,
a cold straight glance of his black eyes, that
abashed the woman's tantrums in the beginning,
and therefore the possibility of any quarrel was
excluded. He was new, and therefore immediately
aroused her curiosity; he was reticent, and kept
it awake. And lastly he was dark and she fair,
and he was male and she female, the everlasting
fountains of interest.

Her feeling partook of the loyalty of a clans-
woman, the hero-worship of a maiden aunt, and the
idolatry due to a god. No matter what he had
asked of her, ridiculous or tragic, she would have

WEIR OF HERMISTON 69

done it and joyed to do it. Her passion, for it
was nothing less, entirely filled her. It was a rich
physical pleasure to make his bed or light his lamp
for him when he was absent, to pull off his wet
boots or wait on him at dinner when he returned.
A young man who should have so doted on the
idea, moral and physical, of any woman, might be
properly described as being in love, head and heels,
and would have behaved himself accordingly.
But Kirstie — though her heart leaped at his
coming footsteps — though, when he patted her
shoulder, her face brightened for the day — had
not a hope or thought beyond the present moment
and its perpetuation to the end of time. Till the
end of time she would have had nothing altered,
but still continue delightedly to serve her idol, and
be repaid (say twice in the month) with a clap on
the shoulder.

I have said her heart leaped — it is the accepted
phrase. But rather, when she was alone in any
chamber of the house, and heard his foot passing
on the corridors, something in her bosom rose
slowly until her breath was suspended, and as
slowly fell again with a deep sigh, when the
steps had passed and she was disappointed of her
eyes' desire. This perpetual hunger and thirst of
his presence kept her all day on the alert. When
he went forth at morning, she would stand and
follow him with admiring looks. As it grew late
and drew to the time of his return, she would steal
forth to a corner of the policy wall and be seen
standing there sometimes by the hour together,

7o WEIR OF HERMISTON

gazing with shaded eyes, waiting the exquisite and
barren pleasure of his view a mile off on the moun-
tains. When at night she had trimmed and
gathered the fire, turned down his bed, and laid out
his night-gear — when there was no more to be
done for the king's pleasure, but to remember him
fervently in her usually very tepid prayers, and go
to bed brooding upon his perfections, his future
career, and what she should give him the next day
for dinner — there still remained before her one
more opportunity ; she was still to take in the tray
and say good-night. Sometimes Archie would
glance up from his book with a preoccupied nod
and a perfunctory salutation which was in truth
a dismissal; sometimes — and by degrees more
often — the volume would be laid aside, he would
meet her coming with a look of relief ; and the con-
versation would be engaged, last out the supper,
and be prolonged till the small hours by the waning
fire. It was no wonder that Archie was fond of
company after his solitary days ; and Kirstie, upon
her side, exerted all the arts of her vigorous nature
to ensnare his attention. She would keep back
some piece of news during dinner to be fired off
with the entrance of the supper tray, and form as
it were the lever de rideau of the evening's enter-
tainment. Once he had heard her tongue wag, she
made sure of the result. From one subject to
another she moved by insidious transitions, fearing
the least silence, fearing almost to give him time for
an answer lest it should slip into a hint of separa-
tion. Like so many people of her class, she was a

WEIR OF HERMISTON 71

brave narrator; her place was on the hearth-rug
and she made it a rostrum, miming her stories as
she told them, fitting them with vital detail, spin-
ning them out with endless " quo' he's " and
" quo' she's," her voice sinking into a whisper over
the supernatural or the horrific; until she would
suddenly spring up in affected surprise, and point-
ing to the clock, " Mercy, Mr. Archie ! " she would
say, " Whatten a time o' night is this of it ! God
forgive me for a daft wife!" So it befell, by
good management, that she was not only the first
to begin these nocturnal conversations, but inva-
riably the first to break them off; so she managed
to retire and not to be dismissed.

III. A BORDER FAMILY

Such an unequal intimacy has never been un-
common in Scotland, where the clan spirit sur-
vives; where the servant tends to spend her life
in the same service, a helpmeet at first, then a
tyrant, and at last a pensioner ; where, besides, she
is not necessarily destitute of the pride of birth, but
is, perhaps, like Kirstie, a connection of her mas-
ter's, and at least knows the legend of her own
family, and may count kinship with some illus-
trious dead. For that is the mark of the Scot of
all classes: that he stands in an attitude towards
the past unthinkable to Englishmen, and remem-
bers and cherishes the memory of his forbears,
good or bad ; and there burns alive in him a sense

72 WEIR OF HERMISTON

of identity with the dead even to the twentieth gen-
eration. No more characteristic instance could be
found than in the family of Kirstie Elliott. They
were all, and Kirstie the first of all, ready and eager
to pour forth the particulars of their genealogy,
embellished with every detail that memory had
handed down or fancy fabricated; and, behold!
from every ramification of that tree there dangled
a halter. The Elliotts themselves have had a
chequered history; but these Elliotts deduced, be-
sides, from three of the most unfortunate of the
border clans — the Nicksons, the Ellwalds, and the
Crozers. One ancestor after another might be seen
appearing a moment out of the rain and the hill
mist upon his furtive business, speeding home, per-
haps, with a paltry booty of lame horses and lean
kine, or squealing and dealing death in some moor-
land feud of the ferrets and the wildcats. One after
another closed his obscure adventures in mid-air,
triced up to the arm of the royal gibbet or the
Baron's dule-tree. For the rusty blunderbuss of
Scots criminal justice, which usually hurts nobody
but jurymen, became a weapon of precision for the
Nicksons, the Ellwalds, and the Crozers. The ex-
hilaration of their exploits seemed to haunt the
memories of their descendants alone, and the shame
to be forgotten. Pride glowed in their bosoms
to publish their relationship to " Andrew Ellwald of
the Laverockstanes, called - Unchancy Dand,' who
was justifeed wi' seeven mair of the same name at
Jeddart in the days of King James the Sax." In
all this tissue of crime and misfortune, the Elliotts

WEIR OF HERMISTON 73

of Cauldstaneslap had one boast which must appear
legitimate: the males were gallows-birds, born
outlaws, petty thieves, and deadly brawlers; but
according to the same tradition, the females were
all chaste and faithful. The power of ancestry on
the character is not limited to the inheritance of
cells. If I buy ancestors by the gross from the
benevolence of Lion King at Arms, my grandson
(if he is Scottish) will feel a quickening emulation
of their deeds. The men of the Elliotts were proud,
lawless, violent as of right, cherishing and pro-
longing a tradition. In like manner with the
women. And the woman, essentially passionate
and reckless, who crouched on the rug, in the shine
of the peat fire, telling these tales, had cherished
through life a wild integrity of virtue.

Her father Gilbert had been deeply pious, a
savage disciplinarian in the antique style, and
withal a notorious smuggler. " I mind when I was
a bairn getting mony a skelp and being shoo'd to
bed like pou'try," she would say. " That would be
when the lads and their bit kegs were on the road.
We Ve had the riffraff of two-three counties in our
kitchen, mony's the time, betwix' the twelve and
the three; and their lanterns would be standing in
the forecourt, ay, a score o' them at once. But
there was nae ungodly talk permitted at Cauld-
staneslap; my faither was a consistent man in
walk and conversation; just let slip an aith, and
there was the door to ye ! He had that zeal for the
Lord, it was a fair wonder to hear him pray, but
the faimily has aye had a gift that way." This

74 WEIR OF HERMISTON

father was twice married, once to a dark woman of
the old Ellwald stock, by whom he had Gilbert,
presently of Cauldstaneslap ; and, secondly, to the
mother of Kirstie. " He was an auld man when
he married her, a fell auld man wi' a muckle voice
— you could hear him rowting from the top o' the
kye-stairs," she said ; " but for her, it appears, she
was a perfit wonder. It was gentle blood she had,
Mr. Archie, for it was your ain. The country-side
gaed gyte about her and her gowden hair. Mines
is no to be mentioned wi' it, and there 's few
weemen has mair hair than what I have, or yet a
bonnier colour. Often would I tell my dear Miss
Jeannie — that was your mother, dear, she was
cruel ta'en up about her hair, it was unco tender,
ye see — * Houts, Miss Jeannie/ I would say, ' just
fling your washes and your French dentifrishes in
the back o' the fire, for that 's the place for them ;
and awa' down to a burnside, and wash yersel in
cauld hill water, and dry your bonny hair in the
caller wind o' the muirs, the way that my mother
aye washed hers, and that I have aye made it a
practice to have washen mines — just you do what
I tell ye, my dear, and ye '11 give me news of it !
Ye '11 have hair, and routh of hair, a pigtail as
thick 's my arm/ I said, ' and the bonniest colour
like the clear gowden guineas, so as the lads in
kirk '11 no can keep their eyes off it ! ' Weel, it
lasted out her time, puir thing! I cuttit a lock of
it upon her corp that was lying there sae cauld.
I '11 show it ye some of thir days if ye 're good.
But, as I was sayin', my mither "

WEIR OF HERMISTON 75

On the death of the father there remained
golden-haired Kirstie, who took service with her
distant kinsfolk, the Rutherfords, and black-a-vised
Gilbert, twenty years older, who farmed the Cauld-
staneslap, married, and begot four sons between
1773 and 1784, and a daughter, like a postscript,
in '97, the year of Camperdown and Cape St. Vin-
cent. It seemed it was a tradition of the family to
wind up with a belated girl. In 1804, at the age
of sixty, Gilbert met an end that might be called
heroic. He was due home from market any time
from eight at night till five in the morning, and in
any condition from the quarrelsome to the speech-
less, for he maintained to that age the goodly cus-
toms of the Scots farmer. It was known on this
occasion that he had a good bit of money to bring
home; the word had gone round loosely. The
laird had shown his guineas, and if anybody had
but noticed it, there was an ill-looking, vagabond
crew, the scum of Edinburgh, that drew out of the
market long ere it was dusk and took the hill-road
by Hermiston, where it was not to be believed that
they had lawful business. One of the country-side,
one Dickieson, they took with them to be their
guide, and dear he paid for it ! Of a sudden, in the
ford of the Broken Dykes, this vermin clan fell on
the laird, six to one, and him three parts asleep,
having drunk hard. But it is ill to catch an Elliott.
For awhile, in the night and the black water that
was deep as to his saddle-girths, he wrought with
his staff like a smith at his stithy, and great was the
sound of oaths and blows. With that the ambus-

76 WEIR OF HERMISTON

cade was burst, and he rode for home with a pistol-
ball in him, three knife-wounds, the loss of his
front teeth, a broken rib and bridle, and a dying
horse. That was a race with death that the laird
rode! In the mirk night, with his broken bridle
and his head swimming, he dug his spurs to the
rowels in the horse's side, and the horse, that was
even worse off than himself, the poor creature!
screamed out loud like a person as he went, so that
the hills echoed with it, and the folks at Cauld-
staneslap got to their feet about the table and
looked at each other with white faces. The horse
fell dead at the yard gate, the laird won the length
of the house and fell there on the threshold. To
the son that raised him he gave the bag of money.
" Hae," said he. All the way up the thieves had
seemed to him to be at his heels, but now the hallu-
cination left him — he saw them again in the place
of the ambuscade — and the thirst of vengeance
seized on his dying mind. Raising himself and
pointing with an imperious finger into the black
night from which he had come, he uttered the
single command, " Brocken Dykes," and fainted.
He had never been loved, but he had been feared
in honour. At that sight, at that word, gasped out
at them from a toothless and bleeding mouth, the
old Elliott spirit awoke with a shout in the four
sons. " Wanting the hat," continues my author,
Kirstie, whom I but haltingly follow, for she told
this tale like one inspired, " wanting guns, for there
wasnae twa grains o' pouder in the house, wi' nae
mair weepons than their sticks into their hands,

WEIR OF HERMISTON 77

the fower o' them took the road. Only Hob, and
that was the eldest, hunkered at the door-sill where
the blood had rin, fyled his hand wi' it, and haddit
it up to Heeven in the way o' the auld Border aith.
* Hell shall have her ain again this nicht ! ' he
raired, and rode forth upon his errand.' ' It was
three miles to Broken Dykes, down-hill, and a
sore road. Kirstie has seen men from Edinburgh
dismounting there in plain day to lead their horses.
But the four brothers rode it as if Auld Hornie
were behind and Heaven in front. Come to the
ford, and there was Dickieson. By all tales, he was
not dead, but breathed and reared upon his elbow,
and cried out to them for help. It was at a grace-
less face that he asked mercy. As soon as Hob
saw, by the glint of the lantern, the eyes shining
and the whiteness of the teeth in the man's face,
" Damn you ! " says he ; " ye hae your teeth, hae
ye ? " and rode his horse to and fro upon that
human remnant. Beyond that, Dandie must dis-
mount with the lantern to be their guide; he was
the youngest son, scarce twenty at the time. " A'
nicht long they gaed in the wet heath and jenni-
pers, and whaur they gaed they neither knew nor
cared, but just followed the bluidstains and the
footprints o' their faither's murderers. And a'
nicht Dandie had his nose to the grund like a
tyke, and the ithers followed and spak' naething,
neither black nor white. There was nae noise to
be heard, but just the sough of the swalled burns,
and Hob, the dour yin, risping his teeth as he
gaed." With the first glint of the morning they

78 WEIR OF HERMISTON

saw they were on the drove road, and at that the
four stopped and had a dram to their breakfasts,
for they knew that Dand must have guided them
right, and the rogues could be but little ahead, hot
foot for Edinburgh by the way of the Pentland
Hills. By eight o'clock they had word of them —
a shepherd had seen four men " uncoly mis-
handled " go by in the last hour. " That 's yin
a piece," says Clem, and swung his cudgel. " Five
o' them ! " says Hob. " God's death, but the
faither was a man ! And him drunk ! " And then
there befell them what my author termed " a sair
misbegowk," for they were overtaken by a posse of
mounted neighbours come to aid in the pursuit.
Four sour faces looked on the reinforcement.
" The deil 's broughten you ! " said Clem, and they
rode thenceforward in the rear of the party with
hanging heads. Before ten they had found and
secured the rogues, and by three of the afternoon,
as they rode up the Vennel with their prisoners, they
were aware of a concourse of people bearing in
their midst something that dripped. " For the
boady of the saxt," pursued Kirstie, " wi' his head
smashed like a hazelnit, had been a' that nicht in
the chairge o' Hermiston Water, and it dunting
it on the stanes, and grunding it on the shallows,
and flinging the deid thing heels-ower-hurdie at
the Fa's o' Spango; and in the first o' the day
Tweed had got a hold o' him and carried him off
like a wind, for it was uncoly swalled and raced
wi' him, bobbing under braesides, and was long
playing with the creature in the drumlie lynns

WEIR OF HERMISTON 79

under the castle, and at the hinder end of all cuist
him up on the starling of Crossmichael brig. Sae
there they were a' thegither at last (for Dickieson
had been brought in on a cart long syne), and folk
could see what mainner o' man my brither had
been that had held his head again sax and saved
the siller, and him drunk ! " Thus died of hon-
ourable injuries and in the savour of fame Gilbert
Elliott of the Cauldstaneslap ; but his sons had
scarce less glory out of the business. Their savage
haste, the skill with which Dand had found and
followed the trail, the barbarity to the wounded
Dickieson (which was like an open secret in the
county) and the doom which it was currently
supposed they had intended for the others, struck
and stirred popular imagination. Some century
earlier the last of the minstrels might have fash-
ioned the last of the ballads out of that Homeric
fight and chase; but the spirit was dead, or had
been reincarnated already in Mr. Sheriff Scott, and
the degenerate moorsmen must be content to tell
the tale in prose and to make of the " Four Black
Brothers " a unit after the fashion of the " Twelve
Apostles " or the " Three Musketeers."

Robert, Gilbert, Clement, and Andrew — in the
proper Border diminutive, Hob, Gib, Clem, and
Dand Elliott — these ballad heroes had much in
common; in particular, their high sense of the
family and the family honour; but they went
diverse ways, and prospered and failed in different
businesses. According to Kirstie, " they had a*
bees in their bonnets but Hob." Hob the laird was,

80 WEIR OF HERMISTON

indeed, essentially a decent man. An elder of the
Kirk, nobody had heard an oath upon his lips, save,
perhaps, thrice or so at the sheep-washing, since
the chase of his father's murderers. The figure
he had shown on that eventful night disappeared
as if swallowed by a trap. He who had ecstati-
cally dipped his hand in the red blood, he who had
ridden down Dickieson, became, from that moment
on, a stiff and rather graceless model of the rustic
proprieties; cannily profiting by the high war
prices, and yearly stowing away a little nest-egg
in the bank against calamity; approved of and
sometimes consulted by the greater lairds for the
massive and placid sense of what he said, when
he could be induced to say anything; and particu-
larly valued by the minister, Mr. Torrance, as a
righthand man in the parish, and a model* to
parents. The transfiguration had been for the
moment only; some Barbarossa, some old Adam
of our ancestors, sleeps in all of us till the fit cir-
cumstance shall call it into action ; and for as sober
as he now seemed, Hob had given once for all the
measure of the devil that haunted him. He was
married, and, by reason of the effulgence of that
legendary night, was adored by his wife. He
had a mob of little lusty, barefoot children who
marched in a caravan the long miles to school, the
stages of whose pilgrimage were marked by acts
of spoliation and mischief, and who were qualified
in the country-side as " fair pests." But in the
house, if " faither was in," they were quiet as mice.
In short, Hob moved through life in a great peace —

WEIR OF HERMISTON 81

the reward of any one who shall have killed his
man, with any formidable and figurative circum-
stance, in the midst of a country gagged and
swaddled with civilisation.

It was a current remark that the Elliotts were
" guid and bad, like sanguishes " ; and certainly
there was a curious distinction, the men of business
coming alternately with the dreamers. The second
brother, Gib, was a weaver by trade, had gone out
early into the world to Edinburgh, and come home
again with his wings singed. There was an exalta-
tion in his nature which had led him to embrace
with enthusiasm the principles of the French Revo-
lution, and had ended by bringing him under the
hawse of my Lord Hermiston in that furious on-
slaught of his upon the Liberals, which sent Muir
and Palmer into exile and dashed the party into
chaff. It was whispered that my lord, in his great
scorn for the movement, and prevailed upon a
little by a sense of neighbourliness, had given Gib
a hint. Meeting him one day in the Potterrow, my
lord had stopped in front of him. " Gib, ye eediot,"
he had said, " what 's this I hear of you ? Poali-
tics, poalitics, poalitics weaver's poalitics, is the
way of it, I hear. If ye are nae a' thegether
dozened with eediocy, ye '11 gang your ways back to
Cauldstaneslap, and ca' your loom, and ca' your
loom, man ! " And Gilbert had taken him at the
word and returned, with an expedition almost to
be called flight, to the house of his father. The
clearest of his inheritance was that family gift of
prayer of which Kirstie had boasted; and the

6

82 WEIR OF HERMISTON

baffled politician now turned his attention to re-
ligious matters — or, as others said, to heresy and
schism. Every Sunday morning he was in Cross-
michael, where he had gathered together, one by
one, a sect of about a dozen persons, who called
themselves " God's Remnant of the True Faith-
ful/' or, for short, "God's Remnant." To the
profane, they were known as " Gib's Deils."
Baillie Sweedie, a noted humourist in the town,
vowed that the proceedings always opened to the
tune of " The Deil Fly Away with the Excise-
man," and that the sacrament was dispensed in
the form of hot whisky toddy; both wicked hits
at the evangelist, who had been suspected of smug-
gling in his youth, and had been overtaken (as
the phrase went) on the streets of Crossmichael
one Fair day. It was known that every Sunday
they prayed for a blessing on the arms of Bona-
parte. For this, " God's Remnant," as they were
" skailing " from the cottage that did duty for
a temple, had been repeatedly stoned by the
bairns, and Gib himself hooted by a squadron of
Border volunteers in which his own brother,
Dand, rode in a uniform and with a drawn sword.
The " Remnant " were believed, besides, to be
" antinomian in principle," which might other-
wise have been a serious charge, but the way
public opinion then blew it was quite swallowed
up and forgotten in the scandal about Bonaparte.
For the rest, Gilbert had set up his loom in an
outhouse at Cauldstaneslap, where he laboured
assiduously six days of the week. His brothers,

WEIR OF HERMISTON 83

appalled by his political opinions and willing to
avoid dissension in the household, spoke but little
to him; he less to them, remaining absorbed in
the study of the Bible and almost constant prayer.
The gaunt weaver was dry-nurse at Cauldstaneslap,
and the bairns loved him dearly. Except when
he was carrying an infant in his arms, he was
rarely seen to smile — as, indeed, there were few
smilers in that family. When his sister-in-law
rallied him, and proposed that he should get a
wife and bairns of his own, since he was so fond
of them, " I have no clearness of mind upon that
point," he would reply. If nobody called him in to
dinner, he stayed out. Mrs. Hob, a hard, unsym-
pathetic woman, once tried the experiment. He
went without food all day, but at dusk, as the light
began to fail him, he came into the house of his
own accord, looking puzzled. " I Ve had a great
gale of prayer upon my speerit," said he. " I
canna mind sae muckle 's what I had for denner."
The creed of God's Remnant was justified in the
life of its founder. "And yet I dinna ken," said
Kirstie. " He *$ maybe no more stockfish than his
neeghbours! He rode wi' the rest o' them, and
had a good stamach to the work, by a' that I
hear ! God's Remnant ! The deil's clavers ! There
wasna muckle Christianity in the way Hob guided
Johnny Dickieson, at the least of it; but Guid
kens! Is he a Christian even? He might be a
Mahommedan or a Deevil or a Fireworshiper, for
what I ken."

The third brother had his name on a door-plate,

84 WEIR OF HERMISTON

no less, in the city of Glasgow. " Mr. Clement
Elliott," as long as your arm. In his case, that
spirit of innovation which had shown itself timidly
in the case of Hob by the admission of new ma-
nures, and which had run to waste with Gilbert
in subversive politics and heretical religions, bore
useful fruit in many ingenious mechanical im-
provements. In boyhood, from his addiction to
strange devices of sticks and string, he had been
counted the most eccentric of the family. But
that was all by now, and he was a partner of his
firm, and looked to die a baillie. He too had mar-
ried, and was rearing a plentiful family in the
smoke and din of Glasgow; he was wealthy, and
could have bought out his brother, the cock-laird,
six times over, it was whispered; and when he
slipped away to Cauldstaneslap for a well-earned
holiday, which he did as often as he was able, he
astonished the neighbours with his broadcloth, his
beaver hat, and the ample plies of his neck-cloth.
Though an eminently solid man at bottom, after
the pattern of Hob, he had contracted a certain
Glasgow briskness and aplomb which set him off.
All the other Elliotts were as lean as a rake, but
Clement was laying on fat, and he panted sorely
when he must get into his boots. Dand said,
chuckling : " Ay, Clem has the elements of a cor-
poration." " A provost and corporation," returned
Clem. And his readiness was much admired.

The fourth brother, Dand, was a shepherd to
his trade, and by starts, when he could bring his
mind to it, excelled in the business. Nobody could

WEIR OF HERMISTON 85

train a dog like Dandie ; nobody, through the peril
of great storms in the winter time, could do more
gallantly. But if his dexterity were exquisite, his
diligence was but fitful ; and he served his brother
for bed and board, and a trifle of pocket-money
when he asked for it. He loved money well
enough, knew very well how to spend it, and could
make a shrewd bargain when he liked. But he
preferred a vague knowledge that he was well to
windward to any counted coins in the pocket; he
felt himself richer so. Hob would expostulate:
" I 'm an amateur herd," Dand would reply : " I '11
keep your sheep to you when I 'm so minded, but
I '11 keep my liberty too. Thir 's no man can coan-
descend on what I 'm worth." Clem would ex-
pound to him the miraculous results of compound
interest, and recommend investments. "Ay, man?"
Dand would say, " and do you think, if I took
Hob's siller, that I wouldna drink it or wear it on
the lassies? And, anyway, my kingdom is no of
this world. Either I 'm a poet or else I 'm noth-
ing." Clem would remind him of old age. " I '11
die young, like Robbie Burns," he would say
stoutly. No question but he had a certain accom-
plishment in minor verse. His " Hermiston Burn,"
with its pretty refrain —

I love to gang thinking whaur ye gang linking,
Hermiston burn, in the howe ;

his "Auld, auld Elliotts, clay-cauld Elliotts, dour,
bauld Elliotts of auld," and his really fascinating
piece about the Praying Weaver's Stone, had

86 WEIR OF HERMISTON

gained him in the neighbourhood the reputation,
still possible in Scotland, of a local bard; and,
though not printed himself, he was recognised by
others who were and who had become famous.
Walter Scott owed to Dandie the text of the " Raid
of Wearie " in the Minstrelsy and made him wel-
come at his house, and appreciated his talents, such
as they were, with all his usual generosity. The
Ettrick Shepherd was his sworn crony ; they would
meet, drink to excess, roar out their lyrics in each
other's faces, and quarrel and make it up again
till bedtime. And besides these recognitions, al-
most to be called official, Dandie was made wel-
come for the sake of his gift through the
farmhouses of several contiguous dales, and was
thus exposed to manifold temptations which he
rather sought than fled. He had figured on the
stool of repentance, for once fulfilling to the letter
the tradition of his hero and model. His hu-
mourous verses to Mr. Torrance on that occasion
— " Kenspeckle here my lane I stand " — unfor-
tunately too indelicate for further citation, ran
through the country like a fiery cross; they were
recited, quoted, paraphrased, and laughed over as
far away as Dumfries on the one hand and Dun-
bar on the other.

These four brothers were united by a close bond,
the bond of that mutual admiration — or rather
mutual hero-worship — which is so strong among
the members of secluded families who have much
ability and little culture. Even the extremes ad-
mired each other. Hob, who had as much poetry

WEIR OF HERMISTON 87

as the tongs, professed to find pleasure in Dand's
verses; Clem, who had no more religion than
Claverhouse, nourished a heartfelt, at least an
open-mouthed, admiration of Gib's prayers; and
Dandie followed with relish the rise of Clem's
fortunes. Indulgence followed hard on the heels
of admiration. The laird, Clem, and Dand, who
were Tories and patriots of the hottest quality, ex-
cused to themselves, with a certain bash fulness, the
radical and revolutionary heresies of Gid. By
another division of the family, the laird, Clem,
and Gib, who were men exactly virtuous, swal-
lowed the dose of Dand's irregularities as a kind
of clog or drawback in the mysterious providence
of God affixed to bards, and distinctly probative of
poetical genius. To appreciate the simplicity of
their mutual admiration, it was necessary to hear
Clem, arrived upon one of his visits, and deal-
ing in a spirit of continuous irony with the affairs
and personalities of that great city of Glasgow
where he lived and transacted business. The vari-
ous personages, ministers of the church, muni-
cipal officers, mercantile big-wigs, whom he had
occasion to introduce, were all alike denigrated,
all served but as reflectors to cast back a flattering
side-light on the house of Cauldstaneslap. The
Provost, for whom Clem by exception entertained
a measure of respect, he would liken to Hob. " He
minds me o' the laird there," he would say. " He
has some of Hob's grand, whun-stane sense, and
the same way with him of steiking his mouth when
he 's no very pleased." And Hob, all unconscious,

88 WEIR OF HERMISTON

would draw down his upper lip and produce, as
if for comparison, the formidable grimace referred
to. The unsatisfactory incumbent of St. Enoch's
Kirk was thus briefly dismissed : " If he had but
twa fingers o' Gib's he would waken them up."
And Gib, honest man! would look down and
secretly smile. Clem was a spy whom they had
sent out into the world of men. He had come
back with the good news that there was nobody
to compare with the Four Black Brothers, no posi-
tion that they would not adorn, no official that
it would not be well they should replace, no in-
terest of mankind, secular or spiritual, which would
not immediately bloom under their supervision.
The excuse of their folly is in two words : scarce
the breadth of a hair divided them from the peas-
antry. The measure of their sense is this: that
these symposia of rustic vanity were kept entirely
within the family, like some secret ancestral prac-
tice. To the world their serious faces were never
deformed by the suspicion of any simper of self-
contentment. Yet it was known. " They hae a
guid pride o' themsel's ! " was the word in the
country-side.

Lastly, in a Border story, there should be added
their " two-names." Hob was The Laird. " Roy
ne puis, prince ne daigne " ; he was the laird
of Cauldstaneslap — say fifty acres — ipsissimus.
Clement was Mr. Elliott, as upon his door-plate,
the earlier Dafty having been discarded as no
longer applicable, and indeed only a reminder of
misjudgment and the imbecility of the public ; and

WEIR OF HERMISTON 89

the youngest, in honour of his perpetual wander-
ings, was known by the sobriquet of Randy Dand.

It will be understood that not all this informa-
tion was communicated by the aunt, who had too
much of the family failing herself to appreciate
it thoroughly in others. But as time went on,
Archie began to observe an omission in the family
chronicle.

" Is there not a girl too? " he asked.

" Ay. Kirstie. She was named from me, or my
grandmother at least — it 's the same thing," re-
turned the aunt, and went on again about Dand,
whom she secretly preferred by reason of his
gallantries.

" But what is your niece like ? " said Archie at
the next opportunity.

" Her ? As black 's your hat ! But I dinna sup-
pose she would maybe be what you would ca'
ill-looked a' thegither. Na, she 's a kind of a hand-
some jaud — a kind o' gipsy," said the aunt, who
had two sets of scales for men and women — or
perhaps it would be more fair to say that she had
three, and the third and the most loaded was for
girls.

" How comes it that I never see her in church? "
said Archie.

" 'Deed, and I believe she 's in Glesgie with
Clem and his wife. A heap good she's like to
get of it! I dinna say for men folk, but where
weemen folk are born, there let them bide. Glory
to God, I was never far'er from here than
Crossmichael."

9o WEIR OF HERMISTON

In the meantime it began to strike Archie as
strange, that while she thus sang the praises of
her kinsfolk, and manifestly relished their virtues
and (I may say) their vices like a thing creditable
to herself, there should appear not the least sign
of cordiality between the house of Hermiston and
that of Cauldstaneslap. Going to church of a
Sunday, as the lady housekeeper stepped with her
skirts kilted, three tucks of her white petticoat
showing below, and her best India shawl upon her
back (if the day were fine) in a pattern of radiant
dyes, she would sometimes overtake her relatives
preceding her more leisurely in the same direction.
Gib of course was absent: by skriegh of day he
had been gone to Crossmichael and his fellow
heretics; but the rest of the family would be seen
marching in open order: Hob and Dand, stiff-
necked, straight-backed six-footers, with severe
dark faces, and their plaids about their shoulders;
the convoy of children scattering ( in a state of high
polish) on the wayside, and every now and again
collected by the shrill summons of the mother ; and
the mother herself, by a suggestive circumstance
which might have afforded matter of thought to
a more experienced observer than Archie, wrapped
in a shawl nearly identical with Kirstie's but a
thought more gaudy and conspicuously newer. At
the sight, Kirstie grew more tall — Kirstie showed
her classical profile, nose in air and nostril spread,
the pure blood came in her cheek evenly in a deli-
cate living pink.

" A braw day to ye, Mistress Elliott," said she,

WEIR OF HERMISTON 91

and hostility, and gentility were nicely mingled in
her tones. " A fine day, mem," the laird's wife
would reply with a miraculous curtsey, spreading
the while her plumage — setting off, in other
words, and with arts unknown to the mere man,
the pattern of her India shawl. Behind her, the
whole Cauldstaneslap contingent marched in closer
order, and with an indescribable air of being in
the presence of the foe ; and while Dandie saluted
his aunt with a certain familiarity as of one who
was well in court, Hob marched on in awful im-
mobility. There appeared upon the face of this
attitude in the family the consequences of some
dreadful feud. Presumably the two women had
been principals in the original encounter, and the
laird had probably been drawn into the quarrel by
the ears, too late to be included in the present skin-
deep reconciliation.

" Kirstie," said Archie one day, " what is this
you have against your family?"

" I dinna complean," said Kirstie, with a flush.
" I say naething."

"I see you do not — not even good-day to your
own nephew," said he.

" I hae naething to be ashaimed of," said
she. " I can say the Lord's prayer with a good
grace. If Hob was ill, or in preeson or poverty,
I would see to him blithely. But for curtchy-
ing and complimenting and colloguing, thank ye
kindly!"

Archie had a bit of a smile: he leaned back in
his chair. " I think you and Mrs. Robert are not

92 WEIR OF HERMISTON

very good friends," says he slyly, " when you have
your India shawls on ? "

She looked upon him in silence, with a sparkling
eye but an indecipherable expression ; and that was
all that Archie was ever destined to learn of the
battle of the India shawls.

" Do none of them ever come here to see you ? "
he inquired.

" Mr. Archie," said she, " I hope that I ken my
place better. It would be a queer thing, I think, if I
was to clamjamfry up your faither's house . . . that
I should say it ! — wi' a dirty, black-a-vised clan,
no ane o' them it was worth while to mar soap upon
but just mysel* ! Na, they 're all damnifeed wi' the
black Ellwalds. I have nae patience wi' black folk."
Then, with a sudden consciousness of the case of
Archie, " No that it maitters for men sae muckle,"
she made haste to add, " but there 's naebody can
deny that it 's unwomanly. Long hair is the orna-
ment o' woman ony way ; we 've good warrandise
for that — it 's in the Bible — and wha can doubt
that the Apostle had some gowden-haired lassie
in his mind — Apostle and all, for what was he
but just a man like yersel' ? "

CHAPTER VI

A LEAF FROM CHRISTINAS PSALM-BOOK

ARCHIE was sedulous at church. Sunday
/\ after Sunday he sat down and stood up
JL JL with that small company, heard the voice
of Mr. Torrance leaping like an ill-played clarionet
from key to key, and had an opportunity to study
his moth-eaten gown and the black thread mittens
that he joined together in prayer, and lifted up with
a reverent solemnity in the act of benediction.
Hermiston pew was a little square box, dwarfish
in proportion with the kirk itself, and enclosing a
table not much bigger than a footstool. There sat
Archie an apparent prince, the only undeniable
gentleman and the only great heritor in the parish,
taking his ease in the only pew, for no other in the
kirk had doors. Thence he might command an
undisturbed view of that congregation of solid
plaided men, strapping wives and daughters, op-
pressed children, and uneasy sheep-dogs. It was
strange how Archie missed the look of race; ex-
cept the dogs, with their refined foxy faces and
inimitably curling tails, there was no one present
with the least claim to gentility. The Cauldstane-
slap party was scarcely an exception ; Dandie per-
haps, as he amused himself making verses through

94 W&IR OF HERMISTON

the interminable burthen of the service, stood out
a little by the glow in his eye and a certain superior
animation of face and alertness of body ; but even
Dandie slouched like a rustic. The rest of the
congregation, like so many sheep, oppressed him
with a sense of hob-nailed routine, day following
day — of physical labour in the open air, oatmeal
porridge, peas bannock, the somnolent fireside in
the evening, and the night-long nasal slumbers in
a box-bed. Yet he knew many of them to be shrewd
and humourous, men of character, notable women,
making a bustle in the world and radiating an in-
fluence from their low-browed doors. He knew
besides they were like other men; below the crust
of custom, rapture found a way; he had heard
them beat the timbrel before Bacchus — had heard
them shout and carouse over their whisky toddy;
and not the most Dutch-bottomed and severe faces
among them all, not even the solemn elders them-
selves, but were capable of singular gambols at the
voice of love. Men drawing near to an end of
life's adventurous journey — maids thrilling with
fear and curiosity on the threshold of entrance —
women who had borne and perhaps buried chil-
dren, who could remember the clinging of the
small dead hands and the patter of the little feet
now silent — he marvelled that among all those
faces there should be no face of expectation, none
that was mobile, none into which the rhythm and
poetry of life had entered. " O for a live face,"
he thought; and at times he had a memory of
Lady Flora; and at times he would study the

WEIR OF HERMISTON 95

living gallery before him with despair, and would
see himself go on to waste his days in that joyless,
pastoral place, and death come to him, and his
grave be dug under the rowans, and the Spirit of
the Earth laugh out in a thunder-peal at the huge
fiasco.

On this particular Sunday, there was no doubt
but that the spring had come at last. It was warm,
with a latent shiver in the air that made the
warmth only the more welcome. The shallows of
the stream glittered and tinkled among bunches of
primrose. Vagrant scents of the earth arrested
Archie by the way with moments of ethereal in-
toxication. The grey, Quakerish dale was still only
awakened in places and patches from the sobriety
of its wintry colouring; and he wondered at its
beauty; an essential beauty of the old earth it
seemed to him, not resident in particulars but
breathing to him from the whole. He surprised
himself by a sudden impulse to write poetry — he
did so sometimes, loose, galloping octosyllabics in
the vein of Scott — and when he had taken his
place on a boulder, near some fairy falls and shaded
by a whip of a tree that was already radiant with
new leaves, it still more surprised him that he
should find nothing to write. His heart perhaps
beat in time to some vast indwelling rhythm of
the universe. By the time he came to a corner
of the valley and could see the kirk, he had so
lingered by the way that the first psalm was finish-
ing. The nasal psalmody, full of turns and trills
and graceless graces, seemed the essential voice of

96 WEIR OF HERMISTON

the kirk itself upraised in thanksgiving. " Every-
thing's alive," he said; and again cries it aloud,
" Thank God, everything 's alive ! " He lingered
yet awhile in the kirk-yard. A tuft of primroses
was blooming hard by the leg of an old, black table
tombstone, and he stopped to contemplate the ran-
dom apologue. They stood forth on the cold earth
with a trenchancy of contrast; and he was struck
with a sense of incompleteness in the day, the sea-
son, and the beauty that surrounded him — the
chill there was in the warmth, the gross black clods
about the opening primroses, the damp earthy smell
that was everywhere intermingled with the scents.
The voice of the aged Torrance within rose in an
ecstasy. And he wondered if Torrance also felt
in his old bones the joyous influence of the spring
morning; Torrance, or the shadow of what once
was Torrance, that must come so soon to lie out-
side here in the sun and rain with all his rheuma-
tisms, while a new minister stood in his room and
thundered from his own familiar pulpit ? The pity
of it, and something of the chill of the grave, shook
him for a moment as he made haste to enter.

He went up the aisle reverently and took his
place in the pew with lowered eyes, for he feared
he had already offended the kind old gentleman in
the pulpit, and was sedulous to offend no farther.
He could not follow the prayer, not even the heads
of it. Brightnesses of azure, clouds of fragrance,
a tinkle of falling water and singing birds, rose
like exhalations from some deeper, aboriginal
memory, that was not his, but belonged to the

WEIR OF HERMISTON 97

flesh on his bones. His body remembered; and it
seemed to him that his body was in no way gross,
but ethereal and perishable like a strain of music;
and he felt for it an exquisite tenderness as for a
child, an innocent, full of beautiful instincts and
destined to an early death. And he felt for old
Torrance — of the many supplications, of the few
days — a pity that was near to tears. The prayer
ended. Right over him was a tablet in the wall,
the only ornament in the roughly masoned chapel
— for it was no more ; the tablet commemorated,
I was about to say the virtues, but rather the ex-
istence of a former Rutherford of Hermiston ; and
Archie, under that trophy of his long descent and
local greatness, leaned back in the pew and con-
templated vacancy with the shadow of a smile be-
tween playful and sad, that became him strangely.
Dandie's sister, sitting by the side of Clem in her
new Glasgow finery, chose that moment to observe
the young laird. Aware of the stir of his en-
trance, the little formalist had kept her eyes fast-
ened and her face prettily composed during the
prayer. It was not hypocrisy, there was no one
farther from a hypocrite. The girl had been
taught to behave: to look up, to look down, to
look unconscious, to look seriously impressed in
church, and in every conjuncture to look her best.
That was the game of female life, and she played
it frankly. Archie was the one person in church
who was of interest, who was somebody new,
reputed eccentric, known to be young, and a laird,
and still unseen by Christina. Small wonder that,

7

98 WEIR OF HERMISTON

as she stood there in her attitude of pretty decency,
her mind should run upon him! If he spared a
glance in her direction, he should know she was
a well-behaved young lady who had been to Glas-
gow. In reason he must admire her clothes, and
it was possible that he should think her pretty. At
that her heart beat the least thing in the world;
and she proceeded, by way of a corrective, to call
up and dismiss a series of fancied pictures of the
young man who should now, by rights, be looking
at her. She settled on the plainest of them, a
pink short young man with a dish face and no
figure, at whose admiration she could afford to
smile; but for all that, the consciousness of his
gaze (which was really fixed on Torrance and
his mittens) kept her in something of a flutter till
the word Amen. Even then, she was far too well-
bred to gratify her curiosity with any impatience.
She resumed her seat languidly — this was a Glas-
gow touch — she composed her dress, rearranged
her nosegay of primroses, looked first in front,
then behind upon the other side, and at last al-
lowed her eyes to move, without hurry, in the
direction of the Hermiston pew. For a moment,
they were riveted. Next she had plucked her
gaze home again like a tame bird who should
have meditated flight. Possibilities crowded on
her; she hung over the future and grew dizzy;
the image of this young man, slim, graceful, dark,
with the inscrutable half-smile, attracted and re-
pelled her like a chasm. " I wonder, will I have
met my fate? " she thought, and her heart swelled.

WEIR OF HER MI ST ON 99

Torrance was got some way into his first ex-
position, positing a deep layer of texts as he went
along, laying the foundations of his discourse,
which was to deal with a nice point in divinity,
before Archie suffered his eyes to wander. They
fell first of all on Clem, looking insupportably
prosperous and patronising Torrance with the
favour of a modified attention, as of one who was
used to better things in Glasgow. Though he had
never before set eyes on him, Archie had no diffi-
culty in identifying him, and no hesitation in pro-
nouncing him vulgar, the worst of the family.
Clem was leaning lazily forward when Archie first
saw him. Presently he leaned nonchalantly back;
and that deadly instrument, the maiden, was sud-
denly unmasked in profile. Though not quite in
the front of the fashion (had anybody cared!),
certain artful Glasgow mantua-makers, and her
own inherent taste, had arrayed her to great ad-
vantage. Her accoutrement was, indeed, a cause
of heart-burning, and almost of scandal, in that
infinitesimal kirk company. Mrs. Hob had said
her say at Cauldstaneslap. " Daft-like ! " she had
pronounced it. "A jaiket that '11 no meet !
Whaur 's the sense of a jaiket that '11 no button
upon you, if it should come to be weet? What
do ye ca' thir things ? Demmy brokens, d' ye say ?
They '11 be brokens wi' a vengeance or ye can
win back! Weel, I have naething to do wP it —
it 's no good taste." Clem, whose purse had thus
metamorphosed his sister, and who was not in-
sensible to the advertisement, had come to the

ioo WEIR OF HERMISTON

rescue with a " Hoot, woman ! What do you ken
of good taste that has never been to the ceety?"
And Hob, looking on the girl with pleased smiles,
as she timidly displayed her finery in the midst
of the dark kitchen, had thus ended the dispute:
" The cutty looks weel," he had said, " and it 's
no very like rain. Wear them the day, hizzie;
but it 's no a thing to make a practice o\" In the
breasts of her rivals, coming to the kirk very con-
scious of white under-linen, and their faces splen-
did with much soap, the sight of the toilet had
raised a storm of varying emotion, from the mere
unenvious admiration that was expressed in the
long-drawn "Eh!" to the angrier feeling that
found vent in an emphatic " Set her up ! " Her
frock was of straw-coloured jaconet muslin, cut
low at the bosom and short at the ankle, so as to
display her demi-bro quins of Regency violet, cross-
ing with many straps upon a yellow cobweb stock-
ing. According to the pretty fashion in which
our grandmothers did not hesitate to appear, and
our great-aunts went forth armed for the pursuit
and capture of our great-uncles, the dress was
drawn up so as to mould the contour of both
breasts, and in the nook between a cairngorm
brooch maintained it. Here, too, surely in a very
enviable position, trembled the nosegay of prim-
roses. She wore on her shoulders — or rather,
on her back and not her shoulders, which it scarcely
passed — a French coat of sarsenet, tied in front
with Margate braces, and of the same colour with
her violet shoes. About her face clustered a dis-

WEIR OF HERMISTO.N 101

order of dark ringlets, a little garland of yellow
French roses surmounted her brow, and the whole
was crowned by a village hat of chipped straw.
Amongst all the rosy and all the weathered faces
that surrounded her in church, she glowed like
an open flower — girl and raiment, and the cairn-
gorm that caught the daylight and returned it in
a fiery flash, and the threads of bronze and gold
that played in her hair.

Archie was attracted by the bright thing like a
child. He looked at her again and yet again, and
their looks crossed. The lip was lifted from her
little teeth. He saw the red blood work vividly
under her tawny skin. Her eye, which was great as
a stag's, struck and held his gaze. He knew who
she must be — Kirstie, she of the harsh diminu-
tive, his housekeeper's niece, the sister of the rustic
prophet, Gib — and he found in her the answer to
his wishes.

Christina felt the shock of their encountering
glances, and seemed to rise, clothed in smiles, into
a region of the vague and bright. But the grati-
fication was not more exquisite than it was brief.
She looked away abruptly, and immediately began
to blame herself for that abruptness. She knew
what she should have done, too late — turned
slowly with her nose in the air. And meantime
his look was not removed, but continued to play
upon her like a battery of cannon constantly aimed,
and now seemed to isolate her alone with him, and
now seemed to uplift her, as on a pillory, before
the congregation. For Archie continued to drink

102 WEIR OF HERMISTON

her in with his eyes, even as a wayfarer comes tc
a well-head on a mountain, and stoops his face,
and drinks with thirst unassuageable. In the cleft
of her little breasts the fiery eye of the topaz
and the pale florets of primrose fascinated him.
He saw the breasts heave, and the flowers shake
with the heaving, and marvelled what should so
much discompose the girl. And Christina was
conscious of his gaze — saw it, perhaps, with the
dainty plaything of an ear that peeped, among her
ringlets; she was conscious of changing colour,
conscious of her unsteady breath. Like a creature
tracked, run down, surrounded, she sought in a
dozen ways to give herself a countenance. She
used her handkerchief — it was a really fine one
— then she desisted in a panic : " He would only
think I was too warm." She took to reading in
the metrical psalms, and then remembered it was
sermon-time. Last she put a " sugar-bool " in her
mouth, and the next moment repented of the step.
It was such a homely-like thing ! Mr. Archie would
never be eating sweeties in kirk; and, with a
palpable effort, she swallowed it whole, and her
colour flamed high. At this signal of distress
Archie awoke to a sense of his ill-behaviour.
What had he been doing? He had been exqui-
sitely rude in church to the niece of his house-
keeper ; he had stared like a lackey and a libertine
at a beautiful and modest girl. It was possible, it
was even likely, he would be presented to her after
service in the kirk-yard, and then how was he to
look ? And there was no excuse. He had marked

WEIR OF HERMISTON 103

the tokens of her shame, of her increasing in-
dignation, and he was such a fool that he had
not understood them. Shame bowed him down,
and he looked resolutely at Mr. Torrance; who
little supposed, good, worthy man, as he continued
to expound justification by faith, what was his
true business: to play the part of derivative to
a pair of children at the old game of falling in
love.

Christina was greatly relieved at first. It seemed
to her that she was clothed again. She looked
back on what had passed. All would have been
right if she had not blushed, a silly fool! There
was nothing to blush at, if she had taken a sugar-
bool. Mrs. MacTaggart, the elder's wife in St.
Enoch's, took them often. And if he had looked
at her, what was more natural than that a young
gentleman should look at the best-dressed girl in
church? And at the same time, she knew far
otherwise, she knew there was nothing casual or
ordinary in the look, and valued herself on its
memory like a decoration. Well, it was a blessing
he had found something else to look at! And
presently she began to have other thoughts. It
was necessary, she fancied, that she should put
herself right by a repetition of the incident, better
managed. If the wish was father to the thought,
she did not know or she would not recognise it.
It was simply as a manoeuvre of propriety, as
something called for to lessen the significance of
what had gone before, that she should a second
time meet his eyes, and this time without blushing.

io4 WEIR OF HERMISTON

And at the memory of the blush, she blushed again,
and became one general blush burning from head
to foot. Was ever anything so indelicate, so for-
ward, done by a girl before? And here she was,
making an exhibition of herself before the congre-
gation about nothing! She stole a glance upon
her neighbours, and behold! they were steadily
indifferent, and Clem had gone to sleep. And still
the one idea was becoming more and more potent
with her, that in common prudence she must look
again before the service ended. Something of the
same sort was going forward in the mind of
Archie, as he struggled with the load of penitence.
So it chanced that, in the flutter of the moment
when the last psalm was given out, and Torrance
was reading the verse, and the leaves of every
psalm-book in church were rustling under busy
ringers, two stealthy glances were sent out like
antennae among the pews and on the indifferent
and absorbed occupants, and drew timidly nearer
to the straight line between Archie and Christina.
They met, they lingered together for the least
fraction of time, and that was enough. A charge
as of electricity passed through Christina, and be-
hold ! the leaf of her psalm-book was torn across.

Archie was outside by the gate of the grave-
yard, conversing with Hob and the minister and
shaking hands all round with the scattering con-
gregation, when Clem and Christina were brought
up to be presented. The laird took off his hat and
bowed to her with grace and respect. Christina
made her Glasgow curtsey to the laird, and went

WEIR OF HERMISTON 105

on again up the road for Hermiston and Cauld-
staneslap, walking fast, breathing hurriedly with
a heightened colour, and in this strange frame of
mind, that when she was alone she seemed in high
happiness, and when any one addressed her she
resented it like a contradiction. A part of the
way she had the company of some neighbour girls
and a loutish young man; never had they seemed
so insipid, never had she made herself so disagree-
able. But these struck aside to their various des-
tinations or were out-walked and left behind ; and
when she had driven off with sharp words the
proffered convoy of some of her nephews and
nieces, she was free to go on alone up Hermiston
brae, walking on air, dwelling intoxicated among
clouds of happiness. Near to the summit she
heard steps behind her, a man's steps, light and
very rapid. She knew the foot at once and walked
the faster. " If it 's me he 's wanting he can run
for it," she thought, smiling.

Archie overtook her like a man whose mind
was made up.

" Miss Kirstie," he began.

" Miss Christina, if you please, Mr. Weir," she
interrupted. " I canna bear the contraction."

" You forget it has a friendly sound for me.
Your aunt is an old friend of mine and a very
good one. I hope we shall see much of you at
Hermiston ? "

" My aunt and my sister-in-law doesna agree
very well. Not that I have much ado with it.
But still when I 'm stopping in the house, if I

106 WEIR OF HERMISTON

was to be visiting my aunt, it would not look
considerate-like."

" I am sorry," said Archie.

" I thank you kindly, Mr. Weir," she said. " I
whiles think myself it 's a great peety."

" Ah, I am sure your voice would always be for
peace ! " he cried.

" I wouldna be too sure of that," she said. " I
have my days like other folk, I suppose."

" Do you know, in our old kirk, among our
good old grey dames, you made an effect like
sunshine."

" Ah, but that would be my Glasgow clothes ! "

" I did not think I was so much under the in-
fluence of pretty frocks."

She smiled with a half look at him. " There 's
more than you ! " she said. " But you see I 'm
only Cinderella. I '11 have to put all these things
by in my trunk ; next Sunday I '11 be as grey as
the rest. They 're Glasgow clothes, you see, and
it would never do to make a practice of it. It
would seem terrible conspicuous."

By that they were come to the place where their
ways severed. The old grey moors were all about
them; in the midst a few sheep wandered; and
they could see on the one hand the straggling
caravan scaling the braes in front of them for
Cauldstaneslap, and on the other, the contingent
from Hermiston bending off and beginning to
disappear by detachments into the policy gate.
It was in these circumstances that they turned to
say farewell, and deliberately exchanged a glance

WEIR OF HERMISTON 107

as they shook hands. All passed as it should,
genteelly ; and in Christina's mind, as she mounted
the first steep ascent for Cauldstaneslap, a gratify-
ing sense of triumph prevailed over the recollec-
tion of minor lapses and mistakes. She had kilted
her gown, as she did usually at that rugged pass;
but when she spied Archie still standing and gaz-
ing after her, the skirts came down again as if by
enchantment. Here was a piece of nicety for that
upland parish, where the matrons marched with
their coats kilted in the rain, and the lasses walked
barefoot to kirk through the dust of summer, and
went bravely down by the burnside, and sat on
stones to make a public toilet before entering! It
was perhaps an air wafted from Glasgow ; or per-
haps it marked a stage of that dizziness of grati-
fied vanity, in which the instinctive act passed
unperceived. He was looking after ! She un-
loaded her bosom of a prodigious sigh that was
all pleasure, and betook herself to run. When she
had overtaken the stragglers of her family, she
caught up the niece whom she had so recently
repulsed, and kissed and slapped her, and drove
her away again, and ran after her with pretty cries
and laughter. Perhaps she thought the laird might
still be looking! But it chanced the little scene
came under the view of eyes less favourable; for
she overtook Mrs. Hob marching with Clem and
Dand.

" You 're shurely fey,1 lass ! " quoth Dandie.

1 Unlike yourself, strange, as persons are observed to be in the
hour of approaching death or calamity.

108 WEIR OF HERMISTON

" Think shame to yersel', miss ! " said the stri-
dent Mrs. Hob. " Is this the gait to guide yersel'
on the way hame frae kirk ? You 're shiirely no
sponsible the day. And anyway I would mind my
guid claes."

" Hoot ! " said Christina, and went on before
them head in air, treading the rough track with
the tread of a wild doe.

She was in love with herself, her destiny, the
air of the hills, the benediction of the sun. All
the way home, she continued under the intoxica-
tion of these sky-scraping spirits. At table she
could talk freely of young Hermiston; gave her
opinion of him off-hand and with a loud voice,
that he was a handsome young gentleman, real
well-mannered and sensible-like, but it was a pity
he looked doleful. Only — the moment after —
a memory of his eyes in church embarrassed her.
But for this inconsiderable check, all through meal-
time she had a good appetite, and she kept them
laughing at table, until Gib (who had returned
before them from Crossmichael and his separative
worship) reproved the whole of them for their
levity.

Singing " in to herself " as she went, her mind
still in the turmoil of glad confusion, she rose and
tripped up-stairs to a little loft, lighted by four
panes in the gable, where she slept with one of
her nieces. The niece, who followed her, presum-
ing on " Auntie's " high spirits, was flounced out
of the apartment with small ceremony, and retired,
smarting and half tearful, to bury her woes in the

WEIR OF HERMISTON 109

byre among the hay. Still humming, Christina
divested herself of her finery, and put her treas-
ures one by one in her great green trunk. The
last of these was the psalm-book; it was a fine
piece, the gift of Mistress Clem, in distinct old-
faced type, on paper that had begun to grow foxy
in the warehouse — not by service — and she was
used to wrap it in a handkerchief every Sunday
after its period of service was over, and bury it
end-wise at the head of her trunk. As she now
took it in hand the book fell open where the leaf was
torn, and she stood and gazed upon that evidence
of her by-gone discomposure. There returned
again the vision of the two brown eyes staring
at her, intent and bright, out of that dark cor-
ner of the kirk. The whole appearance and atti-
tude, the smile, the suggested gesture of young
Hermiston came before her in a flash at the sight
of the torn page. " I was surely fey ! " she said,
echoing the words of Dandie, and at the suggested
doom her high spirits deserted her. She flung her-
self prone upon the bed, and lay there, holding the
psalm-book in her hands for hours, for the more
part in a mere stupor of unconsenting pleasure and
unreasoning fear. The fear was superstitious;
there came up again and again in her memory
Dandie's ill-omened words, and a hundred grisly
and black tales out of the immediate neighbourhood
read her a commentary on their force. The pleas-
ure was never realised. You might say the joints
of her body thought and remembered, and were
gladdened, but her essential self, in the immediate

no WEIR OF HERMISTON

theatre of consciousness, talked feverishly of some-
thing else, like a nervous person at a fire. The
image that she most complacently dwelt on was
that of Miss Christina in her character of the Fair
Lass of Cauldstaneslap, carrying all before her in
the straw-coloured frock, the violet mantle, and the
yellow cobweb stockings. Archie's image, on the
other hand, when it presented itself was never wel-
comed — far less welcomed with any ardour, and
it was exposed at times to merciless criticism. In
the long, vague dialogues she held in her mind,
often with imaginary, often with unrealised inter-
locutors, Archie, if he were referred to at all, came
in for savage handling. He was described as
" looking like a stork," " staring like a caulf," " a
face like a ghaist's." " Do you call that manners ? "
she said ; or, " I soon put him in his place."
"'Miss Christina, if you please, Mr. Weir!' says
I, and just flyped up my skirt tails." With gabble
like 'this she would entertain herself long whiles
together, and then her eye would perhaps fall on
the torn leaf, and the eyes of Archie would appear
again from the darkness of the wall, and the vol-
uble words deserted her, and she would lie still
and stupid, and think upon nothing with devotion,
and be sometimes raised by a quiet sigh. Had a
doctor of medicine come into that loft, he would
have diagnosed a healthy, well-developed, emi-
nently vivacious lass lying on her face in a fit of the
sulks ; not one who had just contracted, or was just
contracting, a mortal sickness of the mind which
should yet carry her towards death and despair.

WEIR OF HERMISTON in

Had it been a doctor of psychology, he might have
been pardoned for divining in the girl a passion
of childish vanity, self-love in excelsis, and no
more. It is to be understood that I have been paint-
ing chaos and describing the inarticulate. Every
lineament that appears is too precise, almost every
word used too strong. Take a finger-post in the
mountains on a day of rolling mists; I have but
copied the names that appear upon the pointers,
the names of definite and famous cities far distant,
and now perhaps basking in sunshine; but Chris-
tina remained all these hours, as it were, at the
foot of the post itself, not moving, and enveloped
in mutable and blinding wreaths of haze.

The day was growing late and the sunbeams long
and level, when she sat suddenly up, and wrapped
in its handkerchief and put by that psalm-book
which had already played a part so decisive in the
first chapter of her love-story. In the absence of
the mesmerist's eye, we are told nowadays that the
head of a bright nail may fill his place, if it be stead-
fastly regarded. So that torn page had riveted her
attention on what might else have been but little,
and perhaps soon forgotten; while the ominous
words of Dandie — heard, not heeded, and still
remembered — had lent to her thoughts, or rather
to her mood, a cast of solemnity, and that idea of
Fate — a pagan Fate, uncontrolled by any Chris-
tian deity, obscure, lawless, and august — moving
indissuadably in the affairs of Christian men.
Thus even that phenomenon of love at first sight,
which is so rare and seems so simple and vio-

ii2 WEIR OF HERMISTON

lent, like a disruption of life's tissue, may be de-
composed into a sequence of accidents happily
concurring.

She put on a grey frock and a pink kerchief,
looked at herself a moment with approval in the
small square of glass that served her for a toilet
mirror, and went softly down-stairs through the
sleeping house that resounded with the sound of
afternoon snoring. Just outside the door Dandie
was sitting with a book in his hand, not read-
ing, only honouring the Sabbath by a sacred
vacancy of mind. She came near him and stood
still.

" I 'm for off up the muirs, Dandie," she said.

There was something unusually soft in her tones
that made him look up. She was pale, her eyes
dark and bright; no trace remained of the levity
of the morning.

" Ay, lass ? Ye '11 have ye're ups and downs
like me, I 'm thinkin'," he observed.

" What for do ye say that ? " she asked.

" O, for naething," says Dand. " Only I think
ye 're mair like me than the lave of them. Ye Ve
mair of the poetic temper, tho' Guid kens little
enough of the poetic taalent. It 's an ill gift at
the best. Look at yoursel'. At denner you were all
sunshine and flowers and laughter, and now you 're
like the star of evening on a lake."

She drank in this hackneyed compliment like
wine, and it glowed in her veins.

" But I 'm saying, Dand " — she came nearer
him — " I 'm for the muirs. I must have a braith

WEIR OF HERMISTON 113

of air. If Clem was to be speiring for me, try and
quaiet him, will ye no? "

" What way? " said Dandie. " I ken but the ae
way, and that 's leein'. I '11 say ye had a sair heed,
if ye like"

" But I havena," she objected.

" I daur say not," he returned. " I said I would
say ye had ; and if ye like to nay-say me when ye
come back, it '11 no mateerially maitter, for my
chara'ter 's clean gane a'ready past reca\"

" O, Dand, are ye a leear ? " she asked, lingering.

" Folks say sae," replied the bard.

" Wha says sae? " she pursued.

" Them that should ken the best," he responded.
" The lassies, for ane."

" But, Dand, you would never lee to me? ? she
asked.

" I '11 leave that for your pairt of it, ye girzie,"
said he. " Ye '11 lee to me fast eneuch, when ye hae
gotten a jo. I 'm tellin' ye and it 's true ; when
you have a jo, Miss Kirstie, it '11 be for guid and ill.
I ken: I was made that way mysel', but the deil
was in my luck! Here, gang awa wi' ye to your
muirs, and let me be ; I 'm in an hour of inspirau-
tion, ye upsetting tawpie ! "

But she clung to her brother's neighbourhood,
she knew not why.

" Will ye no gie 's a kiss, Dand ? " she said. " I
aye likit ye fine."

He kissed her and considered her a moment ; he
found something strange in her. But he was a
libertine through and through, nourished equal

8

ii4 WEIR OF HERMISTON

contempt and suspicion of all womankind, and
paid his way among them habitually with idle
compliments.

" Gae wa' wi' ye ! " said he. " Ye 're a dentie
baby, and be content wi' that ! "

That was Dandie's way; a kiss and a comfit to
Jenny — a bawbee and my blessing to Jill — and
good-night to the whole clan of ye, my dears!
When anything approached the serious, it became
a matter for men, he both thought and said. Wo-
men, when they did not absorb, were only children
to be shoo'd away. Merely in his character of con-
noisseur, however, Dandie glanced carelessly after
his sister, as she crossed the meadow. " The
brat 's no that bad ! " he thought with surprise, for
though he had just been paying her compliments,
he had not really looked at her. "Hey! what's
yon ? " For the grey dress was cut with short
sleeves and skirts, and displayed her trim strong
legs clad in pink stockings of the same shade as the
kerchief she wore round her shoulders, and that
shimmered as she went. This was not her way in
undress; he knew her ways and the ways of the
whole sex in the country-side, no one better ; when
they did not go barefoot, they wore stout " rig and
furrow " woollen hose of an invisible blue mostly,
when they were not black outright; and Dandie,
at sight of this daintiness, put two and two
together. It was a silk handkerchief, then they
would be silken hose; they matched — then the
whole outfit was a present of Clem's, a costly
present, and not something to be worn through

WEIR OF HERMISTON 115

bog and brier, or on a late afternoon of Sunday.
He whistled. " My denty May, either your heid 's
fair turned, or there 's some on-goings ! " he ob-
served, and dismissed the subject.

She went slowly at first, but ever straighter and
faster for the Cauldstaneslap, a pass among the
hills to which the farm owed its name. The Slap
opened like a doorway between two rounded hil-
locks; and through this ran the short cut to Her-
miston. Immediately on the other side it went
down through the Deil's Hags, a considerable
marshy hollow of the hilltops, full of springs,
and crouching junipers, and pools where the black
peat-water slumbered. There was no view from
here. A man might have sat upon the Praying
Weaver's Stone a half-century, and seen none but
the Cauldstaneslap children twice in the twenty-
four hours on their way to the school and back
again, an occasional shepherd, the irruption of a
clan of sheep, or the birds who haunted about the
springs, drinking and shrilly piping. So, when
she had once passed the Slap, Kirstie was received
into seclusion. She looked back a last time at the
farm. It still lay deserted except for the figure of
Dandie, who was now seen to be scribbling in his
lap, the hour of expected inspiration having come
to him at last. Thence she passed rapidly through
the morass, and came to the further end of it, where
a sluggish burn discharges, and the path for Her-
miston accompanies it on the beginning of its down-
ward path. From this corner a wide view was
opened to her of the whole stretch of braes upon

n6 WEIR OF HERM1STON

the other side, still sallow and in places rusty with
the winter, with the path marked boldly, here and
there by the burnside a tuft of birches, and — three
miles off as the crow flies — from its enclosures
and young plantations, the windows of Hermiston
glittering in the western sun.

Here she sat down and waited, and looked for
a long time at these far-away bright panes of glass.
It amused her to have so extended a view, she
thought. It amused her to see the house of Her-
miston — to see " folk " ; and there was an indis-
tinguishable human unit, perhaps the gardener,
visibly sauntering on the gravel paths.

By the time the sun was down and all the easterly
braes lay plunged in clear shadow, she was aware
of another figure coming up the path at a most
unequal rate of approach, now half running, now
pausing and seeming to hesitate. She watched
him at first with a total suspension of thought.
She held her thought as a person holds his breath-
ing. Then she consented to recognise him.
" He '11 no be coming here, he canna be ; it 's no
possible." And there began to grow upon her a
subdued choking suspense. He was coming; his
hesitations had quite ceased, his step grew firm
and swift; no doubt remained; and the question
loomed up before her instant: what was she to
do? It was all very well to say that her brother
was a laird himself; it was all very well to speak
of casual intermarriages and to count cousinship,
like Auntie Kirstie. The difference in their social
station was trenchant ; propriety, prudence, all that

WEIR OF HERMISTON 117

she had ever learned, all that she knew, bade her
flee. But on the other hand the cup of life now
offered to her was too enchanting. For one mo-
ment, she saw the question clearly, and definitely
made her choice. She stood up and showed herself
an instant in the gap relieved upon the sky line;
and the next, fled trembling and sat down glowing
with excitement on the Weaver's Stone. She shut
her eyes, seeking, praying for composure. Her
hand shook in her lap, and her mind was full of
incongruous and futile speeches. What was there
to make a work about ? She could take care of her-
self, she supposed! There was no harm in seeing
the laird. It was the best thing that could happen.
She would mark a proper distance to him once and
for all. Gradually the wheels of her nature ceased
to go round so madly, and she sat in passive expec-
tation, a quiet, solitary figure in the midst of the
grey moss. I have said she was no hypocrite, but
here I am at fault. She never admitted to herself
that she had come up the hill to look for Archie.
And perhaps after all she did not know, perhaps
came as a stone falls. For the steps of love in the
young, and especially in girls, are instinctive and
unconscious.

In the meantime Archie was drawing rapidly
near, and he at least was consciously seeking her
neighbourhood. The afternoon had turned to
ashes in his mouth; the memory of the girl had
kept him from reading and drawn him as with
cords ; and at last, as the cool of the evening began
to come on, he had taken his hat and set forth,

u8 WEIR OF HERMISTON

with a smothered ejaculation, by the moor path to
Cauldstaneslap. He had no hope to find her; he
took the off chance without expectation of result
and to relieve his uneasiness. The greater was his
surprise, as he surmounted the slope and came into
the hollow of the Deil's Hags, to see there, like an
answer to his wishes, the little womanly figure in
the grey dress and the pink kerchief sitting little,
and low, and lost, and acutely solitary, in these
desolate surroundings and on the weather-beaten
stone of the dead weaver. Those things that still
smacked of winter were all rusty about her, and
those things that already relished of the spring had
put forth the tender and lively colours of the season.
Even in the unchanging face of the death-stone
changes were to be remarked; and in the chan-
nelled-lettering, the moss began to renew itself in
jewels of green. By an after-thought that was a
stroke of art, she had turned up over her head the
back of the kerchief ; so that it now framed becom-
ingly her vivacious and yet pensive face. Her feet
were gathered under her on the one side, and she
leaned on her bare arm, which showed out strong
and round, tapered to a slim wrist, and shimmered
in the fading light.

\ Young Hermiston was struck with a certain
chill. He was reminded that he now dealt in seri-
ous matters of life and death. This was a grown
woman he was approaching, endowed with her
mysterious potencies and attractions, the treasury
of the continued race, and he was neither better nor
worse than the average of his sex and age. He

WEIR OF HERMISTON 119

had a certain delicacy which had preserved him
hitherto unspotted, and which (had either of them
guessed it) made him a more dangerous companion
when his heart should be really stirred. His throat
was dry as he came near ; but the appealing sweet-
ness of her smile stood between them like a guar-
dian angel.

For she turned to him and smiled, though with-
out rising. There was a shade in this cavalier
greeting that neither of them perceived: neither
he, who simply thought it gracious and charming
as herself; nor yet she, who did not observe (quick
as she was) the difference between rising to meet
the laird and remaining seated to receive the
expected admirer.

" Are ye stepping west, Hermiston ? " said she,
giving him his territorial name after the fashion
of the country-side.

" I was," said he a little hoarsely, " but I think I
will be about the end of my stroll now. Are you
like me, Miss Christina ? the house would not hold
me. I came here seeking air."

He took his seat at the other end of the tomb-
stone and studied her, wondering what was she.
There was infinite import in the question alike for
her and him.

" Ay," she said. " I couldna bear the roof either.
It 's a habit of mine to come up here about the
gloaming when it 's quaiet and caller."

" It was a habit of my mother's also," he said
gravely. The recollection half startled him as he
expressed it. He looked around. " I have scarce

120 WEIR OF HERMISTON

been here since. It 's peaceful," he said, with a
long breath.

" It 's no like Glasgow," she replied. " A weary
place, yon Glasgow! But what a day have I
had for my hame-coming, and what a bonny
evening ! "

" Indeed, it was a wonderful day," said Archie.
" I think I will remember it years and years until I
come to die. On days like this — I do not know
if you feel as I do — but everything appears so
brief, and fragile, and exquisite, that I am afraid
to touch life. We are here for so short a time;
and all the old people before us — Rutherfords of
Hermiston, Elliotts of the Cauldstaneslap — that
were here but awhile since, riding about and
keeping up a great noise in this quiet corner
— making love too, and marrying — why, where
are they now ? It 's deadly commonplace, but
after all, the commonplaces are the great poetic
truths."

He was sounding her, semi-consciously, to see if
she could understand him; to learn if she were
only an animal the colour of flowers, or had a
soul in her to keep her sweet. She, on her part,
her means well in hand, watched, womanlike, for
any opportunity to shine, to abound in his humour,
whatever that might be. The dramatic artist, that
lies dormant or only half awake in most human
beings, had in her sprung to his feet in a divine
fury, and chance had served her well. She looked
upon him with a subdued twilight look that be-
came the hour of the day and the train of thought ;

WEIR OF HERMISTON 121

earnestness shone through her like stars in the
purple west; and from the great but controlled
upheaval of her whole nature there passed into
her voice, and rang in her lightest words, a thrill
of emotion.

"Have you mind of Dand's song?" she an-
swered. " I think he '11 have been trying to say
what you have been thinking."

" No, I never heard it," he said. " Repeat it to
me, can you ? "

" It 's nothing wanting the tune," said Kirstie.

" Then sing it me," said he.

" On the Lord's Day ? That would never do,
Mr. Weir!"

"I am afraid I am not so strict a keeper of
the Sabbath, and there is no one in this place
to hear us, unless the poor old ancient under the
stone."

" No that I 'm thinking that really," she said.
" By my way of thinking, it 's just as serious as
a psalm. Will I sooth it to ye, then? "

" If you please," said he, and, drawing near to
her on the tombstone, prepared to listen.

She sat up as if to sing. " I '11 only can sooth
it to ye," she explained. " I wouldna like to sing
out loud on the Sabbath. I think the birds would
carry news of it to Gilbert," and she smiled. " It 's
about the Elliotts," she continued, " and I think
there 's few bonnier bits in the book-poets, though
Dand has never got printed yet."

And she began, in the low, clear tones of her
half-voice, now sinking almost to a whisper, now

122 WEIR OF HERMISTON

rising to a particular note which was her best, and
which Archie learned to wait for with growing
emotion :

O they rade in the rain, in the days that are gane,

In the rain and the wind and the lave,
They shoutit in the ha' and they routit on the hill,
But they 're a' quaitit noo in the grave.
Auld, auld Elliotts, clay-cauld Elliotts, dour, bauld Elliotts of
auld!

All the time she sang she looked steadfastly
before her, her knees straight, her hands upon her
knee, her head cast back and up. The expression
was admirable throughout, for had she not learned
it from the lips and under the criticism of the
author? When it was done, she turned upon
Archie a face softly bright, and eyes gently suf-
fused and shining in the twilight, and his heart
rose and went out to her with boundless pity and
sympathy. His question was answered. She was
a human being tuned to a sense of the tragedy of
life ; there were pathos and music and a great heart
in the girl.

He arose instinctively, she also; for she saw
she had gained a point, and scored the impression
deeper, and she had wit enough left to flee upon
a victory. They were but commonplaces that
remained to be exchanged, but the low, moved
voices in which they passed made them sacred in
the memory. In the falling greyness of the even-
ing he watched her figure winding through the
morass, saw it turn a last time and wave a hand,
and then pass through the Slap ; and it seemed to

WEIR OF HERMISTON 123

him as if something went along with her out of
the deepest of his heart. And something surely
had come, and come to dwell there. He had
retained from childhood a picture, now half obliter-
ated by the passage of time and the multitude of
fresh impressions, of his mother telling him, with
the fluttered earnestness of her voice, and often
with dropping tears, the tale of the " Praying
Weaver," on the very scene of his brief tragedy
and long repose. And now there was a companion
piece; and he beheld, and he should behold for
ever, Christina perched on the same tomb, in the
grey colours of the evening, gracious, dainty, per-
fect as a flower, and she also singing —

Of old, unhappy far-off things,
And battles long ago,

— of their common ancestors now dead, of their
rude wars composed, their weapons buried with
them, and of these strange changelings, their de-
scendants, who lingered a little in their places, and
would soon be gone also, and perhaps sung of by
others at the gloaming hour. By one of the uncon-
scious arts of tenderness the two women were en-
shrined together in his memory. Tears, in that
hour of sensibility, came into his eyes indifferently
at the thought of either, and the girl, from being
something merely bright and shapely, was caught
up into the zone of things serious as life and death
and his dead mother. So that in all ways and on
either side, Fate played his game artfully with this
poor pair of children. The generations were

i24 WEIR OF HERMISTON

prepared, the pangs were made ready, before the
curtain rose on the dark drama.

In the same moment of time that she disappeared
from Archie there opened before Kirstie's eyes the
cup-like hollow in which the farm lay. She saw,
some five hundred feet below her, the house making
itself bright with candles, and this was a broad
hint to her to hurry. For they were only kindled
on a Sabbath night with a view to that family
worship which rounded in the incomparable tedium
of the day and brought on the relaxation of
supper. Already she knew that Robert must be
within-sides at the head of the table, " waling the
portions " ; for it was Robert in his quality of
family priest and judge, not the gifted Gilbert, who
officiated. She made good time accordingly down
the steep ascent, and came up to the door panting
as the three younger brothers, all roused at last
from slumber, stood together in the cool and
the dark of the evening with a fry of nephews
and nieces about them, chatting and awaiting the
expected signal. She stood back; she had no
mind to direct attention to her late arrival or to
her labouring breath.

" Kirstie, ye have shaved it this time, my lass,"'
said Clem. " Whaur were ye? "

" O, just taking a dander by myser," said
Kirstie.

And the talk continued on the subject of the
American war, without further reference to the
truant who stood by them in the covert of the dusk,
thrilling with happiness and the sense of guilt.

WEIR OF HERMISTON 125

The signal was given, and the brothers began to
go in one after another, amid the jostle and throng
of Hob's children.

Only Dandie, waiting till the last, caught Kirstie
by the arm. "When did ye begin to dander in
pink hosen, Mistress Elliott? " he whispered slyly.

She looked down ; she was one blush. " I maun
have forgotten to change them/' said she; and
went in to prayers in her turn with a troubled
mind, between anxiety as to whether Dand should
have observed her yellow stockings at church, and
should thus detect her in a palpable falsehood,
and shame that she had already made good his
prophecy.

She remembered the words of it, how it was
to be when she had gotten a jo, and that that would
be for good and evil. " Will I have gotten my jo
now ? " she thought with a secret rapture.

And all through prayers, where it was her prin-
cipal business to conceal the pink stockings from
the eyes of the indifferent Mrs. Hob — and all
through supper, as she made a feint of eating,
and sat at the table radiant and constrained —
and again when she had left them and come into
her chamber, and was alone with her sleeping
niece, and could at last lay aside the armour of
society — the same words sounded within her, the
same profound note of happiness, of a world all
changed and renewed, of a day that had been
passed in Paradise, and of a night that was to be
heaven opened. All night she seemed to be con-
veyed smoothly upon a shallow stream of sleep

126 WEIR OF HERMISTON

and waking, and through the bowers of Beulah;
all night she cherished to her heart that exquisite
hope; and if, towards morning, she forgot it
awhile in a more profound unconsciousness, it was
to catch again the rainbow thought with her first
moment of awaking.

CHAPTER VII

ENTER MEPHISTOPHELES

TWO days later a gig from Crossmichael
deposited Frank Innes at the doors of
Hermiston. Once in a way, during the
past winter, Archie, in some acute phase of bore-
dom, had written him a letter. It had contained
something in the nature of an invitation, or a refer-
ence to an invitation — precisely what, neither of
them now remembered. When Innes had received
it, there had been nothing further from his mind
than to bury himself in the moors with Archie;
but not even the most acute political heads are
guided through the steps of life with unerring
directness. That would require a gift of prophecy
which has been denied to man. For instance, who
could have imagined that, not a month after he
had received the letter, and turned it into mockery,
and put off answering it, and in the end lost it,
misfortunes of a gloomy cast should begin to
thicken over Frank's career? His case may be
briefly stated. His father, a small Morayshire
laird with a large family, became recalcitrant and
cut off the supplies ; he had fitted himself out with
the beginnings of quite a good law library, which,
upon some sudden losses on the turf, he had been

128 WEIR OF HERMISTON

obliged to sell before they were paid for; and his
bookseller, hearing some rumour of the event, took
out a warrant for his arrest. Innes had early word
of it, and was able to take precautions. In this
immediate welter of his affairs, with an unpleasant
charge hanging over him, he had judged it the part
of prudence to be off instantly, had written a fer-
vid letter to his father at Inverauld, and put him-
self in the coach for Crossmichael. Any port in a
storm ! He was manfully turning his back on the
Parliament House and its gay babble, on porter
and oysters, the racecourse and the ring ; and man-
fully prepared, until these clouds should have
blown by, to share a living grave with Archie
Weir at Hermiston.

To do him justice, he was no less surprised to
be going than Archie was to see him come; and
he carried off his wonder with an infinitely better
grace.

" Well, here lam!" said he, as he alighted.
" Py lades has come to Orestes at last. By the way,
did you get my answer? No? How very pro-
voking! Well, here I am to answer for myself,
and that 's better still.'*

" I am very glad to see you, of course," said
Archie. " I make you heartily welcome, of course.
But you surely have not come to stay, with the
courts still sitting ; is that not most unwise ? "

" Damn the courts ! " says Frank. " What are
the courts to friendship and a little fishing ? "

And so it was agreed that he was to stay, with
no term to the visit but the term which he had

WEIR OF HERMISTON 129

privily set to it himself — the day, namely, when
his father should have come down with the dust,
and he should be able to pacify the bookseller.
On such vague conditions there began for these
two young men (who were not even friends) a
life of great familiarity and, as the days grew on,
less and less intimacy. They were together at meal
times, together o' nights when the hour had come
for whisky toddy; but it might have been noticed
(had there been any one to pay heed) that they
were rarely so much together by day. Archie had
Hermiston to attend to, multifarious activities in
the hills, in which he did not require, and had even
refused, Frank's escort. He would be off some-
times in the morning and leave only a note on the
breakfast table to announce the fact; and some-
times, with no notice at all, he would not return
for dinner until the hour was long past. Innes
groaned under these desertions; it required all his
philosophy to sit down to a solitary breakfast with
composure, and all his unaffected good-nature to
be able to greet Archie with friendliness on the
more rare occasions when he came home late for
dinner.

" I wonder what on earth he finds to do, Mrs.
Elliott ?" said he one morning, after he had just
read the hasty billet and sat down to table.

1? I suppose it will be business, sir," replied the
housekeeper drily, measuring his distance off to
him by an indicated curtsey.

" But I can't imagine what business ! V he
reiterated.

130 WEIR OF HERMIS10N

" I suppose it will be his business," retorted the
austere Kirstie.

He turned to her with that happy brightness
that made the charm of his disposition, and broke
into a peal of healthy and natural laughter.

"Well played, Mrs. Elliott ! " he cried, and the
housekeeper's face relaxed into the shadow of an
iron smile. " Well played indeed ! " said he. " But
you must not be making a stranger of me like that.
Why, Archie and I were at the High School to-
gether, and we 've been to college together, and
we were going to the Bar together, when — you
know ! Dear, dear me ! what a pity that was ! A
life spoiled, a fine young fellow as good as buried
here in the wilderness with rustics; and all for
what? A frolic, silly, if you like, but no more.
God, how good your scones are, Mrs. Elliott ! "

" They 're no mines, it was the lassie made
them," said Kirstie ; " and, saving your presence,
there 's little sense in taking the Lord's name in
vain about idle vivers that you fill your kyte wi\"

" I dare say you 're perfectly right, ma'am,"
quoth the imperturbable Frank. " But, as I was
saying, this is a pitiable business, this about poor
Archie ; and you and I might do worse than put our
heads together, like a couple of sensible people,
and bring it to an end. Let me tell you, ma'am,
that Archie is really quite a promising young man,
and in my opinion he would do well at the Bar.
As for his father, no one can deny his ability, and
I don't fancy any one would care to deny that he
has the deil's own temper "

WEIR OF HERMISTON 131

" If you '11 excuse me, Mr. Innes, I think the lass
is crying on me," said Kirstie, and flounced from
the room.

" The damned, cross-grained, old broom-stick ! "
ejaculated Innes.

In the meantime, Kirstie had escaped into the
kitchen, and before her vassal gave vent to her
feelings.

" Here, ettercap ! Ye '11 have to wait on yon
Innes ! I canna haud myself in. * Puir Erchie ' !
I 'd ( puir Erchie ' him, if I had my way ! And
Hermiston with the deil's ain temper! God, let
him take Hermiston's scones out of his mouth
first. There 's no a hair on ayther o' the Weirs
that hasna mair spunk and dirdum to it than what
he has in his hale dwaibly body! Settin' up his
snash to me ! Let him gang to the black toon where
he's mebbe wantit — birling in a curricle — wi'
pimatum on his heid — making a mess o' himseF
wi' nesty hizzies — a fair disgrace ! " It was
impossible to hear without admiration Kirstie's
graduated disgust, as she brought forth, one after
another, these somewhat baseless charges. Then
she remembered her immediate purpose, and turned
again on her fascinated auditor. " Do ye no hear
me, tawpie? Do ye no hear what I 'm tellin' ye?
Will I have to shoo ye in to him? If I come to
attend to ye, mistress ! " And the maid fled the
kitchen, which had become practically dangerous,
to attend on Innes' wants in the front parlour.

Tantane ircef Has the reader perceived the
reason ? Since Frank's coming there were no more

132 WEIR OF HERMISTON

hours of gossip over the supper tray ! All his blan-
dishments were in vain; he had started handi-
capped on the race for Mrs. Elliott's favour.

But it was a strange thing how misfortune
dogged him in his efforts to be genial. I must
guard the reader against accepting Kirstie's epi-
thets as evidence ; she was more concerned for their
vigour than for their accuracy. Dwaibly, for in-
stance ; nothing could be more calumnious. Frank
was the very picture of good looks, good-humour,
and manly youth. He had bright eyes with a
sparkle and a dance to them, curly hair, a charm-
ing smile, brilliant teeth, an admirable carriage of
the head, the look of a gentleman, the address of
one accustomed to please at first sight and to im-
prove the impression. And with all these advan-
tages, he failed with every one about Hermiston;
with the silent shepherd, with the obsequious
grieve, with the groom who was also the plough-
man, with the gardener and the gardener's sister
— a pious, down-hearted woman with a shawl over
her ears — he failed equally and flatly. They did
not like him, and they showed it. The little maid,
indeed, was an exception; she admired him de-
voutly, probably dreamed of him in her private
hours ; but she was accustomed to play the part of
silent auditor to Kirstie's tirades and silent recipi-
ent of Kirstie's buffets, and she had learned not
Oiily to be a very capable girl of her years, but a
very secret and prudent one besides. Frank was
thus conscious that he had one ally and sympa-
thiser in the midst of that general union of disfavour.

WEIR OF HERMISTON 133

that surrounded, watched, and waited on him in
the house of Hermiston ; but he had little comfort
or society from that alliance, and the demure little
maid (twelve on her last birthday) preserved her
own counsel, and tripped on his service, brisk,
dumbly responsive, but inexorably unconversa-
tional. For the others, they were beyond hope and
beyond endurance. Never had a young Apollo
been cast among such rustic barbarians. But per-
haps the cause of his ill-success lay in one trait
which was habitual and unconscious with him, yet
diagnostic of the man. It was his practice to ap-
proach any one person at the expense of some one
else. He offered you an alliance against the some
one else; he flattered you by slighting him; you
were drawn into a small intrigue against him
before you knew how. Wonderful are the virtues
of this process generally ; but Frank's mistake was
in the choice of the some one else. He was not
politic in that ; he listened to the voice of irritation.
Archie had offended him at first by what he had
felt to be rather a dry reception; had offended
him since by his frequent absences. He was
besides the one figure continually present in Frank's
eye; and it was to his immediate dependents that
Frank could offer the snare of his sympathy. Now
the truth is that the Weirs, father and son, were
surrounded by a posse of strenuous loyalists. Of
my lord they were vastly proud. It was a distinc-
tion in itself to be one of the vassals of the " Hang-
ing Judge," and his gross, formidable joviality was
far from unpopular in the neighbourhood of his

134 WEIR OF HERMISTON

home. For Archie they had, one and all, a sensi-
tive affection and respect which recoiled from a
word of belittlement.

Nor was Frank more successful when he went
farther afield. To the Four Black Brothers, for
instance, he was antipathetic in the highest degree.
Hob thought him too light, Gib too profane.
Clem, who saw him but for a day or two before he
went to Glasgow, wanted to know what the fule's
business was, and whether he meant to stay here all
session time ! " Yon 's a drone," he pronounced.
As for Dand, it will be enough to describe their
first meeting, when Frank had been whipping a
river and the rustic celebrity chanced to come along
the path.

" I 'm told you are quite a poet," Frank had said.

"Wha teirt ye that, mannie?" had been the
unconciliating answer.

" O, everybody," says Frank.

" God! Here 'a fame! " said the sardonic poet,
and he had passed on his way.

Come to think of it, we have here perhaps a truer
explanation of Frank's failures. Had he met Mr.
Sheriff Scott he could have turned a neater com-
pliment, because Mr. Scott would have been a
friend worth making. Dand, on the other hand, he
did not value sixpence, and he showed it even while
he tried to flatter. ^^Condescension is an excellent
thing, but it is strange how one-sided the pleasure
of it is! He who goes fishing among the Scots
peasantry with condescension for a bait will have
an empty basket by evening?7

WEIR OF HERMISTON 135

In proof of this theory Frank made a great suc-
cess of it at the Crossmichael Club, to which Archie
took him immediately on his arrival; his own last
appearance on that scene of gaiety. Frank was
made welcome there at once, continued to go reg-
ularly, and had attended a meeting (as the mem-
bers ever after loved to tell) on the evening before
his death. Young Hay and young Pringle appeared
again. There was another supper at Windielaws,
another dinner at Driffel ; and it resulted in Frank
being taken to the bosom of the county people as
unreservedly as he had been repudiated by the
country folk. He occupied Hermiston after the
manner of an invader in a conquered capital. He
was perpetually issuing from it, as from a base, to
toddy parties, fishing parties, and dinner parties,
to which Archie was not invited, or to which Archie
would not go. It was now that the name of The
Recluse became general for the young man. Some
say that Innes invented it; Innes, at least, spread
it abroad.

" How 's all with your Recluse to-day ? " people
would ask.

" O, reclusing away ! " Innes would declare,
with his bright air of saying something witty ; and
immediately interrupt the general laughter which
he had provoked much more by his air than his
words, " Mind you, it 's all very well laughing, but
I 'm not very well pleased. Poor Archie is a good
fellow, an excellent fellow, a fellow I always liked.
I think it small of him to take his little disgrace so
hard and shut himself up. ' Grant that it is a ridicu-

136 WEIR OF HERMISTON

lous story, painfully ridiculous,' I keep telling him.
' Be a man ! Live it down, man ! > But not he.
Of course it's just solitude, and shame, and all
that. But I confess I 'm beginning to fear the
result. It would be all the pities in the world if a
really promising fellow like Weir was to end ill.
I 'm seriously tempted to write to Lord Hermiston,
and put it plainly to him."

" I would if I were you," some of his auditors
would say, shaking the head, sitting bewildered and
confused at this new view of the matter, so deftly
indicated by a single word. " A capital idea ! "
they would add, and wonder at the aplomb and
position of this young man, who talked as a matter
of course of writing to Hermiston and correcting
him upon his private affairs.

And Frank would proceed, sweetly confidential :
" I '11 give you an idea, now. He 's actually sore
about the way that I 'm received and he 's left out
in the county — actually jealous and sore. I've
rallied him and I 've reasoned with him, told him
that every one was most kindly inclined towards
him, told him even that I was received merely
because I was his guest. But it 's no use. He will
neither accept the invitations he gets, nor stop
brooding about the ones where he 's left out.
What I 'm afraid of is that the wound 's ulcerating.
He had always one of those dark, secret, angry
natures — a little underhand and plenty of bile —
you know the sort. He must have inherited it from
the Weirs, whom I suspect to have been a worthy
family of weavers somewhere ; what 's the cant

WEIR OF HERMISTON 137

phrase ? — sedentary occupation. It 's precisely
the kind of character to go wrong in a false posi-
tion like what his father 's made for him, or he 's
making for himself, whichever you like to call it.
And for my part, I think it a disgrace," Frank
would say generously.

Presently the sorrow and anxiety of this disin-
terested friend took shape. He began in private,
in conversations of two, to talk vaguely of bad
habits and low habits. " I must say I 'm afraid he 's
going wrong altogether," he would say. " I '11 tell
you plainly, and between ourselves, I scarcely like
to stay there any longer ; only, man, I 'm positively
afraid to leave him alone. You '11 see, I shall be
blamed for it later on. I 'm staying at a great
sacrifice. I 'm hindering my chances at the Bar,
and I can't blind my eyes to it. And what I 'm
afraid of is that I 'm going to get kicked for it all
round before all 's done. You see, nobody believes
in friendship nowadays."

" Well, Innes," his interlocutor would reply,
" it 's very good of you, I must say that. If there 's
any blame going you '11 always be sure of my good
word, for one thing."

" Well," Frank would continue, " candidly, I
don't say it 's pleasant. He has a very rough way
with him; his father's son, you know. I don't
say he 's rude — of course, I could n't be expected
to stand that — but he steers very near the wind.
No, it 's not pleasant ; but I tell ye, man, in con-
science I don't think it would be fair to leave him.
Mind you, I don't say there's anything actually

138 WEIR OF HERMISTON

wrong. What I say is that I don't like the looks
of it, man ! " and he would press the arm of his
momentary confidant.

In the early stages I am persuaded there was no
malice. He talked but for the pleasure of airing
himself. He was essentially glib, as becomes the
young advocate, and essentially careless of the
truth, which is the mark of the young ass ; and so
he talked at random. There was no particular
bias, but that one which is indigenous and univer-
sal, to flatter himself and to please and interest the
present friend. And by thus milling air out of
his mouth, he had presently built up a presentation
of Archie which was known and talked of in all
corners of the county. Wherever there was a resi-
dential house and a walled garden, wherever there
was a dwarfish castle and a park, wherever a quad-
ruple cottage by the ruins of a peel-tower showed
an old family going down, and wherever a hand-
some villa with a carriage approach and a shrubbery
marked the coming up of a new one — probably
on the wheels of machinery — Archie began to be
regarded in the light of a dark, perhaps a vicious
mystery, and the future developments of his
career to be looked for with uneasiness and confi-
dential whispering. He had done something dis-
graceful, my dear. What, was not precisely
known, and that good kind young man, Mr. Innes,
did his best to make light of it. But there it
was. And Mr. Innes was very anxious about him
now; he was really uneasy, my dear; he was
positively wrecking his own prospects because he

WEIR OF HERMISTON 139

dared not leave him alone. How wholly we all
lie at the mercy of a single prater, not needfully
with any malign purpose! And if a man but
talks of himself in the right spirit, refers to
his virtuous actions by the way, and never
applies to them the name of virtue, how easily
his evidence is accepted in the court of public
opinion !

All this while, however, there was a more poi-
sonous ferment at work between the two lads, which
came late indeed to the surface, but had modified
and magnified their dissensions from the first. To
an idle, shallow, easy-going customer like Frank,
the smell of a mystery was attractive. It gave his
mind something to play with, like a new toy to a
child; and it took him on the weak side, for like
many young men coming to the Bar, and before
they have been tried and found wanting, he flat-
tered himself he was a fellow of unusual quickness
and penetration. They knew nothing of Sherlock
Holmes in these days, but there was a good deal
said of Talleyrand. And if you could have caught
Frank off his guard, he would have confessed with
a smirk, that, if he resembled any one, it was the
Marquis de Talleyrand-Perigord. It was on the
occasion of Archie's first absence that this interest
took root. It was vastly deepened when Kirstie
resented his curiosity at breakfast, and that same
afternoon there occurred another scene which
clinched the business. He was fishing Swingle-
burn, Archie accompanying him, when the latter
looked at his watch.

i4o WEIR OF HERMISTON

" Well, good-bye/' said he. " I have something
to do. See you at dinner."

" Don't be in such a hurry," cries Frank. " Hold
on till I get my rod up. I '11 go with you ; I 'm
sick of flogging this ditch."

And he began to reel up his line.

Archie stood speechless. He took a long while
to recover his wits under this direct attack; but
by the time he was ready with his answer, and the
angle was almost packed up, he had become com-
pletely Weir, and the hanging face gloomed on his
young shoulders. He spoke with a laboured com-
posure, a laboured kindness even ; but a child could
see that his mind was made up.

" I beg your pardon, Innes ; I don't want to be
disagreeable, but let us understand one another from
the beginning. When I want your company, I'll
let you know."

" Oh ! " cries Frank, " you don't want my com-
pany, don't you ? "

" Apparently not just now," replied Archie. " I
even indicated to you when I did, if you '11 remem-
ber— and that was at dinner. If we two fel-
lows are to live together pleasantly — and I see
no reason why we should not — it can only be
by respecting each other's privacy. If we begin
intruding "

" Oh, come ! I '11 take this at no man's hands.
Is this the way you treat a guest and an old
friend ? " cried Innes.

"Just go home and think over what I said by
yourself," continued Archie, " whether it 's reason-

WEIR OF HERMISTON 141

able, or whether it 's really offensive or not ; and
let 's meet at dinner as though nothing had hap-
pened. I '11 put it this way, if you like — that I
know my own character, that I 'm looking for-
ward (with great pleasure, I assure you) to a long
visit from you, and that I 'm taking precautions at
the first. I see the thing that we — that I, if you
like — might fall out upon, and I step in and obsto
principiis. I wager you five pounds you '11 end by
seeing that I mean friendliness, and I assure you,
Francie, I do," he added, relenting.

Bursting with anger, but incapable of speech,
Innes shouldered his rod, made a gesture of fare-
well, and strode off down the burnside. Archie
watched him go without moving. He was sorry,
but quite unashamed. He hated to be inhospitable,
but in one thing he was his father's son. He
had a strong sense that his house was his own and
no man else's; and to lie at a guest's mercy was
what he refused. He hated to seem harsh. But
that was Frank's look-out. If Frank had been
commonly discreet, he would have been decently
courteous. And there was another consideration.
The secret he was protecting was not his own
merely ; it was hers ; it belonged to that inexpres-
sible she who was fast taking possession of his soul,
and whom he would soon have defended at the
cost of burning cities. By the time he had watched
Frank as far as the Swingleburnfoot, appearing
and disappearing in the tarnished heather, still
stalking at a fierce gait but already dwindled in the
distance into less than the smallness of Lilliput, he

14* WEIR OF HERMISTON

could afford to smile at the occurrence. Either
Frank would go, and that would be a relief — or
he would continue to stay, and his host must con-
tinue to endure him. And Archie was now free
— by devious paths, behind hillocks and in the
hollow of burns — to make for the trysting-place
where Kirstie, cried about by the curlew and the
plover, waited and burned for his coming by the
Covenanter's stone.

Innes went off down-hill in a passion of resent-
ment, easy to be understood, but which yielded pro-
gressively to the needs of his situation. He cursed
Archie for a cold-hearted, unfriendly, rude dog ; and
himself still more passionately for a fool in hav-
ing come to Hermiston when he might have sought
refuge in almost any other house in Scotland,
but the step once taken was practically irretriev-
able. He had no more ready money to go any-
where else; he would have to borrow from Archie
the next club-night; and ill as he thought of his
host's manners, he was sure of his practical gener-
osity. Frank's resemblance to Talleyrand strikes
me as imaginary ; but at least not Talleyrand him-
self could have more obediently taken his lesson
from the facts. He met Archie at dinner without
resentment, almost with cordiality. You must take
your friends as you find them, he would have said.
Archie could n't help being his father's son, or his
grandfather's, the hypothetical weaver's, grandson.
The son of a hunks, he was still a hunks at heart,
incapable of true generosity and consideration ; but
he had other qualities with which Frank could

WEIR OF HERMISTON 143

divert himself in the meanwhile, and to enjoy
which it was necessary that Frank should keep his
temper.

So excellently was it controlled that he awoke
next morning with his head full of a different,
though a cognate subject. What was Archie's
little game? Why did he shun Frank's company?
What was he keeping secret? Was he keeping
tryst with somebody, and was it a woman? It
would be a good joke and a fair revenge to dis-
cover. To that task he set himself with a great
deal of patience, which might have surprised his
friends, for he had been always credited not with
patience so much as brilliancy; and little by little,
from one point to another, he at last succeeded in
piecing out the situation. First he remarked that,
although Archie set out in all the directions of the
compass, he always came home again from some
point between the south and west. From the study
of a map, and in consideration of the great expanse
of untenanted moorland running in that direction
towards the sources of the Clyde, he laid his fin-
ger on Cauldstaneslap and two other neighbour-
ing farms, Kingsmuirs and Polintarf. But it was
difficult to advance farther. With his rod for a
pretext, he vainly visited each of them in turn;
nothing was to be seen suspicious about this trinity
of moorland settlements. He would have tried to
follow Archie, had it been the least possible, but
the nature of the land precluded the idea. He did
the next best, ensconced himself in a quiet corner,
and pursued his movements with a telescope. It

i44 WEIR OF HERMISTON

was equally in vain, and he soon wearied of his
futile vigilance, left the telescope at home, and had
almost given the matter up in despair, when, on the
twenty-seventh day of his visit, he was suddenly
confronted with the person whom he sought. The
first Sunday Kirstie had managed to stay away
from kirk on some pretext of indisposition, which
was more truly modesty ; the pleasure of beholding
Archie seeming too sacred, too vivid for that public
place. On the two following Frank had himself
been absent on some of his excursions among the
neighbouring families. It was not until the fourth,
accordingly, that Frank had occasion to set eyes on
the enchantress. With the first look, all hesitation
was over. She came with the Cauldstaneslap party ;
then she lived at Cauldstaneslap. Here was
Archie's secret, here was the woman, and more
than that — though I have need here of every
manageable attenuation of language — with the
first look, he had already entered himself as rival.
It was a good deal in pique, it was a little in revenge,
it was much in genuine admiration : the devil may
decide the proportions; I cannot, and it is very
likely that Frank could not.

" Mighty attractive milkmaid," he observed, on
the way home.

"Who?" said Archie.

" O, the girl you 're looking at — are n't you ?
Forward there on the road. She came attended by
the rustic bard ; presumably, therefore, belongs to
his exalted family. The single objection! for the
Four Black Brothers are awkward customers. If

WEIR OF HERMISTON 145

anything were to go wrong, Gib would gibber, and
Clem would prove inclement; and Dand fly in
danders, and Hob blow up in gobbets. It would
be a Helliott of a business ! "

" Very humourous, I am sure," said Archie.

" Well, I am trying to be so," said Frank.
" It 's none too easy in this place, and with your
solemn society, my dear fellow. But confess that
the milkmaid has found favour in your eyes or
resign all claim to be a man of taste."

" It is no matter," returned Archie.

But the other continued to look at him, steadily
and quizzically, and his colour slowly rose and
deepened under the glance, until not impudence
itself could have denied that he was blushing.
And at this Archie lost some of his control. He
changed his stick from one hand to the other,
and — " O, for God's sake, don't be an ass ! " he
cried.

"Ass? That's the retort delicate without
doubt," says Frank. " Beware of the homespun
brothers, dear. If they come into the dance, you '11
see who 's an ass. Think now, if they only applied
(say) a quarter as much talent as I have applied
to the question of what Mr. Archie does with his
evening hours, and why he is so unaffectedly nasty
when the subject 's touched on "

" You are touching on it now," interrupted
Archie with a wince.

" Thank you. That was all I wanted, an articu-
late confession," said Frank.

" I beg to remind you " began Archie.

10

146 WEIR OF HERMISTON

But he was interrupted in turn. " My dear fel-
low, don't. It 's quite needless. The subject 's
dead and buried.' '

And Frank began to talk hastily on other matters,
an art in which he was an adept, for it was his gift
to be fluent on anything or nothing. But although
Archie had the grace or the timidity to suffer him
to rattle on, he was by no means done with the
subject. When he came home to dinner, he was
greeted with a sly demand, how things were look-
ing " Cauldstaneslap ways." Frank took his first
glass of port out after dinner to the toast of Kirstie,
and later in the evening he returned to the charge
again.

" I say, Weir, you '11 excuse me for returning
again to this affair. I 've been thinking it over,
and I wish to beg you very seriously to be more
careful. It 's not a safe business. Not safe, my
boy," said he.

"What?" said Archie.

" Well, it 's your own fault if I must put a name
on the thing ; but really, as a friend, I cannot stand
by and see you rushing head down into these
dangers. My dear boy," said he, holding up a
warning cigar, " consider what is to be the end
of it?"

" The end of what ? " — Archie, helpless with
irritation, persisted in this dangerous and ungra-
cious guard.

" Well, the end of the milkmaid ; or, to speak
more by the card, the end of Miss Christina Elliott
of the Cauldstaneslap ? "

WEIR OF HERMISTON i47

" I assure you," Archie broke out, " this is all a
figment of your imagination. There is nothing to
be said against that young lady ; you have no right
to introduce her name into the conversation."

" I '11 make a note of it," said Frank. " She
shall henceforth be nameless, nameless, nameless,
Grigalach ! I make a note besides of your valuable
testimony to her character. I only want to look
at this thing as a man of the world. Admitted
she 's an angel — but, my good fellow, is she a
lady?"

This was torture to Archie. " I beg your par-
don," he said, struggling to be composed, " but
because you have wormed yourself into my
confidence "

" O, come!" cried Frank. "Your confidence?
It was rosy but unconsenting. Your confidence,
indeed? Now, look! This is what I must say,
Weir, for it concerns your safety and good char-
acter, and therefore my honour as your friend.
You say I wormed myself into your confidence.
Wormed is good. But what have I done? I
have put two and two together, just as the parish
will be doing to-morrow, and the whole of Tweed-
dale in two weeks, and the Black Brothers — well,
I won't put a date on that ; it will be a dark and
stormy morning. Your secret, in other words,
is poor Poll's. And I want to ask of you as a
friend whether you like the prospect? There
are two horns to your dilemma, and I must say
for myself I should look mighty ruefully on
either. Do you see yourself explaining to the Four

148 WEIR OF HERMISTON

Black Brothers? or do you see yourself present-
ing the milkmaid to papa as the future lady
of Hermiston? Do you? I tell you plainly, I
don't."

Archie rose. " I will hear no more of this," he
said in a trembling voice.

But Frank again held up his cigar. " Tell me
one thing first. Tell me if this is not a friend's
part that I am playing ? "

" I believe you think it so," replied Archie. " I
can go as far as that. I can do so much justice
to your motives. But I will hear no more of it.
I am going to bed."

" That 's right, Weir," said Frank, heartily.
" Go to bed and think over it ; and, I say, man,
don't forget your prayers! I don't often do the
moral — don't go in for that sort of thing —
but when I do there 's one thing sure, that I
mean it."

So Archie marched off to bed, and Frank sat
alone by the table for another hour or so, smiling
to himself richly. There was nothing vindictive
in his nature; but, if revenge came in his way,
it might as well be good, and the thought of
Archie's pillow reflections that night was inde-
scribably sweet to him. He felt a pleasant sense
of power. He looked down on Archie as on a very
little boy whose strings he pulled — as on a horse
whom he had backed and bridled by sheer power
of intelligence, and whom he might ride to glory
or the grave at pleasure. Which was it to be ? He
lingered along, relishing the details of schemes that

WEIR OF HERMISTON 149

he was too idle to pursue. / Poor cork upon a tor-
rent, he tasted that night the^sweets of omnipotence,
and brooded like a deity over the strands of that
intrigue which was to shatter him before the
summer waned.

CHAPTER VIII
A NOCTURNAL VISIT

KIRSTIE had many causes of distress.
More and more as we grow old — and
yet more and more as we grow old and
are women, frozen by the fear of age — we come
to rely on the voice as the single outlet of the
soul. Only thus, in the curtailment of our means,
can we relieve the straitened cry of the passion
within us; only thus, in the bitter and sensitive
shyness of advancing years, can we maintain rela-
tions with those vivacious figures of the young that
still show before us, and tend daily to become no
more than the moving wall-paper of life. Talk is
the last link, the last relation. But with the end of
the conversation, when the voice stops and the
bright face of the listener is turned away, solitude
falls again on the bruised heart. Kirstie had lost
her " cannie hour at e'en " ; she could no more
wander with Archie, a ghost, if you will, but a
happy ghost, in fields Elysian. And to her it was
as if the whole world had fallen silent; to him,
but an unremarkable change of amusements. And
she raged to know it. The effervescency of her
passionate and irritable nature rose within her at
times to bursting point.

WEIR OF HERMISTGN 151

This is the price paid by age for unseasonable
ardours of feeling. It must have been so for Kir-
stie at any time when the occasion chanced; but
it so fell out that she was deprived of this delight
in the hour when she had most need of it, when
she had most to say, most to ask, and when she
trembled to recognise her sovereignty not merely
in abeyance but annulled. For, with the clairvoy-
ance of a genuine love, she had pierced the mys-
tery that had so long embarrassed Frank. She
was conscious, even before it was carried out, even
on that Sunday night when it began, of an invasion
of her rights; and a voice told her the invader's
name. Since then, by arts, by accident, by small
things observed, and by the general drift of
Archie's humour, she had passed beyond all pos-
sibility of doubt. With a sense of justice that
Lord Hermiston might have envied, she had that
day in church considered and admitted the attrac-
tions of the younger Kirstie; and with the pro-
found humanity and sentimentality of her nature,
she had recognised the coming of fate. Not thus
would she have chosen. She had seen, in imagi-
nation, Archie wedded to some tall, powerful,
and rosy heroine of the golden locks, made in
her own image, for whom she would have strewed
the bride-bed with delight; and now she could
have wept to see the ambition falsified. But
the gods had pronounced, and her doom was
otherwise.

She lay tossing in bed that night, besieged with
feverish thoughts. There were dangerous matters

152 WEIR OF HERMISTON

pending, a battle was toward, over the fate of
which she hung in jealousy, sympathy, fear, and
alternate loyalty and disloyalty to either side.
Now she was re-incarnated in her niece, and now
in Archie. Now she saw, through the girl's eyes,
the youth on his knees to her, heard his persuasive
instances with a deadly weakness, and received his
overmastering caresses. Anon, with a revulsion,
her temper raged to see such utmost favours of
fortune and love squandered on a brat of a girl, one
of her own house, using her own name — a deadly
ingredient — and that " didnae ken her ain mind
an' was as black 's your hat." Now she trembled
lest her deity should plead in vain, loving the idea
of success for him like a triumph of nature; anon,
with returning loyalty to her own family and sex,
she trembled for Kirstie and the credit of the
Elliotts. And again she had a vision of herself, the
day over for her old-world tales and local gossip,
bidding farewell to her last link with life and
brightness and love; and behind and beyond, she
saw but the blank butt-end where she must crawl
to die. Had she then come to the lees? she, so
great, so beautiful, with a heart as fresh as a girl's
and strong as womanhood? It could not be, and
yet it was so; and for a moment her bed was hor-
rible to her as the sides of the grave. And she
looked forward over a waste of hours, and saw
herself go on to rage, and tremble, and be softened,
and rage again, until the day came and the labours
of the day must be renewed.

Suddenly she heard feet on the stairs — his feet,

WEIR OF HERMISTON 153

and soon after the sound of a window-sash flung
open. She sat up with her heart beating. He
had gone to his room alone, and he had not gone
to bed. She might again have one of her night
cracks; and at the entrancing prospect, a change
came over her mind; with the approach of this
hope of pleasure, all the baser metal became imme-
diately obliterated from her thoughts. She rose,
all woman, and all the best of woman, tender, piti-
ful, hating the wrong, loyal to her own sex — and
all the weakest of that dear miscellany, nourishing,
cherishing next her soft heart, voicelessly flattering,
hopes that she would have died sooner than have
acknowledged. She tore off her nightcap, and her
hair fell about her shoulders in profusion. Undy-
ing coquetry awoke. By the faint light of her
nocturnal rush, she stood before the looking-glass,
carried her shapely arms above her head, and
gathered up the treasures of her tresses. She was
never backward to admire herself; that kind of
modesty was a stranger to her nature; and she
paused, struck with a pleased wonder at the sight.
" Ye daft auld wife ! " she said, answering a
thought that was not; and she blushed with the
innocent consciousness of a child. Hastily she did
up the massive and shining coils, hastily donned
a wrapper, and with the rush-light in her hand,
stole into the hall. Below stairs she heard the
clock ticking the deliberate seconds, and Frank
jingling with the decanters in the dining-room.
Aversion rose in her, bitter and momentary.
"Nesty, tippling puggy!" she thought; and the

iS4 WEIR OF HERMISTON

next moment she had knocked guardedly at
Archie's door and was bidden enter.

Archie had been looking out into the ancient
blackness, pierced here and there with a rayless
star; taking the sweet air of the moors and the
night into his bosom deeply ; seeking, perhaps find-
ing, peace after the manner of the unhappy. He
turned round as she came in, and showed her a
pale face against the window-frame.

" Is that you, Kirstie? " he asked. " Come in ! "

" It ■$ unco late, my dear," said Kirstie, affect-
ing unwillingness.

" No, no," he answered, " not at all. Come in,
if you want a crack. I am not sleepy, God
knows."

She advanced, took a chair by the toilet table
and the candle, and set the rush-light at her foot.
Something — it might be in the comparative dis-
order of her dress, it might be the emotion that
now welled in her bosom — had touched her with
a wand of transformation, and she seemed young
with the youth of goddesses.

" Mr. Erchie," she began, " what 's this that 's
come to ye? "

" I am not aware of anything that has come^"
said Archie, and blushed and repented bitterly that
he had let her in.

"Oh, my dear, that'll no dae!" said Kirstie.
" It 's ill to blind the eyes of love. Oh, Mr. Erchie,
tak' a thocht ere it 's ower late. Ye shouldnae be
impatient o' the braws o' life, they'll a' come in
their saison, like the sun and the rain. Ye 're

WEIR OF HERMISTON 155

young yet ; ye 've mony cantie years afore ye. S^e
and dinnae wreck yersel at the outset like sae mony
ithers! Hae patience — they telled me aye that
was the owercome o' life — hae patience, there 's
a braw day coming yet. Gude kens it never cam
to me; and here I am wi' nayther man nor bairn
to ca' my ain, wearying a' folks wi' my ill tongue,
and you just the first, Mr. Erchie?"

" I have a difficulty in knowing what you mean,"
said Archie.

" Weel, and I '11 tell ye," she said. " It 's just
this, that I'm feared. I'm feared for ye, my
dear. Remember, your faither is a hard man,
reaping where he hasnae sowed and gaithering
where he hasnae strawed. It 's easy speakin', but
mind ! Ye '11 have to look in the gurly face o'm,
where it 's ill to look, and vain to look for mercy.
Ye mind me o' a bonny ship pitten oot into the
black and gowsty seas — ye 're a' safe still sittin'
quait and crackin' wi' Kirstie in your lown chalmer ;
but whaur will ye be the morn, and in whatten
horror o' the fearsome tempest, cryin' on the hills
to cover ye ? "

" Why, Kirstie, you 're very enigmatical to-
night— and very eloquent," Archie put in.

" And, my dear Mr. Erchie," she continued, with
a change of voice, " ye mauna think that I canna
sympathise wi' ye. Ye mauna think that I havena
been young mysel'. Langsyne, when I was a bit

lassie, no twenty yet " She paused and sighed.

" Clean and caller, wi' a fit like the hinney bee,"
she continued. " I was aye big and buirdly, ye

156 WEIR OF HERMISTON

maun understand; a bonny figure o' a woman,
though I say it that suldna — built to rear bairns
— braw bairns they suld hae been, and grand I
would hae likit it! But I was young, dear, wi'
the bonny glint o' youth in my e'en, and little I
dreamed I 'd ever be tellin' ye this, an auld, lanely,
rudas wife! Weel, Mr. Erchie, there was a lad
cam' courtin' me, as was but naetural. Mony had
come before, and I would nane o' them. But this
yin had a tongue to wile the birds frae the lift
and the bees frae the fox-glove bells. Deary me,
but it 's lang syne. Folk have deed sinsyne and
been buried, and are forgotten, and bairns been
born and got merrit and got bairns o' their ain.
Sinsyne woods have been plantit, and have grawn
up and are bonny trees, and the joes sit in their
shadow, and sinsyne auld estates have changed
hands, and there have been wars and rumours of
wars on the face of the earth. And here I 'm still
• — like an auld droopit craw — lookin' on and
craikin'? But, Mr. Erchie, do ye no think that
I have mind o' it a' still ? I was dwalling then in
my faither's house ; and it 's a curious thing that
we were whiles trysted in the Deil's Hags. And
do ye no think that I have mind of the bonny
simmer days, the lang miles, o' the bluid-red
heather, the cryin' o' the whaups, and the lad and
the lassie that was trysted? Do ye no think that
I mind how the hilly sweetness ran about my hairt ?
Ay, Mr. Erchie, I ken the way o' it — fine do I
ken the way — how the grace o' God takes them
like Paul of Tarsus, when they think o' it least,

WEIR OF HERMISTON 157

and drives the pair o' them into a land which is
like a dream, and the world and the folks in 't are
nae mair than clouds to the puir lassie, and Heeven
nae mair than windle-straes, if she can but plees-
ure him ! Until Tarn deed — that was my story,"
she broke off to say, " he deed, and I wasna at the
buryin'. But while he was here, I could take care
o' mysel'. And can yon puir lassie?"

Kirstie, her eyes shining with unshed tears,
stretched out her hand towards him appealingly;
the bright and the dull gold of her hair flashed
and smouldered in the coils behind her comely
head, like the rays of an eternal youth; the pure
colour had risen in her face; and Archie was
abashed alike by her beauty and her story. He
came towards her slowly from the window, took
up her hand in his and kissed it.

" Kirstie," he said hoarsely, " you have mis-
judged me sorely. I have always thought of her,
I wouldna harm her for the universe, my woman."

" Eh, lad, and that 's easy sayin'," cried Kirstie,
" but it 's nane sae easy doin' ! Man, do ye no
comprehend that it 's God's wull we should be
blendit and glamoured, and have nae command
over our ain members at a time like that? My
bairn," she cried, still holding his hand, " think o'
the puir lass! have pity upon her, Erchie! and
O, be wise for twa! Think o' the risk she rins!
I have seen ye, and what 's to prevent ithers ? I
saw ye once in the Hags, in my ain howl, and I
was wae to see ye there — in pairt for the omen,
for I think there 's a weird on the place — and in

158 WEIR OF HERMISTON

pairt for puir nakit envy and bitterness o' hairt.
It 's strange ye should forgather there tae ! God !
but yon puir, thrawn, auld Covenanter 's seen a
heap o' human natur since he lookit his last on
the musket barrels, if he never saw nane afore,"
she added with a kind of wonder in her eyes.

" I swear by my honour I have done her no
wrong," said Archie. " I swear by my honour and
the redemption of my soul that there shall none
be done her. I have heard of this before. I have
been foolish, Kirstie, not unkind and, above all,
not base."

" There 's my bairn ! " said Kirstie, rising. " I '11
can trust ye noo, I '11 can gang to my bed wi' an
easy hairt." And then she saw in a flash how
barren had been her triumph. Archie had prom-
ised to spare the girl, and he would keep it; but
who had promised to spare Archie? What was to
be the end of it? Over a maze of difficulties she
glanced, and saw, at the end of every passage, the
flinty countenance of Hermiston. And a kind of
horror fell upon her at what she had done. She
wore a tragic mask. " Erchie, the Lord peety you,
dear, and peety me! I have buildit on this foun-
dation," — laying her hand heavily on his shoulder
— " and buildit hie, and pit my hairt in the buildin'
of it. If the hale hypothec were to fa', I think,
laddie, I would dee! Excuse a daft wife that
loves ye, and that kenned your mither. And for
His name's sake keep yersel' frae inordinate de-
sires ; haud your heart in baith your hands, carry
it canny and laigh ; dinna send it up like a bairn's

WEIR OF HERMISTON 159

kite into the collieshangie o' the wunds? Mind,
Maister Erchie dear, that this life's a disappoint-
ment, and a mouth fu' o' mools is the appointed
end."

" Ay, but, Kirstie, my woman, you 're asking me
ower much at last," said Archie, profoundly moved,
and lapsing into the broad Scots. " Ye 're asking
what nae man can grant ye, what only the Lord
of heaven can grant ye if He see fit. Ay! And
can even he? I can promise ye what I shall do,
and you can depend on that. But how I shall feel
— my woman, that is long past thinking of ! "

They were both standing by now opposite each
other. The face of Archie wore the wretched
semblance of a smile; hers was convulsed for a
moment.

" Promise me ae thing," she cried, in a sharp
voice. " Promise me ye '11 never do naething with-
out telling me."

" No, Kirstie, I canna promise ye that," he re-
plied. " I have promised enough, God kens ! "

" May the blessing of God lift and rest upon ye,
dear ! " she said.

" God bless ye, my old friend," said he.

CHAPTER IX

AT THE WEAVER'S STONE

IT was late in the afternoon when Archie drew
near by the hill path to the Praying Weaver's
Stone. The Hags were in shadow. But still,
through the gate of the Slap, the sun shot a last
arrow, which spread far and straight across the
surface of the moss, here and there touching and
shining on a tussock, and lighted at length on the
gravestone and the small figure awaiting him there.
/The emptiness and solitude of the great moors
seemed to be concentred there, and Kirstie pointed
out by that figure of sunshine for the only inhab-
itant. His first sight of her was thus excruciat-
ingly sad, like a glimpse of a world from which
all light, comfort, and society were on the point
of vanishing./ And the next moment, when she
had turned d\er face to him and the quick smile
had enlightened it, the whole face of nature smiled
upon him in her smile of welcome. Archie's slow
pace was quickened ; his legs hasted to her though
his heart was hanging back. The girl, upon her
side, drew herself together slowly and stood up, ex-
pectant; she was all languor, her face was gone
white; her arms ached for him, her soul was on

WEIR OF HERMISTON 161

tiptoes. But he deceived her, pausing a few steps
away, not less white than herself, and holding up
his hand with a gesture of denial.

" No, Christina, not to-day," he said. " To-day
I have to talk to you seriously. Sit ye down, please,
there where you were. Please ! " he repeated.

The revulsion of feeling in Christina's heart
was violent. To have longed and waited these
weary hours for him, rehearsing her endearments
— to have seen him at last come — to have been
ready there, breathless, wholly passive, his to do
what he would with — and suddenly to have found
herself confronted with a grey-faced, harsh school-
master — it was too rude a shock. She could have
wept, but pride withheld her. She sat down on the
stone, from which she had arisen, part with the
instinct of obedience, part as though she had been
thrust there. What was this? Why was she re-
jected? Had she ceased to please ? She stood here
offering her wares, and he would none of them!
And yet they were all his ! His to take and keep,
not his to refuse though! In her quick petulant
nature, a moment ago on fire with hope, thwarted
love and wounded vanity wrought. The school-
master that there is in all men, to the despair of
all girls and most women, was now completely in
possession of Archie. He had passed a night of
sermons ; a day of reflection ; he had come wound
up to do his duty ; and the set mouth, which in him
only betrayed the effort of his will, to her seemed
the expression of an averted heart. It was the
same with his constrained voice and embarrassed

162 WEIR OF HERMISTON

utterance ; and if so — if it was all over — the pang
of the thought took away from her the power of
thinking.

He stood before her some way off. " Kirstie,
there *s been too much of this. We 've seen too
much of each other." She looked up quickly and
her eyes contracted. " There 's no good ever comes
of these secret meetings. They 're not frank, not
honest truly, and I ought to have seen it. People
have begun to talk ; and it 's not right of me. Do
you see?"

" I see somebody will have been talking to ye,"
she said sullenly.

" They have, more than one of them," replied
Archie.

" And whae were they ? " she cried. " And
what kind o' love do ye ca' that, that 's ready to
gang round like a whirligig at folk talking? Do
ye think they havena talked to me ? "

" Have they indeed ? " said Archie, with a quick
breath. " That is what I feared. Who were they?
Who has dared "

Archie was on the point of losing his temper.

As a matter of fact, not any one had talked to
Christina on the matter; and she strenuously re-
peated her own first question in a panic of self-
defence.

" Ah, well ! what does it matter ? " he said.
" They were good folk that wished well to us, and
the great affair is that there are people talking.
My dear girl, we have to be wise. We must not
wreck our lives at the outset. They may be long

WEIR OF HERMISTON 163

and happy yet, and we must see to it, Kirstie, like
God's rational creatures and not like fool children.
There is one thing we must see to before all.
You 're worth waiting for, Kirstie ! worth waiting
for a generation ; it would be enough reward." —
And here he remembered the schoolmaster again,
and very unwisely took to following wisdom.
" The first thing that we must see to, is that there
shall be no scandal about for my father's sake.
That would ruin all; do ye no see that?"

Kirstie was a little pleased, there had been some
show of warmth of sentiment in what Archie had
said last. But the dull irritation still persisted in
her bosom; with the aboriginal instinct, having
suffered herself, she wished to make Archie suffer.

And besides, there had come out the word she
had always feared to hear from his lips, the name
of his father. It is not to be supposed that, during
so many days with a love avowed between them,
some reference had not been made to their con-
joint future. It had in fact been often touched
upon, and from the first had been the sore point.
Kirstie had wilfully closed the eye of thought;
she would not argue even with herself; gallant,
desperate little heart, she had accepted the com-
mand of that supreme attraction like the call of
fate and marched blindfold on her doom. But
Archie, with his masculine sense of responsibility,
must reason ; he must dwell on some future good,
when the present good was all in all to Kirstie;
he must talk — and talk lamely, as necessity drove
him — of what was to be. Again and again he

164 WEIR OF HERMISTON

had touched on marriage; again and again been
driven back into indistinctness by a memory of
Lord Hermiston. And Kirstie had been swift to
understand and quick to choke down and smother
the understanding; swift to leap up in flame at
a mention of that hope, which spoke volumes to
her vanity and her love, that she might one day
be Mrs. Weir of Hermiston; swift, also, to recog-
nise in his stumbling or throttled utterance the
death-knell of these expectations, and constant,
poor girl! in her large-minded madness, to go on
and to reck nothing of the future. But these
unfinished references, these blinks in which his
heart spoke, and his memory and reason rose up
to silence it before the words were well uttered,
gave her unqualifiable agony. She was raised up
and dashed down again bleeding. The recurrence
of the subject forced her, for however short a time,
to open her eyes on what she did not wish to see;
and it had invariably ended in another disappoint-
ment. So now again, at the mere wind of its com-
ing, at the mere mention of his father's name —
who might seem indeed to have accompanied them
in their whole moorland courtship, an awful figure
in a wig with an ironical and bitter smile, present
to guilty consciousness — she fled from it head
down.

" Ye havena told me yet," she said, " who was
it spoke ? "

" Your aunt for one," said Archie.

" Auntie Kirstie ? " she cried. " And what do
I care for my auntie Kirstie ? "

WEIR OF HERMISTON 165

" She cares a great deal for her niece," replied
Archie, in kind reproof.

" Troth, and it 's the first I Ve heard of it," re-
torted the girl.

" The question here is not who it is, but what
they say, what they have noticed," pursued the
lucid schoolmaster. " That is what we have to
think of in self-defence."

" Auntie Kirstie, indeed ! A bitter, thrawn auld
maid that >s fomented trouble in the country be-
fore I was born, and will be doing it still, I daur
say, when I 'm deid ! It 's in her nature ; it 's as
natural for her as it 's for a sheep to eat."

" Pardon me, Kirstie, she was not the only one,"
interposed Archie. " I had two warnings, two
sermons, last night, both most kind and considerate.
Had you been there, I promise you you would have
grat, my dear ! And they opened my eyes. I saw
we were going a wrong way."

" Who was the other one? " Kirstie demanded.

By this time Archie was in the condition of a
hunted beast. He had come, braced and reso-
lute ; he was to trace out a line of conduct for the
pair of them in a few cold, convincing sentences;
he had now been there some time, and he was still
staggering round the outworks and undergoing
what he felt to be a savage cross-examination.

"Mr. Frank!" she cried. " What nex', I would
like to ken?"

" He spoke most kindly and truly."

"What like did he say?"

" I am not going to tell you ; you have nothing

166 WEIR OF HERMISTON

to do with that," cried Archie, startled to find he
had admitted so much.

" O, I have naething to do with it ! " she re-
peated, springing to her feet. " A'body at Hermis-
ton 's free to pass their opinions upon me, but I
have naething to do wi' it! Was this at prayers
like? Did ye ca' the grieve into the consultation?
Little wonder if a'body 's talking, when ye make
a'body ye're confidants! But as you say, Mr.
Weir, — most kindly, most considerately, most
truly, I 'm sure, — I have naething to do with it.
And I think I '11 better be going. I '11 be wishing
you good-evening, Mr. Weir." And she made him
a stately curtsey, shaking as she did so from head
to foot, with the barren ecstasy of temper.

Poor Archie stood dumfounded. She had
moved some steps away from him before he re-
covered the gift of articulate speech.

" Kirstie! " he cried. " O, Kirstie woman! "

There was in his voice a ring of appeal, a clang
of mere astonishment that showed the schoolmaster
was vanquished.

She turned round on him. " What do ye Kirstie
me for? " she retorted. " What have ye to do wi'
me? Gang to your ain freends and deave them! "

He could only repeat the appealing " Kirstie! "

" Kirstie, indeed ! " cried the girl, her eyes blaz-
ing in her white face. " My name is Miss Christina
Elliott, I would have ye to ken, and I daur ye to
ca' me out of it. If I canna get love, I '11 have
respect, Mr. Weir. I 'm come of decent people,
and I '11 have respect. What have I done that ye

WEIR OF HERMISTON 167

should lightly me? What have I done? What
have I done? O, what have I done?" and her
voice rose upon the third repetition. " I thocht
— I thocht — I thocht I was sae happy ! " and
the first sob broke from her like the paroxysm of
some mortal sickness.
j? Archie ran to her. He took the poor child in
his arms, and she nestled to his breast as to a
mother's, and clasped him in hands that were
strong like vices. He felt her whole body shaken
by the throes of distress, and had pity upon her
beyond speech. Pity, and at the same time a be-
wildered fear of this explosive engine in his arms,
whose works he did not understand, and yet had
been tampering with. There arose from before
him the curtains of boyhood, and he saw for the
first time the ambiguous face of woman as she is.
In vain he looked back over the interview ; he saw
not where he had offended. It seemed unprovoked,
a v/ilful convulsion of brute nature. . . .

EDITORIAL NOTE

With the words last printed, " a wilful convulsion of brute
nature," the romance of Weir of Hermiston breaks off. They
were dictated, I believe, on the very morning of the writer's
sudden seizure and death. Weir of Hermiston thus remains
in the work of Stevenson what Edwin Drood is in the work
of Dickens or Denis Duval in that of Thackeray : or rather
it remains relatively more, for if each of those fragments
holds an honourable place among its author's writings, among
Stevenson's the fragment of Weir holds certainly the highest.

Readers may be divided in opinion on the question whether
they would or they would not wish to hear more of the in-
tended course of the story and destinies of the characters.
To some, silence may seem best, and that the mind should
be left to its own conjectures as to the sequel, with the help
of such indications as the text affords. I confess that this
is the view which has my sympathy. But since others, and
those almost certainly a majority, are anxious to be told all
they can, and since editors and publishers join in the request,
I can scarce do otherwise than comply. The intended argu-
ment, then, so far as it was known at the time of the writer's
death to his step-daughter and devoted amanuensis, Mrs.
Strong, was nearly as follows : —

Archie persists in his good resolution of avoiding further
conduct compromising to young Kirstie's good name. Taking
advantage of the situation thus created, and of the girl's un-
happiness and wounded vanity, Frank Innes pursues his pur-
pose of seduction ; and Kirstie, though still caring for Archie
in her heart, allows herself to become Frank's victim. Old
Kirstie is the first to perceive something amiss with her, and
believing Archie to be the culprit, accuses him, thus making
him aware for the first time that mischief has happened. He
does not at once deny the charge, but seeks out and questions

170 WEIR OF HER MIST ON

young Kirstie, who confesses the truth to him ; and he, still
loving her, promises to protect and defend her in her trouble.
He then has an interview with Frank Innes on the moor,
which ends in a quarrel, and in Archie killing Frank beside
the Weaver's Stone. Meanwhile the Four Black Brothers,
having become aware of their sister's betrayal, are bent on
vengeance against Archie as her supposed seducer. They
are about to close in upon him with this purpose, when he is
arrested by the officers of the law for the murder of Frank.
He is tried before his own father, the Lord Justice-Clerk,
found guilty, and condemned to death. Meanwhile the elder
Kirstie, having discovered from the girl how matters really
stand, informs her nephews of the truth : and they, in a great
revulsion of feeling in Archie's favour, determine on an action
after the ancient manner of their house. They gather a fol-
lowing, and after a great fight break the prison where Archie
lies confined, and rescue him. He and young Kirstie there-
after escape to America. But the ordeal of taking part in the
trial of his own son has been too much for the Lord Justice-
Clerk, who dies of the shock. " I do not know," adds the
amanuensis, " what becomes of old Kirstie, but that character
grew and strengthened so in the writing that I am sure he had
some dramatic destiny for her."

The plan of every imaginative work is subject, of course, to
change under the artist's hand as he carries it out ; and not
merely the character of the elder Kirstie, but other elements
of the design no less, might well have deviated from the lines
originally traced. It seems certain, however, that the next
stage in the relations of Archie and the younger Kirstie
would have been as above foreshadowed; this conception
of the lover's unconventional chivalry and unshaken devo-
tion to his mistress after her fault is very characteristic of
the author's mind. The vengeance to be taken on the seducer
beside the Weaver's Stone is prepared for in the first words
of the Introduction : while the situation and fate of the judge,
confronting like a Brutus, but unable to survive, the duty of
sending his own son to the gallows, seems clearly to have
been destined to furnish the climax and essential tragedy of
the tale. How this circumstance was to have been brought

EDITORIAL NOTE 171

about within the limits of legal usage and social possibility,
seems hard to conjecture; but it was a point to which the
author had evidently given careful consideration. Mrs. Strong
says simply that the Lord Justice-Clerk, like an old Roman,
condemns his son to death ; but I am assured, on the best
legal authority of Scotland, that no judge, however powerful
either by character or office, could have insisted on presiding
at the trial of a near kinsman of his own. The Lord Justice-
Clerk was head of the criminal justiciary of the country ; he
might have insisted on his right of being present on the bench
when his son was tried ; but he would never have been allowed
to preside or to pass sentence. Now in a letter of Stevenson's
to Mr. Baxter, of October 1892, I find him asking for materials
in terms which seem to indicate that he knew this quite well :
— "I wish Pitcairn's * Criminal Trials,' quam primum. Also
an absolutely correct text of the Scots judiciary oath. Also,
in case Pitcairn does not come down late enough, I wish as
full a report as possible of a Scots murder trial between
1 790-1820. Understand, the fullest possible. Is there any
book which would guide me to the following facts ? The
Justice-Clerk tries some people capitally on circuit. Certain
evidence cropping up, the charge is transferred to the Justice-
Clerk's own son. Of course in the next trial the Justice-Clerk
is excluded, and the case is called before the Lord Justice-
General. Where would this trial have to be? I fear in
Edinburgh, which would not suit my view. Could it be
again at the circuit town?" The point was referred to a
quondam fellow-member with Stevenson of the Edinburgh
Speculative Society, Mr. Graham Murray, the present Solicitor-
General for Scotland ; whose reply was to the effect that there
would be no difficulty in making the new trial take place
at the circuit town: that it would have to be held there in
spring or autumn, before two Lords of Justiciary; and that
the Lord Justice-General would have nothing to do with it,
this title being at the date in question only a nominal one
held by a layman (which is no longer the case). On this
Stevenson writes, " Graham Murray's note re the venue was
highly satisfactory, and did me all the good in the world."
The terms of his inquiry seem to imply that he intended other
persons, before Archie, to have fallen first under suspicion of

172 WEIR OF HERMISTON

the murder ; and also — doubtless in order to make the rescue
by the Black Brothers possible — that he wanted Archie to be
imprisoned not in Edinburgh but in the circuit town. But
they do not show how he meant to get over the main diffi-
culty, which at the same time he fully recognises. Can it have
been that Lord Hermiston's part was to have been limited
to presiding at thejirst trial, where the evidence incriminating
Archie was unexpectedly brought forward, and to directing
that the law should take its course?

Whether the final escape and union of Archie and Christina
would have proved equally essential to the plot may perhaps
to some readers seem questionable. They may rather feel
that a tragic destiny is foreshadowed from the beginning for
all concerned, and is inherent in the very conditions of the
tale. But on this point, and other matters of general criti-
cism connected with it, I find an interesting discussion by the
author himself in his correspondence. Writing to Mr. J. M.
Barrie, under date November i, 1892, and criticising that
author's famous story, of The Little Minister, Stevenson
says : —

" Your descriptions of your dealings with Lord Rintoul are
frightfully unconscientious. . . . The Little Minister ought
to have ended badly ; we all know it did, and we are infinitely
grateful to you for the grace and good feeling with which you
have lied about it. If you had told the truth, I for one could
never have forgiven you. As you had conceived and written
the earlier parts, the truth about the end, though indisputably
true to fact, would have been a lie, or what is worse, a dis-
cord in art. If you are going to make a book end badly, it
must end badly from the beginning. Now, your book began
to end well. You let yourself fall in love with, and fondle,
and smile at your puppets. Once you had done that, your
honour was committed — at the cost of truth to life you were
bound to save them. It is the blot on Richard Feverel, for
instance, that it begins to end well ; and then tricks you and
ends ill. But in this case, there is worse behind, for the ill
ending does not inherently issue from the plot — the story
had, in fact, ended well after the great last interview between
Richard and Lucy, — and the blind, illogical bullet which
smashes all has no more to do between the boards than a fly

EDITORIAL NOTE 173

has to do with a room into whose open window it comes
buzzing. It might have so happened; it needed not; and
unless needs must, we have no right to pain our readers. I
have had a heavy case of conscience of the same kind about
my Braxfield story. Braxfield — only his name is Hermiston
— has a son who is condemned to death ; plainly there is a
fine tempting fitness about this — and I meant he was to hang.
But on considering my minor characters, I saw there were five
people who would — in a sense, who must — break prison and
attempt his rescue. They are capable hardy folks too, who
might very well succeed. Why should they not then ? Why
should not young Hermiston escape clear out of the country ?
and be happy, if he could, with his — but soft! I will not
betray my secret nor my heroine. ..."

To pass, now, from the question how the story would have
ended to the question how it originated and grew in the
writer's mind. The character of the hero, Weir of Hermis-
ton, is avowedly suggested by the historical personality of
Robert Macqueen, Lord Braxfield. This famous judge has
been for generations the subject of a hundred Edinburgh tales
and anecdotes. Readers of Stevenson's essay on the Rae-
burn exhibition in Virginibus Puerisque, will remember how
he is fascinated by Raeburn's portrait of Braxfield, even as
Lockhart had been fascinated by a different portrait of the
same worthy sixty years before (see Peter's Letters to His
Kinsfolk) ; nor did his interest in the character diminish in
later life.

Again, the case of a judge involved by the exigencies of
his office in a strong conflict between public duty and private
interest or affection, was one which had always attracted and
exercised Stevenson's imagination. In the days when he and
Mr. Henley were collaborating with a view to the stage, Mr.
Henley once proposed a plot founded on the story of Mr.
Justice Harbottle in Sheridan Le Fanu's In a Glass Darkly,
in which the wicked judge goes headlong per fas et nefas
to his object of getting the husband of his mistress hanged.
Some time later Stevenson and his wife together wrote a play
called The Hanging Judge. In this, the title character is
tempted for the first time in his life to tamper with the course
of justice, in order to shield his wife from persecution by a

174 WEIR OF HERMISTON

former husband who reappears after being supposed dead.
Bulwer's novel of Paul Clifford, with its final situation of the
worldly-minded judge, Sir William Brandon, learning that the
highwayman whom he is in the act of sentencing is his own
son, and dying of the knowledge, was also well known to
Stevenson, and no doubt counted for something in the sugges-
tion of the present story.

Once more, the difficulties often attending the relation of
father and son in actual life had pressed heavily on Stevenson's
mind and conscience from the days of his youth, when in obey-
ing the law of his own nature he had been constrained to dis-
appoint, distress, and for a time to be much misunderstood by,
a father whom he justly loved and admired with all his heart.
Difficulties of this kind he had already handled in a lighter
vein once or twice in fiction — as for instance in the Story of
a Lie and in The Wrecker — before he grappled with them in
the acute and tragic phase in which they occur in the present
story.

These three elements, then, the interest of the historical
personality of Lord Braxfield, the problems and emotions
arising from a violent conflict between duty and nature in a
judge, and the difficulties due to incompatibility and misunder-
standing between father and son, lie at the foundations of the
present story. To touch on minor matters, it is perhaps worth
notice, as Mr. Henley reminds me, that the name of Weir had
from of old a special significance for Stevenson's imagination,
from the traditional fame in Edinburgh of Major Weir, burned
as a warlock, together with his sister, under circumstances of
peculiar atrocity. Another name, that of the episodical per-
sonage of Mr. Torrance the minister, is borrowed direct from
life, as indeed are the whole figure and its surroundings —
kirkyard, kirk, and manse — down even to the black thread
mittens: witness the following passage from a letter of the
early seventies : — * I've been to church and am not depressed
— a great step. It was at that beautiful church [of Glencorse
in the Pentlands, three miles from his father's country home
at Swanston]. It is a little cruciform place, with a steep slate
roof. The small kirkyard is full of old gravestones; one of a
Frenchman from Dunkerque, I suppose he died prisoner in
the military prison hard by. And one, the most pathetic

EDITORIAL NOTE 175

memorial I ever saw : a poor school-slate, in a wooden frame,
with the inscription cut into it evidently by the father's own
hand. In church, old Mr. Torrance preached, over eighty
and a relic of times forgotten, with his black thread gloves
and mild old face." A side hint for a particular trait in the
character of Mrs. Weir we can trace in some family traditions
concerning the writer's own grandmother, who is reported to
have valued piety much more than efficiency in her domestic
servants. The other women characters seem, so far as his
friends know, to have been pure creation, and especially that
new and admirable incarnation of the eternal feminine in the
elder Kirstie. The little that he says about her himself is in
a letter written a few days before his death to Mr. Gosse.
The allusions are to the various moods and attitudes of people
in regard to middle age, and are suggested by Mr. Gosse's
volume of poems, In Russet and Silver. " It seems rather
funny," he writes, " that this matter should come up just now,
as I am at present engaged in treating a severe case of middle
age in one of my stories, The Justice-Clerk. The case is that
of a woman, and I think I am doing her justice. You will be
interested, I believe, to see the difference in our treatments.
Secreta Vitae [the title of one of Mr. Gosse's poems] comes
nearer to the case of my poor Kirstie." From the wonderful
midnight scene between her and Archie, we may judge what
we have lost in those later scenes where she was to have taxed
him with the fault that was not his — to have presently learned
his innocence from the lips of his supposed victim — to have
then vindicated him to her kinsmen and fired them to the
action of his rescue. The scene of the prison-breaking here
planned by Stevenson would have gained interest (as will
already have occurred to readers) from comparison with the
two famous precedents in Scott, the Porteous mob, and the
breaking of Portanferry Jail.

The best account of Stevenson's methods of imaginative
work is in the following sentences from a letter of his own to
Mr. W. Craibe Angus of Glasgow: — "I am still a 'slow
study,' and sit for a long while silent on my eggs. Uncon-
scious thought, there is the only method : macerate your sub-
ject, let it boil slow, then take the lid off and look in — and
there your stuff is— good or bad." The several elements

176 WEIR OF HERMISTON

above noted having been left to work for many years in his
mind, it was in the autumn of 1892 that he was moved to
" take the lid off and look in," — under the influence, it would
seem, of a special and overmastering wave of that feeling for
the romance of Scottish scenery and character which was at
all times so strong in him, and which his exile did so much
to intensify. I quote again from his letter to Mr. Barrie on
November 1 in that year: — "It is a singular thing that I
should live here in the South Seas under conditions so new
and so striking, and yet my imagination so continually inhabit
the cold old huddle of grey hills from which we come. I have
finished David Balfour, I have another book on the stocks,
The Young Chevalier, which is to be part in France and part
in Scotland, and to deal with Prince Charlie about the year
1749; and now what have I done but begun a third, which
is to be all moorland together, and is to have for a centre-
piece a figure that I think you will appreciate — that of the
immortal Braxfield. Braxfield himself is my grand premier
— or since you are so much involved in the British drama,
let me say my heavy lead."

Writing to me at the same date he makes the same an-
nouncement more briefly, with a list of the characters and an
indication of the scene and date of the story. To Mr. Baxter
he writes a month later, " I have a novel on the stocks to be
called The Justice- Clerk. It is pretty Scotch ; the grand pre-
mier is taken from Braxfield (O, by the bye, send me Cock-
burn's Memorials), and some of the story is, well, queer.
The heroine is seduced by one man, and finally disappears
with the other man who shot him. . . . Mind you, I expect
The Justice-Clerk to be my masterpiece. My Braxfield is
already a thing of beauty and a joy for ever, and so far as
he has gone far my best character." From the last extract
it appears that he had already at this date drafted some of
the earlier chapters of the book. He also about the same
time composed the dedication to his wife, who found it pinned
to her bed-curtains one morning on awaking. It was always
his habit to keep several books in progress at the same time,
turning from one to another as the fancy took him, and find-
ing rest in the change of labour ; and for many months after
the date of this letter, first illness, — then a voyage to Auck-

EDITORIAL NOTE 177

land, — then work on the Ebb-Tide, on a new tale called St.
Ives, which was begun during an attack of influenza, and on
his projected book of family history, — prevented his making
any continuous progress with Weir. In August 1893 he says
he has been recasting the beginning. A year later, still only
the first four or five chapters had been drafted. Then, in the
last weeks of his life, he attacked the task again, in a sudden
heat of inspiration, and worked at it ardently and without inter-
ruption until the end came. No wonder if during those weeks
he was sometimes aware of a tension of the spirit difficult to
sustain. "How can I keep this pitch?" he is reported to
have said after finishing one of the chapters. To keep the
pitch proved indeed beyond his strength ; and that frail organ-
ism, taxed so long and so unsparingly in obedience to his
indomitable will, at last betrayed him in mid effort.

There remains one more point to be mentioned, as to the
speech and manners of the Hanging Judge himself. That
these are not a whit exaggerated, in comparison with what
is recorded of his historic prototype, Lord Braxfield, is certain.
The locus classicus in regard to this personage is in Lord
Cockburn's Me?norials of his Time. " Strong built and dark,
with rough eyebrows, powerful eyes, threatening lips, and a
low growling voice, he was like a formidable blacksmith. His
accent and dialect were exaggerated Scotch ; his language,
like his thoughts, short, strong, and conclusive. Illiterate and
without any taste for any refined enjoyment, strength of under-
standing which gave him power without cultivation, only
encouraged him to a more contemptuous disdain of all natures
less coarse than his own. It may be doubted if he was ever
so much in his element as when tauntingly repelling the last
despairing claim of a wretched culprit, and sending him to
Botany Bay or the gallows with an insulting jest. Yet this
was not from cruelty, for which he was too strong and too
jovial, but from cherished coarseness." Readers, nevertheless,
who are at all acquainted with the social history of Scotland
will hardly fail to have made the observation that Braxfield's
is an extreme case of eighteenth century manners, as he
himself was an eighteenth-century personage (he died in 1799
in his seventy-eighth year); and that for the date in which
the story is cast (18 14) such manners are somewhat of an

178 WEIR OF HERMISTON

anachronism. During the generation contemporary with the
French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, — or to put it
another way, the generation that elapsed between the days
when Scott roamed the country as a High School and Univer-
sity student and those when he settled in the fulness of fame
and prosperity at Abbotsford, — or again (the allusions will
appeal to readers of the admirable Gait) during the intervals
between the first and the last provostry of Bailie Pawkie in
the borough of Gudetown, or between the earlier and the final
ministrations of Mr. Balwhidder in the parish of Dalmailing,
— during this period a great softening had taken place in
Scottish manners generally, and in those of the Bar and Bench
not least. " Since the death of Lord Justice-Clerk Macqueen
of Braxfield," says Lockhart, writing about 1817, "the whole
exterior of judicial deportment has been quite altered." A
similar criticism may probably hold good on the picture of
border life contained in the chapter concerning the Four
Black Brothers of Cauldstaneslap, viz., that it rather suggests
the ways of an earlier generation ; nor have I any clew to the
reasons which led Stevenson to choose this particular date, in
the year preceding Waterloo, for a story which, in regard to
some of its features at least, might seem more naturally placed
some twenty-five or thirty years before.

If the reader seeks, farther, to know whether the scenery
of Hermiston can be identified with any one special place
familiar to the writer's early experience, the answer, I think,
must be in the negative. Rather it is distilled from a number
of different haunts and associations among the moorlands of
southern Scotland. In the dedication and in a letter to me
he indicates the Lammermuirs as the scene of his tragedy,
and Mrs. Stevenson (his mother) tells me that she thinks he
was inspired by recollections of a visit paid in boyhood to an
uncle living at a remote farmhouse in that district called Over-
shiels, in the parish of Stow. But although he may have
thought of the Lammermuirs in the first instance, we have
already found him drawing his description of the kirk and
manse from another haunt of his youth, namely, Glencorse in
the Pentlands. And passages in chapters v. and viii. point
explicitly to a third district, that is, the country bordering
upon Upper Tweeddale and the headwaters of the Clyde.

EDITORIAL NOTE 179

With this country also holiday rides and excursions from
Peebles had made him familiar as a boy : and this seems cer-
tainly the most natural scene of the story, if only from its
proximity to the proper home of the Elliotts, which of course
is in the heart of the Border, especially Teviotdale and Ettrick.
Some of the geographical names mentioned are clearly not
meant to furnish literal indications. The Spango, for instance,
is a water running, I believe, not into the Tweed, but into the
Nith, and Crossmichael as the name of a town is borrowed
from Galloway.

But it is with the general and essential that the artist deals,
and questions of strict historical perspective or local definition
are beside the mark in considering his work. Nor will any
reader expect, or be grateful for, comment in this place on
matters which are more properly to the point — on the seizing
and penetrating power of the author's ripened art as exhibited
in the foregoing pages, the wide range of character and emo-
tion over which he sweeps with so assured a hand, his vital
poetry of vision and magic of presentment. Surely no son
of Scotland has died leaving with his last breath a worthier
tribute to the land he loved.

Sidney Colvin.

GLOSSARY

ae, one.

antinomian, one of a sect which
holds that under the Gospel
dispensation the moral law is
not obligatory.

Auld Hornie, the Devil.

ballant, ballad.

bauchles, brogues, old shoes.

bees in their bonnet, fads.

birling, whirling.

black-a-vised, dark-complex-
ioned.

bonnet-laird, small landed pro-
prietor.

bool, ball.

brae, rising ground.

butt end, end of a cottage.

byre, cow-house.

ca', drive.
caller, fresh.
canna, cannot.
canny, careful, shrewd.
cantie, cheerful.
carline, an old woman.
chalmer, chamber.
claes, clothes.
clamjamfry, crowd.
clavers, idle talk.
cock-laird, a yeoman.
collieshangie, turmoil.
crack, to converse.
cuddy, donkey.
cuist, cast.
cutty, slut.

daft, mad, frolicsome.

dander, to saunter.

danders, cinders.

daurna, dare not.

deave, to deafen.

demmy brokens, demi-broquins.

dirdum, vigour.

disjaskit, worn out, disreputable-
looking.

doer, law agent.

dour, hard.

drumlie, dark.

dule-tree, the tree of lamenta-
tion, the hanging tree: dule is
also Scots for boundary, and it
may mean the boundary tree,
the tree on which the baron hung
interlopers.

dunting, knocking.

dwaibly, infirm, rickety,

earrand, errattd.
ettercap, vixen.

fechting, fighting.

feck, quantity, portion.

feckless, feeble, powerless.

fell, strong and fiery.

fey, unlike yourself, strange, as

persons are observed to be in

the hour of approaching death

or disaster.
fit, foot.
flyped, turned up, turned inside

out.
forgather, to fall in with.
i\ile,fool.

i82 WEIR OF HERMISTON

f ushionless, pithless ; weak.
fyle, to soil, to defile.
fyleinent, obloquy, defilement.

gaed, went.

gey an', very.

gigot, leg of mutton.

girzie, lit. diminutive of Grizel,
here a playful nickname.

glaur, mud.

glint, glance, sparkle.

gloaming, twilight.

glower, to scowl.

gobbets, small lumps.

gowden, golden.

gowsty, gusty.

grat, wept.

grieve, land steward.

guddle, to catch fish with the
hands by groping under the
stones or banks.

guid, good.

gumption, common sense, judg-
ment.

gurley, stormy, surly.

gyte, beside itself.

haddit, held.

hae, have, take.

hale, whole.

heels-ower-hurdie, heels ever
head.

hinney, honey.

hirstle, to bustle.

hizzie, wench.

howl, hovel.

hunkered, crouched.

hypothec, lit. a term in Scots law
meaning the security given by a
tenant to a landlord, as furni-
ture, produce, etc. ; by metonymy
and colloquially, "the whole
structure? "the whole af-
fair'*

idleset, idleness.

infeftment, a term in Scots law
originally synonymous with in-
vestiture.

jeely-piece, a slice of bread and

. jelly.

jennipers, juniper.

jo, sweetheart.

justifeed, executed, made the vic-

tim of justice,
jyle, jail.

kebbuck, cheese.
ken, to know.
kenspeckle, conspicuous.
kilted, tucked up.
kyte, belly.

laigh, low.

laird, landed proprietor.

lane, alone.

lave, rest, remainder.

lown, lonely, still.

lynn, cataract.

macers, officers of the court [c£
Guy Mannering, last chapter],
maun, must.

menseful, of good manners.
mirk, dark.

misbegowk, deception, disap-
pointment.
mools, mould, earth.
muckle, much, great, big. .
my lane, by myself.

nowt, black cattle.

palmering, walking infirmly.
panel, in Scots law, the accused

person in a criminal action, the

prisoner.

GLOSSARY

'83

peel, a fortified watch-tower.
plew-stilts, plough-handles.
policy, ornamental grounds of a

country mansion.
puddock,/hjf.

quean, wench.

riffraff, rabble.
risping, grating.
rowt, to roar, to rant.
rowth, abundance.
rudas, haggard old woman.
runt, an old cow past breeding;
opprobriously, an old woman.

sab, sob.

sanguishes, sandwiches.

sasine, in Scots law, the act of
giving legal possession of feudal
property, or, colloquially, the
deed by which that possession is
proved.

sclamber, to scramble.

sculduddery, impropriety, gross-
ness.

session, the Court of Session, the
supreme court of Scotland.

shauchling, shuffling.

shoo, to chase gently.

siller, money.

sinsyne, since then.

skailing, dispersing.

skelp, slap.

skirling, screaming.

skreigh-o'-day, daybreak.

snash, abuse.
sneisty, supercilious.
sooth, to hum.
speir, to ask.
speldering, sprawling.
splairge, to splash.
spunk, spirit, fire.
steik, to shut.
sugar-bool, sugar-plum.

tawpie, a slow, foolish slut.

telling you, a good thing for you.

thir, these.

thrawn, cross-grained.

toon, town.

two-names, local sobriquets in

addition to patronymic.
tyke, dog.

unchancy, unlucky.

unco, strange, extraordinary ',

very.
upsitten, impertinent.

vivers, victuals.

waling, choosing.
warrandise, warranty.
waur, worse.
weird, destiny.
whammle, to upset.
whaup, curlew.

windlestrae, crested dog's-tail
grass.

yin, one.

THE MISADVENTURES OF
JOHN NICHOLSON

THE MISADVENTURES OF
JOHN NICHOLSON

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH JOHN SOWS THE WIND

JOHN VAREY NICHOLSON was stupid;
yet, stupider men than he are now sprawling
in Parliament, and lauding themselves as the
authors of their own distinction. He was of a
fat habit, even from boyhood, and inclined to a
cheerful and cursory reading of the face of life;
and possibly this attitude of mind was the original
cause of his misfortunes. Beyond this hint philoso-
phy is silent on his career, and superstition steps
in with the more ready explanation that he was
detested of the gods.

His father — that iron gentleman — had long
ago enthroned himself on the heights of the Dis-
ruption Principles. What these are (and in spite
of their grim name they are quite innocent) no
array of terms would render thinkable to the merely
English intelligence; but to the Scot they often
prove unctuously nourishing, and Mr. Nicholson
found in them the milk of lions. About the period
when the churches convene at Edinburgh in their

i88 THE MISADVENTURES

annual assemblies, he was to be seen descending
the mound in the company of divers red-headed
clergymen: these voluble, he only contributing
oracular nods, brief negatives, and the austere
spectacle of his stretched upper lip. The names of
Candlish and Begg were frequent in these inter-
views, and occasionally the talk ran on the Residu-
ary Establishment and the doings of one Lee.
A stranger to the tight little theological kingdom
of Scotland might have listened and gathered liter-
ally nothing. And Mr. Nicholson (who was not
a dull man) knew this, and raged at it. He knew
there was a vast world outside, to whom Disrup-
tion Principles were as the chatter of tree-top apes ;
the paper brought him chill whiffs from it; he
had met Englishmen who had asked lightly if he
did not belong to the Church of Scotland, and
then had failed to be much interested by his elu-
cidation of that nice point; it was an evil, wild,
rebellious world, lying sunk in dozenedness, for
nothing short of a Scot's word will paint this
Scotsman's feelings. And when he entered into
his own house in Randolph Crescent (south side),
and shut the door behind him, his heart swelled
with security. Here, at least, was a citadel im-
pregnable by right-hand defections or left-hand ex-
tremes. Here was a family where prayers came
at the same hour, where the Sabbath literature
was unimpeachably selected, where the guest who
should have leaned to any false opinion was in-
stantly set down, and over which there reigned all
week, and grew denser on Sundays, a silence that

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 189

was agreeable to his ear, and a gloom that he
found comfortable.

Mrs. Nicholson had died about thirty, and left
him with three children: a daughter two years,
and a son about eight years younger than John;
and John himself, the unlucky bearer of a name
infamous in English history. The daughter, Maria,
was a good girl — dutiful, pious, dull, but so easily
startled that to speak to her was quite a perilous
enterprise. " I don't think I care to talk about
that, if you please/' she would say, and strike the
boldest speechless by her unmistakable pain; this
upon all topics — dress, pleasure, morality, politics,
in which the formula was changed to " my papa
thinks otherwise," and even religion, unless it was
approached with a particular whining tone of
voice. Alexander, the younger brother, was sickly,
clever, fond of books and drawing, and full of
satirical remarks. In the midst of these, imagine
that natural, clumsy, unintelligent, and mirthful
animal, John; mighty well-behaved in comparison
with other lads, although not up to the mark of
the house in Randolph Crescent; full of a sort of
blundering affection, full of caresses which were
never very warmly received; full of sudden and
loud laughter which rang out in that still house
like curses. Mr. Nicholson himself had a great
fund of humour, of the Scots order — intellectual,
turning on the observation of men ; his own char-
acter, for instance — if he could have seen it in
another — would have been a rare feast to him;
but his son's empty guffaws over a broken plate,

190 THE MISADVENTURES

and empty, almost light-hearted remarks, struck
him with pain as the indices of a weak mind.

Outside the family John had early attached him-
self (much as a dog may follow a marquis) to the
steps of Alan Houston, a lad about a year older
than himself, idle, a trifle wild, the heir to a good
estate which was still in the hands of a rigorous
trustee, and so royally content with himself that
he took John's devotion as a thing of course. The
intimacy was gall to Mr. Nicholson; it took his
son from the house, and he was a jealous parent ;
it kept him from the office, and he was a martinet ;
lastly, Mr. Nicholson was ambitious for his family
(in which, and the Disruption Principles, he en-
tirely lived), and he hated to see a son of his
play second fiddle to an idler. After some hesi-
tation, he ordered that the friendship should cease
— an unfair command, though seemingly inspired
by the spirit of prophecy; and John, saying noth-
ing, continued to disobey the order under the rose.

John was nearly nineteen when he was one day
dismissed rather earlier than usual from his father's
office, where he was studying the practice of the
law. It was Saturday; and except that he had a
matter of four hundred pounds in his pocket which
it was his duty to hand over to the British Linen
Company's Bank, he had the whole afternoon at
his disposal. He went by Prince's Street enjoying
the mild sunshine, and the little thrill of easterly
wind that tossed the flags along that terrace of
palaces, and tumbled the green trees in the garden.
The band was playing down in the valley under

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 191

the castle; and when it came to the turn of the
pipers, he heard their wild sounds with a stirring
of the blood. Something distantly martial woke
in him; and he thought of Miss Mackenzie, whom
he was to meet that day at dinner.

Now, it is undeniable that he should have gone
directly to the bank, but right in the way stood
the billiard-room of the hotel where Alan was
almost certain to be found; and the temptation
proved too strong. He entered the billiard-room,
and was instantly greeted by his friend, cue in
hand.

" Nicholson," said he, " I want you to lend me
a pound or two till Monday."

" You Ve come to the right shop, have n't you ? "
returned John. " I have twopence."

" Nonsense," said Alan. " You can get some.
Go and borrow at your tailor's; they all do it.
Or I '11 tell you what : pop your watch."

" Oh, yes, I dare say," said John. " And how
about my father ? "

" How is he to know ? He does n't wind it up
for you at night, does he? " inquired Alan, at which
John guffawed. "No, seriously; I am in a fix,"
continued the tempter. " I have lost some money
to a man here. I '11 give it you to-night, and you
can get the heirloom out again on Monday.
Come ; it 's a small service, after all. I would do
a good deal more for you."

Whereupon John went forth, and pawned his
gold watch under the assumed name of John
Froggs, 85 Pleasance. But the nervousness that

192 THE MISADVENTURES

assailed him at the door of that inglorious haunt
— a pawnshop — and the effort necessary to in-
vent the pseudonym (which, somehow, seemed to
him a necessary part of the procedure), had taken
more time than he imagined; and when he re-
turned to the billiard-room with the spoils, the
bank had already closed its doors.

This was a shrewd knock. " A piece of business
had been neglected." He heard these words in his
father's trenchant voice, and trembled, and then
dodged the thought. After all, who was to know ?
He must carry four hundred pounds about with
him till Monday, when the neglect could be sur-
reptitiously repaired; and meanwhile, he was free
to pass the afternoon on the encircling divan of
the billiard-room, smoking his pipe, sipping a pint
of ale, and enjoying to the mast-head the modest
pleasures of admiration.

None can admire like a young man. Of all
youth's passions and pleasures, this is the most
common and least alloyed; and every flash of
Alan's black eyes ; every aspect of his curly head ;
every graceful reach, every easy, stand-off attitude
of waiting; ay, and down to his shirt-sleeves and
wrist-links, were seen by John through a luxurious
glory. He valued himself by the possession of
that royal friend, hugged himself upon the thought,
and swam in warm azure; his own defects, like
vanquished difficulties, becoming things on which
to plume himself. Only when he thought of Miss
Mackenzie there fell upon his mind a shadow of
regret; that young lady was worthy of better

OF JOHN 'NICHOLSON 193

things than plain John Nicholson, still known
among schoolmates by the- derisive name of
" Fatty " ; and he felt, if he could chalk a cue, or
stand at ease, with such a careless grace as Alan,
he could approach the object of his sentiments
with a less crushing sense of inferiority.

Before they parted, Alan made a proposal that
was startling in the extreme. He would be at
Colette's that night about twelve, he said. Why
should not John come there and get the money?
To go to Colette's was to see life, indeed; it was
wrong; it was against the laws; it partook, in a
very dingy manner, of adventure. Were it known,
it was the sort of exploit that disconsidered a young
man for good with the more serious classes, but
gave him a standing with the riotous. And yet
Colette's was not a hell; it could not come, with-
out vaulting hyperbole, under the rubric of a gilded
saloon; and, if it was a sin to go there, the sin
was merely local and municipal. Colette (whose
name I do not know how to spell, for I was never
in epistolary communication with that hospitable
outlaw) was simply an unlicensed publican, who
gave suppers after eleven at night, the Edinburgh
hour of closing. If you belonged to a club, you
could get a much better supper at the same hour,
and lose not a jot in public esteem. But if you
lacked that qualification, and were an hungered,
or inclined toward conviviality at unlawful hours,
Colette's was your only port. You were very ill-
supplied. The company was not recruited from
the Senate or the Church, though the Bar was

13

i94 JOHN NICHOLSON

very well represented on the only occasion on
which I flew in the face of my country's laws,
and, taking my reputation in my hand, penetrated
into that grim supper-house. And Colette's fre-
quenters, thrillingly conscious of wrong-doing and
" that two-handed engine (the policeman) at the
door," were perhaps inclined to somewhat feverish
excess. But the place was in no sense a very bad
one; and it is somewhat strange to me, at this
distance of time, how it had acquired its dangerous
repute.

In precisely the same spirit as a man may debate
a project to ascend the Matterhorn or to cross
Africa, John considered Alan's proposal, and,
greatly daring, accepted it. As he walked home,
the thoughts of this excursion out of the safe
places of life into the wild and arduous, stirred
and struggled in his imagination with the image
of Miss Mackenzie — incongruous and yet kin-
dred thoughts, for did not each imply unusual
tightening of the pegs of resolution ? did not each
woo him forth and warn him back again into
himself?

Between there two considerations, at least, he
was more than usually moved; and when he got
to Randolph Crescent, he quite forgot the four
hundred pounds in the inner pocket of his great-
coat, hung up the coat, with its rich freight, upon
his particular pin of the hat-stand; and in the
very action sealed his doom.

CHAPTER II

IN WHICH JOHN REAPS THE WHIRLWIND

ABOUT half-past ten it was John's brave
L\ good-fortune to offer his arm to Miss
X JL Mackenzie, and escort her home. The
night was chill and starry; all the way eastward
the trees of the different gardens rustled and looked
black. Up the stone gully of Leith Walk, when
they came to cross it, the breeze made a rush and
set the flames of the street-lamps quavering; and
when at last they had mounted to the Royal Ter-
race, where Captain Mackenzie lived, a great salt
freshness came in their faces from the sea. These
phases of the walk remained written on John's
memory, each emphasised by the touch of that
light hand on his arm ; and behind all these aspects
of the nocturnal city he saw, in his mind's eye, a
picture of the lighted drawing-room at home where
he had sat talking with Flora ; and his father, from
the other end, had looked on with a kind and iron-
ical smile. John had read the significance of that
smile, which might have escaped a stranger. Mr.
Nicholson had remarked his son's entanglement
with satisfaction, tinged by humour; and his
smile, if it still was a thought contemptuous, had
implied consent.

196 THE MISADVENTURES

At the captain's door the girl held out her hand,
with a certain emphasis ; and John took it and kept
it a little longer, and said, " Good-night, Flora,
dear," and was instantly thrown into much fear by
his presumption. But she only laughed, ran up
the steps, and rang the bell; and while she was
waiting for the door to open, kept close in the porch,
and talked to him from that point as out of a forti-
fication. She had a knitted shawl over her head;
her blue Highland eyes took the light from the
neighbouring street-lamp and sparkled; and when
the door opened and closed upon her, John felt
cruelly alone.

He proceeded slowly back along the terrace in
a tender glow; and when he came to Greenside
Church, he halted in a doubtful mind. Over the
crown of the Calton Hill, to his left, lay the way
to Colette's, where Alan would soon be looking
for his arrival, and where he would now have no
more consented to go than he would have wilfully
wallowed in a bog; the touch of the girl's hand
on his sleeve, and the kindly light in his father's
eyes, both loudly forbidding. But right before
him was the way home, which pointed only to bed,
a place of little ease for one whose fancy was strung
to the lyrical pitch, and whose not very ardent
heart was just then tumultuously moved. The
hilltop, the cool air of the night, the company of
the great monuments, the sight of the city under
his feet, with its hills and valleys and crossing
files of lamps, drew him by all he had of the poetic,
and he turned that way; and by that quite innocent

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 197

deflection, ripened the crop of his venial errors for
the sickle of destiny.

On a seat on the hill above Greenside he sat for
perhaps half an hour, looking down upon the lamps
of Edinburgh, and up at the lamps of heaven.
Wonderful were the resolves he formed; beauti-
ful and kindly were the vistas of future life that
sped before him. He uttered to himself the name
of Flora in so many touching and dramatic keys,
that he became at length fairly melted with tender-
ness, and could have sung aloud. At that juncture
a certain creasing in his great-coat caught his ear.
He put his hand into his pocket, pulled forth the
envelope that held the money, and sat stupefied.
The Calton Hill, about this period, had an ill name
of nights; and to be sitting there with four hun-
dred pounds that did not belong to him was hardly
wise. He looked up. There was a man in a very
bad hat a little on one side of him, apparently look-
ing at the scenery; from a little on the other a
second night-walker was drawing very quietly near.
Up jumped John. The envelope fell from his
hands; he stooped to get it, and at the same mo-
ment both men ran in and closed with him.

A little after, he got to his feet very sore and
shaken, the poorer by a purse which contained
exactly one penny postage-stamp, by a cambric
handkerchief, and by the all-important envelope.

Here was a young man on whom, at the highest
point of loverly exaltation, there had fallen a blow
too sharp to be supported alone; and not many
hundred yards away his greatest friend was sitting

198 THE MISADVENTURES

at supper — ay, and even expecting him. Was it
not in the nature of man that he should run there ?
He went in quest of sympathy — in quest of that
droll article that we all suppose ourselves to want
when in a strait, and have agreed to call advice;
and he went, besides, with vague but rather splen-
did expectations of relief. Alan was rich, or would
be so when he came of age. By a stroke of the pen
he might remedy this misfortune, and avert that
dreaded interview with Mr. Nicholson, from which
John now shrunk in imagination as the hand draws
back from fire.

Close under the Calton Hill there runs a certain
narrow avenue, part street, part by-road. The head
of it faces the doors of the prison; its tail de-
scends into the sunless slums of the Low Calton.
On one hand it is overhung by the crags of the hill,
on the other by an old graveyard. Between these
two the road- way runs in a trench, sparsely lighted
at night, sparsely frequented by day, and bordered,
when it has cleared the place of tombs, by dingy
and ambiguous houses. One of these was the house
of Colette ; and at his door our ill-starred John was
presently beating for admittance. In an evil hour
he satisfied the jealous inquiries of the contraband
hotel-keeper ; in an evil hour he penetrated into the
somewhat unsavoury interior. Alan, to be sure,
was there, seated in a room lighted by noisy gas-
jets, beside a dirty table-cloth, engaged on a coarse
meal, and in the company of several tipsy members
of the junior Bar. But Alan was not sober; he
had lost a thousand pounds upon a horse-race,

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 199

had received the news at dinner-time, and was
now, in default of any possible means of extrica-
tion, drowning the memory of his predicament.
He to help John! The thing was impossible; he
could n't help himself.

" If you have a beast of a father/' said he, " I
can tell you I have a brute of a trustee."

" I 'm not going to hear my father called a
beast," said John, with a beating heart, feeling that
he risked the last sound rivet of the chain that
bound him to life.

But Alan was quite good-natured.

" All right, old fellow," said he. " Mos' respec-
'able man your father." And he introduced his
friend to his companions as " old Nicholson the
what-d'ye-call-um's son."

John sat in dumb agony. Colette's foul walls
and maculate table-linen, and even down to Co-
lette's villainous casters, seemed like objects in a
nightmare. And just then there came a knock and
a scurrying ; the police, so lamentably absent from
the Calton Hill, appeared upon the scene; and the
party, taken flagrante delicto, with their glasses at
their elbow, were seized, marched up to the police
office, and all duly summoned to appear as wit-
nesses in the consequent case against that arch-
she-beener, Colette.

It was a sorrowful and a mightily sobered com-
pany that came forth again. The vague terror of
public opinion weighed generally on them all;
but there were private and particular horrors on
the minds of individuals. Alan stood in dread of

2oo THE MISADVENTURES

his trustee, already sorely tried. One of the group
was the son of a country minister, another of a
judge; John, the unhappiest of all, had David
Nicholson to father, the idea of facing whom on
such a scandalous subject was physically sickening.
They stood awhile consulting under the buttresses
of St. Giles; thence they adjourned to the lodg-
ings of one of the number in North Castle Street,
where (for that matter) they might have had
quite as good a supper, and far better drink, than
in the dangerous paradise from which they had
been routed. There, over an almost tearful glass,
they debated their position. Each explained he
had the world to lose if the affair went on, and he
appeared as a witness. It was remarkable what
bright prospects were just then in the very act of
opening before each of that little company of
youths, and what pious consideration for the feel-
ings of their families began now to well from them.
Each, moreover, was in an odd state of destitution.
Not one could bear his share of the fine; not one
but evinced a wonderful twinkle of hope that
each of the others (in succession) was the very
man who could step in to make good the deficit.
One took a high hand ; he could not pay his share ;
if it went to a trial, he should bolt ; he had always
felt the English Bar to be his true sphere. Another
branched out into touching details about his family,
and was not listened to. John, in the midst of
this disorderly competition of poverty and mean-
ness, sat stunned, contemplating the mountain
bulk of his misfortunes.

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 201

At last, upon a pledge that each should apply to
his family with a common frankness, this conven-
tion of unhappy young asses broke up, went down
the common stair, and in the grey of the spring
morning, with the streets lying dead empty all about
them, the lamps burning on into the daylight in
diminished lustre, and the birds beginning to
sound premonitory notes from the groves of the
town gardens, went each his own way with bowed
head and echoing footfall.

The rooks were awake in Randolph Crescent;
but the windows looked down, discreetly blinded,
on the return of the prodigal. John's pass-key
was a recent privilege; this was the first time it
had been used; and, oh! with what a sickening
sense of his unworthiness he now inserted it into
the well-oiled lock and entered that citadel of the
proprieties ! All slept ; the gas in the hall had been
left faintly burning to light his return; a dread-
ful stillness reigned, broken by the deep ticking of
the eight-day clock. He put the gas out, and sat
on a chair in the hall, waiting and counting the
minutes, longing for any human countenance.
But when at last he heard the alarm spring its
rattle in the lower story, and the servants begin to
be about, he instantly lost heart, and fled to his
own room, where he threw himself upon the bed.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH JOHN ENJOYS THE HARVEST
HOME

SHORTLY after breakfast, at which he as-
sisted with a highly tragical countenance,
John sought his father where he sat, presum-
ably in religious meditation, on the Sabbath morn-
ings. The old gentleman looked up with that sour,
inquisitive expression that came so near to smil-
ing and was so different in effect.

" This is a time when I do not like to be dis-
turbed/' he said.

" I know that," returned John ; " but I have — ■
I want — I 've made a dreadful mess of it," he
broke out, and turned to the window.

Mr. Nicholson sat silent for an appreciable time,
while his unhappy son surveyed the poles in the
back green, and a certain yellow cat that was
perched upon the wall. Despair sat upon John as
he gazed; and he raged to think of the dreadful
series of his misdeeds, and the essential innocence
that lay behind them.

" Well," said the father, with an obvious effort,
but in very quiet tones, " what is it ? "

" Maclean gave me four hundred pounds to put

JOHN NICHOLSON 203

in the bank, sir," began John ; " and I 'm sorry to
say that I Ve been robbed of it ! "

"Robbed of it?" cried Mr. Nicholson, with a
strong rising inflection. " Robbed ? Be careful
what you say, John ! "

" I can't say anything else, sir ; I was just
robbed of it," said John, in desperation, sullenly.

" And where and when did this extraordinary
event take place ? " inquired the father.

" On the Calton Hill about twelve last night."

"The Calton Hill?" repeated Mr. Nicholson.
" And what were you doing there at such a time
of the night?"

" Nothing, sir," says John.

Mr. Nicholson drew in his breath.

" And how came the money in your hands at
twelve last night ? " he asked, sharply.

" I neglected that piece of business," said John,
anticipating comment; and then in his own dia-
lect : " I clean forgot all about it."

" Well," said his father, " it 's a most extraor-
dinary story. Have you communicated with the
police?"

" I have," answered poor John, the blood leap-
ing to his face. " They think they know the men
that did it. I dare say the money will be recov-
ered, if that was all," said he, with a desperate
indifference, which his father set down to levity;
but which sprung from the consciousness of worse
behind.

"Your mother's watch, too?" asked Mr.
Nicholson.

204 THE MISADVENTURES

" Oh, the watch is all right! " cried John. " At
least, I mean I was coming to the watch — the
fact is, I am ashamed to say, I — I had pawned
the watch before. Here is the ticket ; they did n't
find that ; the watch can be redeemed ; they don't
sell pledges." The lad panted out these phrases,
one after another, like minute guns; but at the
last word, which rang in that stately chamber like
an oath, his heart failed him utterly; and the
dreaded silence settled on father and son.

It was broken by Mr. Nicholson picking up the
pawn-ticket : " John Froggs, 85 Pleasance," he
read; and then turning upon John, with a brief
flash of passion and disgust, " Who is John
Froggs ? " he cried.

" Nobody," said John. " It was just a name."

" An alias/' his father commented.

" Oh ! I think scarcely quite that," said the
culprit ; " it 's a form, they all do it, the man
seemed to understand, we had a great deal of fun
over the name "

He paused at that, for he saw his father wince
at the picture like a man physically struck; and
again there was silence.

" I do not think," said Mr. Nicholson, at last,
" that I am an ungenerous father. I have never
grudged you money within reason, for any avow-
able purpose; you had just to come to me and
speak. And now I find that you have forgotten
all decency and all natural feeling, and actually
pawned — pawned — your mother's watch. You
must have had some temptation; I will do you

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 205

the justice to suppose it was a strong one. What
did you want with this money?"

" I would rather not tell you, sir," said John.
" It will only make you angry."

" I will not be fenced with," cried his father.
" There must be an end of disingenuous answers.
What did you want with this money ? "

" To lend it to Houston, sir," says John.

" I thought I had forbidden you to speak to
that young man?" asked the father.

" Yes, sir," said John ; " but I only met him."

"Where?" came the deadly question.

And " In a billiard-room " was the damning
answer. Thus, had John's single departure from
the truth brought instant punishment. For no
other purpose but to see Alan would he have
entered a billiard-room; but he had desired to
palliate the fact of his disobedience, and now it
appeared that he frequented these disreputable
haunts upon his own account.

Once more Mr. Nicholson digested the vile
tidings in silence; and when John stole a glance
at his father's countenance, he was abashed to see
the marks of suffering.

"Well," said the old gentleman, at last, "I
cannot pretend not to be simply bowed down. I
rose this morning what the world calls a happy
man — happy, at least, in a son of whom I thought
I could be reasonably proud "

But it was beyond human nature to endure this
longer, and John interrupted almost with a scream.
" Oh, wheest ! " he cried, " that 's not all, that 's

206 THE MISADVENTURES

not the worst of it — it 's nothing ! How could
I tell you were proud of me? Oh! I wish, I
wish that I had known; but you always said I
was such a disgrace! And the dreadful thing is
this: we were all taken up last night, and we
have to pay Colette's fine among the six, or we '11
be had up for evidence — shebeening it is. They
made me swear to tell you; but for my part," he
cried, bursting into tears, " I just wish that I was
dead ! " And he fell on his knees before, a chair
and hid his face.

Whether his father spoke, or whether he re-
mained long in the room or at once departed,
are points lost to history. A horrid turmoil of
mind and body ; bursting sobs ; broken, vanishing
thoughts, now of indignation, now of remorse;
broken elementary whirls of consciousness, of the
smell of the horse-hair on the chair bottom, of the
jangling of church bells that now began to make
day horrible throughout the confines of the city,
of the hard floor that bruised his knees, of the
taste of tears that found their way into his mouth :
for a period of time, the duration of which I
cannot guess, while I refuse to dwell longer on
its agony, these were the whole of God's world
for John Nicholson.

When at last, as by the touching of a spring, he
returned again to clearness of consciousness and
even a measure of composure, the bells had but
just done ringing, and the Sabbath silence was
still marred by the patter of belated feet. By the
clock above the fire, as well as by these more

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 207

speaking signs, the service had not long begun ; and
the unhappy sinner, if his father had really gone
to church, might count on near two hours of only
comparative unhappiness. With his father, the
superlative degree returned infallibly. He knew
it by every shrinking fibre in his body, he knew
it by the sudden dizzy whirling of his brain, at
the mere thought of that calamity. An hour and
a half, perhaps an hour and three quarters, if the
doctor was long-winded, and then would begin
again that active agony from which, even in the
dull ache of the present, he shrunk as from the
bite of fire. He saw, in a vision, the family pew,
the somnolent cushions, the Bibles, the psalm-
books, Maria with her smelling-salts, his father
sitting spectacled and critical ; and at once he was
struck with indignation, not unjustly. It was in-
human to go off to church, and leave a sinner
in suspense, unpunished, unforgiven. And at the
very touch of criticism, the paternal sanctity was
lessened; yet the paternal terror only grew; and
the two strands of feeling pushed him in the same
direction.

And suddenly there came upon him a mad fear
lest his father should have locked him in. The
notion had no ground in sense; it was probably
no more than a reminiscence of similar calamities
in childhood, for his father's room had always been
the chamber of inquisition and the scene of punish-
ment; but it stuck so rigorously in his mind that
he must instantly approach the door and prove its
untruth. As he went, he struck upon a drawer

208 THE MISADVENTURES

left open in the business table. It was the money-
drawer, a measure of his father's disarray: the
money-drawer — perhaps a pointing providence!
Who is to decide, when even divines differ between
a providence and a temptation? or who, sitting
calmly under his own vine, is to pass a judgment
on the doings of a poor, hunted dog, slavishly
afraid, slavishly rebellious, like John Nicholson on
that particular Sunday? His hand was in the
drawer, almost before his mind had conceived the
hope; and rising to his new situation, he wrote,
sitting in his father's chair and using his father's
blotting-pad, his pitiful apology and farewell:

" My dear Father, — I have taken the money, but I will
pay it back as soon as I am able. You will never hear of me
again. I did not mean any harm by anything, so I hope you
will try and forgive me. I wish you would say good-bye to
Alexander and Maria, but not if you don't want to. I could
not wait to see you, really. Please try to forgive me. Your
affectionate son,

"John Nicholson."

The coins abstracted and the missive written, he
could not be gone too soon from the scene of these
transgressions; and remembering how his father
had once returned from church, on some slight
illness, in the middle of the second psalm, he durst
not even make a packet of a change of clothes.
Attired as he was, he slipped from the paternal
doors, and found himself in the cool spring air,
the thin spring sunshine, and the great Sabbath
quiet of the city, which was now only pointed by
the cawing of the rooks. There was not a soul in

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 209

Randolph Crescent, nor a soul in Queensferry
Street; in this out-door privacy and the sense of
escape, John took heart again ; and with a pathetic
sense of leave-taking, he even ventured up the lane
and stood awhile, a strange peri at the gates of a
quaint paradise, by the west end of St. George's
Church. They were singing within; and by a
strange chance, the tune was " St. George's, Edin-
burgh," which bears the name, and was first sung
in the choir of that church. " Who is this King
of Glory ? " went the voices from within ; and,
to John, this was like the end of all Christian
observances, for he was now to be a wild man like
Ishmael, and his life was to be cast in homeless
places and with godless people.

It was thus, with no rising sense of the adven-
turous, but in mere desolation and despair, that he
turned his back on his native city, and set out on
foot for California, with a more immediate eye to
Glasgow.

CHAPTER IV

THE SECOND SOWING

IT is no part of mine to narrate the adventures
of John Nicholson, which were many, but
simply his more momentous misadventures,
which were more than he desired, and, by human
standards, more than he deserved ; how he reached
California, how he was rooked, and robbed, and
beaten, and starved; how he was at last taken up
by charitable folk, restored to some degree of self-
complacency, and installed as a clerk in a bank in
San Francisco, it would take too long to tell ; nor
in these episodes were there any marks of the pe-
culiar Nicholsonic destiny, for they were just such
matters as befell some thousands of other young
adventurers in the same days and places. But once
posted in the bank, he fell for a time into a high
degree of good fortune, which, as it was only a
longer way about to fresh disaster, it behooves me
to explain.

It was his luck to meet a young man in what
is technically called a "dive," and, thanks to his
monthly wages, to extricate this new acquaintance
from a position of present disgrace and possible
danger in the future. This young man was the
nephew of one of the Nob Hill magnates, who run

JOHN NICHOLSON 211

the San Francisco Stock Exchange, much as more
humble adventurers, in the corner of some public
park at home, may be seen to perform the simple
artifice of pea and thimble: for their own profit,
that is to say, and the discouragement of public
gambling. It was thus in his power — and, as he
was of grateful temper, it was among the things
that he desired — to put John in the way of grow-
ing rich; and thus, without thought or industry,
or so much as even understanding the game at
which he played, but by simply buying and selling
what he was told to buy and sell, that plaything
of fortune was presently at the head of between
eleven and twelve thousand pounds, or, as he reck-
oned it, of upward of sixty thousand dollars.

How he had come to deserve this wealth, any
more than how he had formerly earned disgrace
at home, was a problem beyond the reach of his
philosophy. It was true that he had been indus-
trious at the bank, but no more so than the cashier,
who had seven small children and was visibly
sinking in decline. Nor was the step which had
determined his advance — a visit to a dive with a
month's wages in his pocket — an act of such
transcendent virtue, or even wisdom, as to seem to
merit the favour of the gods. From some sense of
this, and of the dizzy see-saw — heaven-high, hell-
deep — on which men sit clutching; or perhaps
fearing that the sources of his fortune might be
insidiously traced to some root in the field of petty
cash ; he stuck to his work, said not a word of his
new circumstances, and kept his account with a

212 THE MISADVENTURES

bank in a different quarter of the town. The con-
cealment, innocent as it seems, was the first step
in the second tragi-comedy of John's existence.

Meanwhile, he had never written home. Whether
from diffidence or shame, or a touch of anger, or
mere procrastination, or because (as we have seen)
he had no skill in literary arts, or because (as I
am sometimes tempted to suppose) there is a law
in human nature that prevents young men — not
otherwise beasts — from the performance of this
simple act of piety — months and years had gone
by, and John had never written. The habit of not
writing, indeed, was already fixed before he had
begun to come into his fortune; and it was only
the difficulty of breaking this long silence that with-
held him from an instant restitution of the money
he had stolen or (as he preferred to call it) bor-
rowed. In vain he sat before paper, attending on
inspiration ; that heavenly nymph, beyond suggest-
ing the words " my dear father/' remained obsti-
nately silent; and presently John would crumple
up the sheet and decide, as soon as he had " a
good chance," to carry the money home in person.
And this delay, which is indefensible, was his
second step into the snares of fortune.

Ten years had passed, and John was drawing
near to thirty. He had kept the promise of his
boyhood, and was now of a lusty frame, verging
toward corpulence; good features, good eyes, a
genial manner, a ready laugh, a long pair of sandy
whiskers, a dash of an American accent, a close
familiarity with the great American joke, and a

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 213

certain likeness to a R-y-1 P-rs-a-ge, who shall re-
main nameless for me, made up the man's externals
as he could be viewed in society. Inwardly, in
spite of his gross body and highly masculine whis-
kers, he was more like a maiden lady than a man
of twenty-nine.

It chanced one day, as he was strolling down
Market Street on the eve of his fortnight's holi-
day, that his eye was caught by certain railway
bills, and in very idleness of mind he calculated
that he might be home for Christmas if he started
on the morrow. The fancy thrilled him with de-
sire, and in one moment he decided he would go.

There was much to be done: his portmanteau
to be packed, a credit to be got from the bank
where he was a wealthy customer, and certain
offices to be transacted for that other bank in
which he was an humble clerk ; and it chanced, in
conformity with human nature, that out of all this
business it was the last that came to be neglected.
Night found him, not only equipped with money of
his own, but once more (as on that former occa-
sion) saddled with a considerable sum of other
people's.

Now it chanced there lived in the same boarding-
house a fellow-clerk of his, an honest fellow, with
what is called a weakness for drink — though it
might, in this case, have been called a strength,
for the victim had been drunk for weeks together
without the briefest intermission. To this unfortu-
nate John intrusted a letter with an inclosure of
bonds, addressed to the bank manager. Even as

2i4 THE MISADVENTURES

he did so he thought he perceived a certain haziness
of eye and speech in his trustee ; but he was too
hopeful to be stayed, silenced the voice of warning
in his bosom, and with one and the same gesture
committed the money to the clerk, and himself
into the hands of destiny.

I dwell, even at the risk of tedium, on John's
minutest errors, his case being so perplexing to
the moralist ; but we have done with them now, the
roll is closed, the reader has the worst of our poor
hero, and I leave him to judge for himself whether
he or John has been the less deserving. Hence-
forth we have to follow the spectacle of a man who
was a mere whip-top for calamity; on whose un-
merited misadventures not even the humourist can
look without pity, and not even the philosopher
without alarm.

That same night the clerk entered upon a bout
of drunkenness so consistent as to surprise even
his intimate acquaintance. He was speedily
ejected from the boarding-house; deposited his
portmanteau with a perfect stranger, who did not
even catch his name; wandered he knew not
where, and was at last hove-to, all standing, in a
hospital at Sacramento. There, under the im-
penetrable alias of the number of his bed, the crapu-
lous being lay for some more days unconscious of
all things, and of one thing in particular: that
the police were after him. Two months had come
and gone before the convalescent in the Sacra-
mento hospital was identified with Kirkman, the
absconding San Francisco clerk; even then, there

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 215

must elapse nearly a fortnight more till the perfect
stranger could be hunted up, the portmanteau
recovered, and John's letter carried at length to its
destination, the seal still unbroken, the inclosure
still intact.

Meanwhile, John had gone upon his holidays
without a word, which was irregular; and there
had disappeared with him a certain sum of money,
which was out of all bounds of palliation. But he
was known to be careless, and believed to be hon-
est; the manager besides had a regard for him;
and little was said, although something was no
doubt thought, until the fortnight was finally at
an end, and the time had come for John to reap-
pear. Then, indeed, the affair began to look black ;
and when inquiries were made, and the penniless
clerk was found to have amassed thousands of dol-
lars, and kept them secretly in a rival establishment,
the stoutest of his friends abandoned him, the
books were overhauled for traces of ancient and
artful fraud, and though none were found, there
still prevailed a general impression of loss. The
telegraph was set in motion; and the correspond-
ent of the bank in Edinburgh, for which place it
was understood that John had armed himself with
extensive credits, was warned to communicate with
the police.

Now this correspondent was a friend of Mr.
Nicholson's; he was well acquainted with the tale
of John's calamitous disappearance from Edin-
burgh ; and putting one thing with another, hasted
with the first word of this scandal, not to the police,

2i6 JOHN NICHOLSON

but to his friend. The old gentleman had long
regarded his son as one dead; John's place had
been taken, the memory of his faults had already
fallen to be one of those old aches, which awaken
again indeed upon occasion, but which we can
always vanquish by an effort of the will; and to
have the long lost resuscitated in a fresh disgrace
was doubly bitter.

" Macewen," said the old man, " this must be
hushed up, if possible. If I give you a check for
this sum, about which they are certain, could you
take it on yourself to let the matter rest ? "

" I will," said Macewen. " I will take the risk
of it."

" You understand," resumed Mr. Nicholson,
speaking precisely, but with ashen lips, " I do this
for my family, not for that unhappy young man.
If it should turn out that these suspicions are cor-
rect, and he has embezzled large sums, he must
lie on his bed as he has made it." And then look-
ing up at Macewen with a nod, and one of his
strange smiles : " Good-bye," said he ; and Mac-
ewen, perceiving the case to be too grave for con-
solation, took himself off, and blessed God on his
way home that he was childless.

CHAPTER V

THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN

BY a little after noon on the eve of Christ-
k mas, John had left his portmanteau in the
" cloak-room, and stepped forth into Prince's
Street with a wonderful expansion of the soul,
such as men enjoy on the completion of long-
nourished schemes. He was at home again, in-
cognito and rich; presently he could enter his
father's house by means of the pass-key, which
he had piously preserved through all his wander-
ings ; he would throw down the borrowed money ;
there would be a reconciliation, the details of
which he frequently arranged; and he saw him-
self, during the next month, made welcome in
many stately houses at many frigid dinner-parties,
taking his share in the conversation with the free-
dom of the man and the traveller, and laying down
the law upon finance with the authority of the
successful investor. But this programme was not
to be begun before evening — not till just before
dinner, indeed, at which meal the reassembled
family were to sit roseate, and the best wine, the
modern fatted calf, should flow for the prodigal's
return.

218 THE MISADVENTURES

v/

Meanwhile he walked familiar streets, merry
reminiscences crowding round him, sad ones also,
both with the same surprising pathos. The keen
frosty air; the low, rosy, wintery sun; the castle,
hailing him like an old acquaintance; the names
of friends on door-plates; the sight of friends
whom he seemed to recognise, and whom he
eagerly avoided, in the streets; the pleasant chant
of the north country accent; the dome of St.
George's reminding him of his last penitential
moments in the lane, and of that King of Glory
whose name had echoed ever since in the saddest
corner of his memory; and the gutters where he
had learned to slide, and the shop where he had
bought his skates, and the stones on which he
had trod, and the railings in which he had rattled
his clachan as he went to school; and all those
thousand and one nameless particulars, which
the eye sees without noting, which the memory
keeps indeed yet without knowing, and which,
taken one with another, build up for us the
aspect of the place that we call home: all these
besieged him, as he went, with both delight and
sadness.

His first visit was for Houston, who had a
house on Regent's Terrace, kept for him in old
days by an aunt. The door was opened (to his
surprise) upon the chain, and a voice asked him
from within what he wanted.

" I want Mr. Houston — Mr. Alan Houston,"
said he.

And who are ye ? " said the voice.

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 219

"This is most extraordinary," thought John;
and then aloud he told his name.

" No young Mr. John ? " cried the voice, with
a sudden increase of Scotch accent, testifying to
a friendlier feeling.

" The very same," said John.

And the old butler removed his defences, re-
marking only, " I thocht ye were that man." But
his master was not there; he was staying, it ap-
peared, at the house in Murrayfield; and though
the butler would have been glad enough to have
taken his place and given all the news of the family,
John, struck with a little chill, was eager to be
gone. Only, the door was scarce closed again,
before he regretted that he had not asked about
44 that man."

He was to pay no more visits till he had seen
his father and made all well at home; Alan had
been the only possible exception, and John had not
time to go as far as Murrayfield. But here he
was on Regent's Terrace; there was nothing to
prevent him going round the end of the hill, and
looking from without on the Mackenzies' house.
As he went, he reflected that Flora must now
be a woman of near his own age, and it was
within the bounds of possibility that she was
married ; but this dishonourable doubt he dammed
down.

There was the house, sure enough ; but the door
was of another colour, and what was this — two
door plates? He drew nearer; the top one bore,
with dignified simplicity, the words, " Mr. Proud-

220 THE MISADVENTURES

foot " ; the lower one was more explicit, and in-
formed the passer-by that here was likewise the
abode of " Mr. J. A. Dunlop Proudfoot, Advocate."
The Proudfoots must be rich, for no advocate
could look to have much business in so remote a
quarter; and John hated them for their wealth
and for their name, and for the sake of the house
they desecrated with their presence. He remem-
bered a Proudfoot he had seen at school, not
known : a little, whey-faced urchin, the despicable
member of some lower class. Could it be this
abortion that had climbed to be an advocate, and
now lived in the birthplace of Flora and the home
of John's tenderest memories ? The chill that had
first seized upon him when he heard of Houston's
absence deepened and struck inward. For a mo-
ment, as he stood under the doors of that estranged
house, and looked east and west along the solitary
pavement of the Royal Terrace, where not a cat
was stirring, the sense of solitude and desolation
took him by the throat, and he wished himself in
San Francisco.

And then the figure he made, with his decent
portliness, his whiskers, the money in his purse,
the excellent cigar that he now lighted, recurred to
his mind in consolatory comparison with that of
a certain maddened lad who, on a certain Spring
Sunday ten years before, and in the hour of church-
time silence, had stolen from that city by the Glas-
gow road. In the face of these changes, it were
impious to doubt fortune's kindness. All would be
well yet; the Mackenzies would be found. Flora,

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 221

younger and lovelier and kinder than before ; Alan
would be found, and would have so nicely dis-
criminated his behaviour as to have grown, on the
one hand, into a valued friend of Mr. Nicholson's,
and to have remained, upon the other, of that exact
shade of joviality which John desired in his com-
panions. And so, once more, John fell to work
discounting the delightful future: his first appear-
ance in the family pew ; his first visit to his uncle
Greig, who thought himself so great a financier,
and on whose purblind Edinburgh eyes John was
to let in the dazzling daylight of the West; and
the details in general of that unrivalled transforma-
tion scene, in which he was to display to all Edin-
burgh a portly and successful gentleman in the
shoes of the derided fugitive.

The time began to draw near when his father
would have returned from the office, and it would
be the prodigal's cue to enter. He strolled west-
ward by Albany Street, facing the sunset embers,
pleased, he knew not why, to move in that cold air
and indigo twilight, starred with street-lamps.
But there was one more disenchantment waiting
him by the way.

At the corner of Pitt Street he paused to light
a fresh cigar; the vesta threw, as he did so, a
strong light upon his features, and a man of about
his own age stopped at sight of it.

" I think your name must be Nicholson," said
the stranger.

It was too late to avoid recognition ; and besides,
as John was now actually on the way home, it

222 THE MISADVENTURES

hardly mattered, and he gave way to the impulse
of his nature.

"Great Scott!" he cried, "Beatson!" and
shook hands with warmth. It scarce seemed he
was repaid in kind.

" So you 're home again ? " said Beatson.
"Where have you been all this long time?"

" In the States," said John — " California. I 've
made my pile though; and it suddenly struck me
it would be a noble scheme to come home for
Christmas."

"I see," said Beatson. "Well, I hope we'll
see something of you now you 're here."

" Oh, I guess so," said John, a little frozen.

" Well, ta-ta," concluded Beatson, and he shook
hands again and went.

This was a cruel first experience. It was idle
to blink facts: here was John home again, and
Beatson — Old Beatson — did not care a rush.
He recalled Old Beatson in the past — that merry
and affectionate lad — and their joint adventures
and mishaps, the window they had broken with
a catapult in India Place, the escalade of the
castle rock, and many another inestimable bond of
friendship; and his hurt surprise grew deeper.
Well, after all, it was only on a man's own family
that he could count ; blood was thicker than water,
he remembered; and the net result of this en-
counter was to bring him to the doorstep of his
father's house, with tenderer and softer feelings.
J The night had come ; the fanlight over the door
shone bright; the two windows of the dining-

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 223

room where the cloth was being laid, and the three
windows of the drawing-room where Maria would
be waiting dinner, glowed softlier through yellow
blinds. It was like a vision of the past. All this
time of his absence, life had gone forward with an
equal foot, and the fires and the gas had been
lighted, and the meals spread, at the accustomed
hours. At the accustomed hour, too, the bell had
sounded thrice to call the family to worship. And
at the thought, a pang of regret for his demerit
seized him; he remembered the things that were
good and that he had neglected, and the things
that were evil and that he had loved; and it was
with a prayer upon his lips that he mounted the
steps and thrust the key into the key-hole.

He stepped into the lighted hall, shut the door
softly behind him, and stood there fixed in wonder.
No surprise of strangeness could equal the surprise
of that complete familiarity. There was the bust
of Chalmers near the stair-railings, there was the
clothes-brush in the accustomed place; and there,
on the hat-stand, hung hats and coats that must
surely be the same as he remembered. Ten years
dropped from his life, as a pin may slip between the
fingers ; and the ocean and the mountains, and the
mines, and crowded marts and mingled races of
San Francisco, and his own fortune and his own
disgrace, became, for that one moment, the figures
of a dream that was over.

He took off his hat, and moved mechanically
toward the stand; and there he found a small
change that was a great one to him. The pin that

224 THE MISADVENTURES

had been his from boyhood, where he had flung
his balmoral when he loitered home from the acad-
emy, and his first hat when he came briskly back
from college or the office — his pin was occupied.
" They might have at least respected my pin ! " he
thought, and he was moved as by a slight, and
began at once to recollect that he was here an in-
terloper, in a strange house, which he had entered
almost by a burglary, and where at any moment
he might be scandalously challenged.

He moved at once, his hat still in his hand, to
the door of his father's room, opened it, and
entered. Mr. Nicholson sat in the same place and
posture as on that last Sunday morning; only he
was older, and greyer, and sterner; and as he now
glanced up and caught the eye of his son, a strange
commotion and a dark flush sprung into his face.

" Father," said John, steadily, and even cheer-
fully, for this was a moment against which he was
long ago prepared, " father, here I am, and here
is the money that I took from you. I have come
back to ask your forgiveness, and to stay Christ-
mas with you and the children/'

" Keep your money," said the father, " and go ! "

"Father!" cried John; "for God's sake don't
receive me this way. I 've come for "

"Understand me," interrupted Mr. Nicholson;
" you are no son of mine ; and in the sight of God,
I wash my hands of you. One last thing I will tell
you; one warning I will give you; all is discov-
ered, and you are being hunted for your crimes;
if you are still at large it is thanks to me; but I

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 225

have done all that I mean to do; and from this
time forth I would not raise one finger — not one
finger — to save you from the gallows! And
now," with a low voice of absolute authority, and
a single weighty gesture of the finger, " and now
— go

I"

CHAPTER VI

THE HOUSE AT MURRAYFIELD

HOW John passed the evening, in what
windy confusion of mind, in what squalls
of anger and lulls of sick collapse, in what
pacing of streets and plunging into public-houses,
it would profit little to relate. His misery, if it
were not progressive, yet tended in no way to
diminish; for in proportion as grief and indigna-
tion abated, fear began o take their place. At
first, his father's menacing words lay by in some
safe drawer of memory, biding their hour. At
first, John was all thwarted affection and blighted
hope; next bludgeoned vanity raised its head
again, with twenty mortal gashes : and the father
was disowned even as he had disowned the son.
What was this regular course of life, that John
should have admired it? What were these clock-
work virtues, from which love was absent? Kind-
ness was the test, kindness the aim and soul ; and
judged by such a standard, the discarded prodi-
gal— now rapidly drowning his sorrows and his
reason in successive drams — was a creature of
a lovelier morality than his self-righteous father.
Yes, he was the better man ; he felt it, glowed with
the consciousness, and entering a public-house at

JOHN NICHOLSON 227

the corner of Howard Place (whither he had some-
how wandered) he pledged his own virtues in a
glass — perhaps the fourth since his dismissal.
Of that he knew nothing, keeping no account of
what he did or where he went ; and in the general
crashing hurry of his nerves, unconscious of the
approach of intoxication. Indeed, it is a question
whether he were really growing intoxicated, or
whether at first the spirits did not even sober him.
For it was even as he drained this last glass that his
father's ambiguous and menacing words — pop-
ping from their hiding-place in memory — startled
him like a hand laid upon his shoulder. " Crimes,
hunted, the gallows." They were ugly words ; in
the ears of an innocent man, perhaps all the uglier ;
for if some judicial error were in act against him,
who should set a limit to its grossness or to how
far it might be pushed ? Not John, indeed ; he was
no believer in the powers of innocence, his cursed
experience pointing in quite other ways; and his
fears, once wakened, grew with every hour and
hunted him about the city streets.

It was, perhaps, nearly nine at night; he had
eaten nothing since lunch, he had drunk a good
deal, and he was exhausted by emotion, when the
thought of Houston came into his head. He
turned, not merely to the man as a friend, but to
his house as a place of refuge. The danger that
threatened him was still so vague that he knew
neither what to fear nor where he might expect it ;
but this much at least seemed undeniable, that
a private house was safer than a public inn.

228 THE MISADVENTURES

Moved by these counsels, he turned at once to the
Caledonian Station, passed (not without alarm)
into the bright lights of the approach, redeemed
his portmanteau from the cloak-room, and was
soon whirling in a cab along the Glasgow road.
The change of movement and position, the sight
of the lamps twinkling to the rear, and the smell
of damp and mould and rotten straw- which clung
about the vehicle, wrought in him strange alterna-
tions of lucidity and mortal giddiness.

" I have been drinking," he discovered ; " I must
go straight to bed, and sleep." And he thanked
Heaven for the drowsiness that came upon his
mind in waves.

From one of these sp«Ils he was wakened by
the stoppage of the cab ; and, getting down, found
himself in quite a country road, the last lamp of
the suburb shining some way below, and the high
walls of a garden rising before him in the dark.
The Lodge (as the place was named) stood, in-
deed, very solitary. To the south it adjoined an-
other house, but standing in so large a garden as
to be well out of cry ; on all other sides, open fields
stretched upward to the woods of Corstorphine
Hill, or backward to the dells of Ravelston, or
downward toward the valley of the Leith. The
effect of seclusion was aided by the great height of
the garden walls, which were, indeed, conventual,
and, as John had tested in former days, defied the
climbing school-boy. The lamp of the cab threw
a gleam upon the door and the not brilliant handle
of the bell.

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 229

"Shall I ring for ye?" said the cabman, who
had descended from his perch and was slapping
his chest, for the night was bitter.

" I wish you would," said John, putting his hand
to his brow in one of his accesses of giddiness.

The man pulled at the handle, and the clanking
of the bell replied from further in the garden;
twice and thrice he did it, with sufficient intervals ;
in the great, frosty silence of the night, the sounds
fell sharp and small.

"Does he expect ye?" asked the driver, with
that manner of familiar interest that well became
his port-wine face; and when John had told him
no, " Well, then," said the cabman, " if ye '11 tak'
my advice of it, we '11 just gang back. And that 's
disinterested, mind ye, for my stables are in the
Glesgie road."

" The servants must hear," said John.

" Hout ! " said the driver. " He keeps no ser-
vants here, man. They 're 2! in the town house ;
I drive him often ; it 's just a kind of a hermitage,
this."

" Give me the bell," said John ; and he plucked
at it like a man desperate.

The clamour had not yet subsided before they
heard steps upon the gravel, and a voice of sin-
gular nervous irritability cried to them through
the door, " Who are you, and what do you
want?"

"Alan," said John, "it's me — it's Fatty —
John, you know. I 'm just come home, and I Ve
come to stay with you."

230 THE MISADVENTURES

There was no reply for a moment, and then the
door was opened.

" Get the portmanteau down," said John to the
driver.

" Do nothing of the kind," said Alan ; and then
to John, " Come in here a moment. I want to
speak to you."

y John entered the garden, and the door was closed
behind him. A candle stood on the gravel walk,
winking a little in the draughts; it threw incon-
stant sparkles on the clumped holly, struck the
light and darkness to and fro like a veil on Alan's
features, and sent his shadow hovering behind
him. All beyond was inscrutable; and John's
dizzy brain rocked with the shadow. Yet even
so, it struck him that Alan was pale> and his voice,
when he spoke, unnatural.

" What brings you here to-night ? " he began.
" I don't want, God knows, to seem unfriendly ;
but I cannot take you in, Nicholson; I cannot
do it."

"Alan," said John, "you've just got to! You
don't know the mess I 'm in ; the governor 's turned
me out, and I dare n't show my face in an inn,
because they 're down on me for murder or some-
thing!"

" For what ? " cried Alan, starting.

" Murder, I believe," says John.

" Murder ! " repeated Alan, and passed his hand
over his eyes. " What was that you were saying? "
he asked again.

" That they were down on me," said John.

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 231

" I 'm accused of murder, by what I can make out ;
and I 've really had a dreadful day of it, Alan, and
I can't sleep on the roadside on a night like this —
at least not with a portmanteau," he pleaded.

" Hush! " said Alan, with his head on one side;
and then, " Did you hear nothing? " he asked.

" No," said John, thrilling, he knew not why,
with communicated terror. " No, I heard noth-
ing; why?" And then, as there was no answer,
he reverted to his pleading : " But I say, Alan,
you Ve just got to take me in. I '11 go right away
to bed if you have anything to do. I seem to
have been drinking; I was that knocked over. I
would n't turn you away, Alan, if you were down
on your luck."

" No ? " returned Alan. " Neither will I you,
then. Come and let 's get your portmanteau."

The cabman was paid, and drove off down the
long, lamp-lighted hill, and the two friends stood
on the sidewalk beside the portmanteau till the
last rumble of the wheels had died in silence. It
seemed to John as though Alan attached impor-
tance to this departure of the cab ; and John, who
was in no state to criticise, shared profoundly in
the feeling.

When the stillness was once more perfect, Alan
shouldered the portmanteau, carried it in, and shut
and locked the garden door ; and then, once more,
abstraction seemed to fall upon him, and he stood
with his hand on the key, until the cold began to
nibble at John's ringers.

" Why are we standing here ? " asked John.

232 THE MISADVENTURES

"Eh?" said Alan, blankly.

" Why, man, you don't seem yourself," said the
other.

" No, I 'm not myself," said Alan ; and he sat
down on the portmanteau and put his face in his
hands.

John stood beside him swaying a little, and look-
ing about him at the swaying shadows, the flitting
sparkles, and the steady stars overhead, until the
windless cold began to touch him through his
clothes on the bare skin. Even in his bemused
intelligence, wonder began to awake.

" I say, let 's come on to the house," he said at
last.

" Yes, let 's come on to the house," repeated
Alan.

And he rose at once, reshouldered the portman-
teau, and taking the candle in his other hand,
moved forward to the Lodge. This was a long,
low building, smothered in creepers; and now,
except for some chinks of light between the dining-
room shutters, it was plunged in darkness and
silence.

In the hall Alan lighted another candle, gave it
to John, and opened the door of a bedroom.

" Here," said he; " go to bed. Don't mind me,
John. You '11 be sorry for me when you know."

" Wait a bit," returned John ; " I 've got so cold
with all that standing about. Let 's go into the
dining-room a minute. Just one glass to warm
me, Alan."

On the table in the hall stood a glass, and a

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 233

bottle with a whisky label on a tray. It was plain
the bottle had been just opened, for the cork and
corkscrew lay beside it.

"Take that," said Alan, passing John the
whisky, and then with a certain roughness pushed
his friend into the bedroom, and closed the door
behind him.

John stood amazed; then he shook the bottle,
and, to his further wonder, found it partly empty.
Three or four glasses were gone. Alan must have
uncorked a bottle of whisky and drank three or
four glasses one after the other, without sitting
down, for there was no chair, and that in his own
cold lobby on this freezing night! It fully ex-
plained his eccentricities, John reflected sagely, as
he mixed himself a grog. Poor Alan! He was
drunk; and what a dreadful thing was drink,
and what a slave to it poor Alan was, to drink
in this unsociable, uncomfortable fashion! The
man who would drink alone, except for health's
sake — as John was now doing — was a man
utterly lost. He took the grog out, and felt hazier,
but warmer. It was hard work opening the port-
manteau and finding his night things ; and before
he was undressed, the cold had struck home to him
once more. " Well," said he ; " just a drop more.
There 's no sense in getting ill with all this other
trouble." And presently dreamless slumber buried
him.

When John awoke it was day. The low winter
sun was already in the heavens, but his watch
had stopped, and it was impossible to tell the hour

234 THE MISADVENTURES

exactly. Ten, he guessed it, and made haste to
dress, dismal reflections crowding on his mind.
But it was less from terror than from regret that
he now suffered; and with his regret there were
mingled cutting pangs of penitence. There had
fallen upon him a blow, cruel, indeed, but yet only
the punishment of old misdoing; and he had re-
belled and plunged into fresh sin. The rod had
been used to chasten, and he had bit the chastening
fingers. His father was right ; John had justified
him ; John was no guest for decent people's houses,
and no fit associate for decent people's children.
And had a broader hint been needed, there was the
case of his old friend. John was no drunkard,
though he could at times exceed; and the picture
of Houston drinking neat spirits at his hall-table
struck him with something like disgust. He hung
back from meeting his old friend. He could have
wished he had not come to him ; and yet, even now,
where else was he to turn ?

These musings occupied him while he dressed,
and accompanied him into the lobby of the house.
The door stood open on the garden; doubtless,
Alan had stepped forth; and John did as he sup-
posed his friend had done. The ground was hard
as iron, the frost still rigorous; as he brushed
among the hollies, icicles jingled and glittered in
their fall ; and wherever he went, a volley of eager
sparrows followed him. Here were Christmas
weather and Christmas morning duly met, to the
delight of children. This was the day of reunited
families, the day to which he had so long looked

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 235

forward, thinking to awake in his own bed in
Randolph Crescent, reconciled with all men and
repeating the foot-prints of his youth; and here
he was alone, pacing the alleys of a wintery garden
and filled with penitential thoughts.

And that reminded him : why was he alone ? and
where was Alan ? The thought of the festal morn-
ing and the due salutations reawakened his desire
for his friend, and he began to call for him by name.
As the sound of his voice died away, he was aware
of the greatness of the silence that environed him.
But for the twittering of the sparrows and the
crunching of his own feet upon the frozen snow,
the whole windless world of air hung over him
entranced, and the stillness weighed upon his mind
with a horror of solitude.

Still calling at intervals, but now with a moder-
ated voice, he made the hasty circuit of the garden,
and finding neither man nor trace of man in all
its evergreen coverts, turned at last to the house.
About the house the silence seemed to deepen
strangely. The door, indeed, stood open as before ;
but the windows were still shuttered, the chimneys
breathed no stain into the bright air, there sounded
abroad none of that low stir (perhaps audible rather
to the ear of the spirit than to the ear of the flesh)
by which a house announces and betrays its human
lodgers. And yet Alan must be there — Alan
locked in drunken slumbers, forgetful of the re-
turn of day, of the holy season, and of the friend
whom he had so coldly received and was now so
churlishly neglecting. John's disgust redoubled

236 THE MISADVENTURES

at the thought ; but hunger was beginning to grow
stronger than repulsion, and as a step to break-
fast, if nothing else, he must find and arouse this
sleeper.

He made the circuit of the bedroom quarters.
All, until he came to Alan's chamber, were locked
from without, and bore the marks of a prolonged
disuse. But Alan's was a room in commission,
filled with clothes, knickknacks, letters, books, and
the conveniences of a solitary man. The fire had
been lighted ; but it had long ago burned out, and
the ashes were stone cold. The bed had been made,
but it had not been slept in.

Worse and worse, then ; Alan must have fallen
where he sat, and now sprawled brutishly, no
doubt, upon the dining-room floor.

The dining-room was a very long apartment,
and was reached through a passage ; so that John,
upon his entrance, brought but little light with
him, and must move toward the windows with
spread arms, groping and knocking on the furni-
ture. Suddenly he tripped and fell his length over
a prostrate body. It was what he had looked for,
yet it shocked him ; and he marvelled that so rough
an impact should not have kicked a groan out of the
drunkard. Men had killed themselves ere now in
such excesses, a dreary and degraded end that made
John shudder. What if Alan were dead? There
would be a Christmas-day!

By this, John had his hand upon the shutters,
and flinging them back, beheld once again the
blessed face of the day. Even by that light the

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 237

room had a discomfortable air. The chairs were
scattered, and one had been overthrown ; the table-
cloth, laid as if for dinner, was twitched upon one
side, and some of the dishes had fallen to the floor.
Behind the table lay the drunkard, still unaroused,
only one foot visible to John.

But now that light was in the room, the worst
seemed over; it was a disgusting business, but
not more than disgusting; and it was with no
great apprehension that John proceeded to make
the circuit of the table: his last comparatively
tranquil moment for that day. No sooner had he
turned the corner, no sooner had his eyes alighted
on the body, than he gave a smothered, breathless
cry, and fled out of the room and out of the house.

It was not Alan who lay there, but a man well
up in years, of stern countenance and iron-grey
locks; and it was no drunkard, for the body lay
in a black pool of blood, and the open eyes stared
upon the ceiling.

To and fro walked John before the door. The
extreme sharpness of the air acted on his nerves
like an astringent, and braced them swiftly. Pres-
ently, he not relaxing in his disordered walk, the
images began to come clearer and stay longer in
his fancy; and next the power of thought came
back to him, and the horror and danger of his
situation rooted him to the ground.

He grasped his forehead, and staring on one
spot of gravel, pieced together what he knew and
what he suspected. Alan had murdered some one :
possibly " that man " against whom the butler

238 THE MISADVENTURES

chained the door in Regent's Terrace; possibly
another; some one at least: a human soul, whom
it was death to slay and whose blood lay spilled
upon the floor. This was the reason of the whisky
drinking in the passage, of his unwillingness to
welcome John, of his strange behaviour and be-
wildered words; this was why he had started at
and harped upon the name of murder; this was
why he had stood and hearkened, or sat and cov-
ered his eyes, in the black night. And now he was
gone, now he had basely fled; and to all his per-
plexities and dangers John stood heir.

" Let me think — let me think," he said, aloud,
impatiently, even pleadingly, as if to some merci-
less interrupter. In the turmoil of his wits, a
thousand hints and hopes and threats and terrors
dinning continuously in his ears, he was like one
plunged in the hubbub of a crowd. How was he
to remember — he, who had not a thought to spare
— that he was himself the author, as well as the
theatre, of so much confusion? But in hours of
trial the junto of man's nature is dissolved, and
anarchy succeeds.

It was plain he must stay no longer where he
was, for here was a new Judicial Error in the very
making. It was not so plain where he must go,
for the old Judicial Error, vague as a cloud, ap-
peared to fill the habitable world; whatever it
might be, it watched for him, full grown, in Edin-
burgh; it must have had its birth in San Fran-
cisco; it stood guard no doubt, like a dragon, at
the bank where he should cash his credit; and

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 239

though there were doubtless many other places,
who should say in which of them it was not am-
bushed ? No, he could not tell where he was to go ;
he must not lose time on these insolubilities. Let
him go back to the beginning. It was plain he
must stay no longer where he was. It was plain,
too, that he must not flee as he was, for he could
not carry his portmanteau, and to flee and leave it,
was to plunge deeper in the mire. He must go,
leave the house unguarded, find a cab, and return
— return after an absence? Had he courage for
that?

And just then he spied a stain about a hand's
breadth on his trouser-leg, and reached his finger
down to touch it. The finger was stained red;
it was blood; he stared upon it with disgust, and
awe, and terror, and in the sharpness of the new
sensation, fell instantly to act.

He cleansed his finger in the snow, returned into
the house, drew near with hushed footsteps to the
dining-room door, and shut and locked it. Then
he breathed a little freer, for here at least was an
oaken barrier between himself and what he feared.
Next, he hastened to his room, tore off the spotted
trousers which seemed in his eyes a link to bind him
to the gallows, flung them in a corner, donned
another pair, breathlessly crammed his night things
into his portmanteau, locked it, swung it with an
effort from the ground, and with a rush of relief,
came forth again under the open heavens.

The portmanteau, being of occidental build, was
no feather-weight; it had distressed the powerful

24o THE MISADVENTURES

Alan; and as for John, he was crushed under its
bulk, and the sweat broke upon him thickly.
Twice he must set it down to rest before he reached
the gate; and when he had come so far, he must
do as Alan did, and take his seat upon one corner.
Here, then, he sat awhile and panted ; but now his
thoughts were sensibly lightened; now, with the
trunk standing just inside the door, some part of
his dissociation from the house of crime had been
effected, and the cabman need not pass the garden
wall. It was wonderful how that relieved him ; for
the house, in his eyes, was a place to strike the
most cursory beholder with suspicion, as though
the very windows had cried murder.

But there was to be no remission of the strokes
of fate. As he thus sat, taking breath in the shadow
of the wall and hopped about by sparrows, it
chanced that his eye roved to the fastening of the
door; and what he saw plucked him to his feet.
The thing locked with a spring ; once the door was
closed, the bolt shut of itself; and without a key,
there was no means of entering from without.

He saw himself obliged to one of two distaste-
ful and perilous alternatives; either to shut the
door altogether and set his portmanteau out upon
the wayside, a wonder to all beholders ; or to leave
the door ajar, so that any thievish tramp or holiday
school-boy might stray in and stumble on the grisly
secret. To the last, as the least desperate, his mind
inclined; but he must first insure himself that he
was unobserved. He peered out, and down the
long road: it lay dead empty. He went to the

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 241

corner of the by-road that comes by way of Dean ;
there also not a passenger was stirring. Plainly
it was, now or never, the high tide of his affairs ;
and he drew the door as close as he durst, slipped
a pebble in the chink, and made off down-hill to
find a cab.

Half-way down a gate opened, and a troop of
Christmas children sallied forth in the most cheer-
ful humour, followed more soberly by a smiling
mother.

" And this is Christmas-day ! " thought John ;
and could have laughed aloud in tragic bitterness
of heart.

CHAPTER VII

A TRAGI-COMEDY IN A CAB

IN front of Donaldson's Hospital John counted
it good fortune to perceive a cab a great way
off, and by much shouting and waving of his
arm to catch the notice of the driver. He counted
it good fortune, for the time was long to him till he
should have done for ever with the Lodge ; and the
further he must go to find a cab, the greater the
chance that the inevitable discovery had taken place,
and that he should return to find the garden full of
angry neighbours. Yet when the vehicle drew up
he was sensibly chagrined to recognise the port-wine
cabman of the night before. " Here," he could not
but reflect, " here is another link in the Judicial
Error."

The driver, on the other hand, was pleased to
drop again upon so liberal a fare ; and as he was a
man — the reader must already have perceived —
of easy, not to say familiar, manners, he dropped
at once into a vein of friendly talk, commenting on
the weather, on the sacred season, which struck
him chiefly in the light of a day of liberal gratui-
ties, on the chance which had reunited him to a
pleasing customer, and on the fact that John had

JOHN NICHOLSON 243

been (as he was pleased to call it) visibly " on
the randan " the night before.

" And ye look dreidful bad the-day, sir, I must
say that," he continued. " There 's nothing like
a dram for ye — if ye '11 take my advice of it ;
and bein' as it 's Christmas, I 'm no saying," he
added, with a fatherly smile, " but what I would
join ye mysel'."

John had listened with a sick heart.

" I '11 give you a dram when we 've got through,"
said he, affecting a sprightliness which sat on him
most unhandsomely, " and not a drop till then.
Business first, and pleasure afterward."

With this promise the jarvey was prevailed upon
to clamber to his place and drive, with hideous
deliberation, to the door of the Lodge. There were
no signs as yet of any public emotion; only, two
men stood not far off in talk, and their presence,
seen from afar, set John's pulses buzzing. He
might have spared himself his fright, for the pair
were lost in some dispute of a theological complex-
ion, and with lengthened upper lip and enumerat-
ing fingers, pursued the matter of their difference,
and paid no heed to John.

But the cabman proved a thorn in the flesh.
Nothing would keep him on his perch; he must
clamber down, comment upon the pebble in the
door (which he regarded as an ingenious but un-
safe device), help John with the portmanteau, and
enliven matters with a flow of speech, and espe-
cially of questions, which I thus condense:

"He'll no be here himser, will he? No?

244 THE MISADVENTURES

Well, he 's an eccentric man — a fair oddity — if
ye ken the expression. Great trouble with his
tenants, they tell me. I ve driven the fam'ly for
years. I drove a cab at his father's waddin'.
What '11 your name be ? — I should ken your face.
Baigrey, ye say? There were Baigreys about Gil-
merton; ye '11 be one of that lot? Then this '11
be a friend's portmantie, like ? Why ? Because the
name upon it 's Nucholson ! Oh, if ye 're in a
hurry, that's another job. Waverley Brig'? Are
ye for away ? "

So the friendly toper prated and questioned and
kept John's heart in a flutter. But to this also,
as to other evils under the sun, there came a period ;
and the victim of circumstances began at last to
rumble toward the railway terminus at Waverley
Bridge. During the transit, he sat with raised
glasses in the frosty chill and mouldy fetor of his
chariot, and glanced out sidelong on the holiday
face of things, the shuttered shops, and the crowds
along the pavement, much as the rider in the Ty-
burn cart may have observed the concourse gather-
ing to his execution.

At the station his spirits rose again; another
stage of his escape was fortunately ended — he
began to spy blue water. He called a railway
porter, and bade him carry the portmanteau to the
cloak-room : not that he had any notion of delay j
flight, instant flight was his design, no matter
whither ; but he had determined to dismiss the cab-
man ere he named, or even chose, his destination,
thus possibly balking the Judicial Error of another

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 245

link. This was his cunning aim, and now with
one foot on the road-way, and one still on the
coach-step, he made haste to put the thing in prac-
tice, and plunged his hand into his trousers pocket.

There was nothing there!

Oh, yes ; this time he was to blame. He should
have remembered, and when he deserted his blood-
stained pantaloons, he should not have deserted
along with them his purse. Make the most of
his error, and then compare it with the punishment !
Conceive his new position, for I lack words to
picture it; conceive him condemned to return to
that house, from the very thought of which his
soul revolted, and once more to expose himself to
capture on the very scene of the misdeed : conceive
him linked to the mouldy cab and the familiar cab-
man. John cursed the cabman silently, and then
it occurred to him that he must stop the incarcera-
tion of his portmanteau; that, at least, he must
keep close at hand, and he turned to recall the
porter. But his reflections, brief as they had ap-
peared, must have occupied him longer than he
supposed, and there was the man already return-
ing with the receipt.

Well, that was settled ; he had lost his portman-
teau also ; for the sixpence with which he had paid
the Murrayfield Toll was one that had strayed
alone into his waistcoat pocket, and unless he once
more successfully achieved the adventure of the
house of crime, his portmanteau lay in the cloak-
room in eternal pawn, for lack of a penny fee.
And then he remembered the porter, who stood

246 THE MISADVENTURES

suggestively attentive, words of gratitude hanging
on his lips.

John hunted right and left ; he found a coin —
prayed God that it was a sovereign — drew it out,
beheld a halfpenny, and offered it to the porter.

The man's jaw dropped.

" It 's only a halfpenny ! " he said, startled out
of railway decency.

" I know that," said John, piteously.

And here the porter recovered the dignity of
man.

" Thank you, sir," said he, and would have re-
turned the base gratuity. But John, too, would
none of it; and as they struggled, who must join
in but the cabman?

" Hoots, Mr. Baigrey," said he, " you surely
forget what day it is ! "

" I tell you I have no change ! " cried John.

"Well," said the driver, "and what then? I
would rather give a man a shillin' on a day like
this than put him off with a derision like a baw-
bee. I 'm surprised at the like of you, Mr.
Baigrey ! "

" My name is not Baigrey ! " broke out John,
in mere childish temper and distress.

" Ye told me it was yoursel'," said the cabman.

" I know I did ; and what the devil right had you
to ask ? " cried the unhappy one.

" Oh, very well," said the driver. " I know
my place, if you know yours — if you know
yours!" he repeated, as one who should imply
grave doubt; and muttered inarticulate thunders,

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 24y

in which the grand old name of gentleman was
taken seemingly in vain. j

Oh, to have been able to discharge this monster, ^
whom John now perceived, with tardy clear-
sightedness, to have begun betimes the festivities
of Christmas ! But far from any such ray of con-
solation visiting the lost, he stood bare of help and
helpers, his portmanteau sequestered in one place,
his money deserted in another and guarded by a
corpse; himself, so sedulous of privacy, the cyno-
sure of all men's eyes about the station; and, as
if these were not enough mischances, he was now
fallen in ill-blood with the beast to whom his
poverty had linked him! In ill-blood, as he re-
flected dismally, with the witness who perhaps
might hang or save him ! There was no time to be
lost; he durst not linger any longer in that public
spot; and whether he had recourse to dignity or
conciliation, the remedy must be applied at once.
Some happily surviving element of manhood moved
him to the former.

" Let us have no more of this," said he, his foot
once more upon the step. " Go back to where we
came from."

He had avoided the name of any destination, for
there was now quite a little band of railway folk
about the cab, and he still kept an eye upon the
court of justice, and laboured to avoid concentric
evidence. But here again the fatal jarvey out-
manoeuvred him.

" Back to the Ludge? " cried he, in shrill tones
of protest.

248 THE MISADVENTURES

" Drive on at once ! " roared John, and slammed
the door behind him, so that the crazy chariot
rocked and jingled.

Forth trundled the cab into the Christmas
streets, the fare within plunged in the blackness of
a despair that neighboured on unconsciousness, the
driver on the box digesting his rebuke and his cus-
tomer's duplicity. I would not be thought to put
the pair in competition ; John's case was out of all
parallel. But the cabman, too, is worth the sym-
pathy of the judicious; for he was a fellow of
genuine kindliness and a high sense of personal
dignity incensed by drink; and his advances had
been cruelly and publicly rebuffed. As he drove,
therefore, he counted his wrongs, and thirsted for
sympathy and drink. Now, it chanced he had a
friend, a publican, in Queensferry Street, from
whom, in view of the sacredness of the occasion,
he thought he might extract a dram. Queens-
ferry Street lies something off the direct road to
Murrayfield. But then there is the hilly cross-
road that passes by the valley of the Leith and the
Dean Cemetery; and Queensferry Street is on the
way to that. What was to hinder the cabman,
since his horse was dumb, from choosing the cross-
road, and calling on his friend in passing? So
it was decided; and the charioteer, already some-
what mollified, turned aside his horse to the right.

John, meanwhile, sat collapsed, his chin sunk
upon his chest, his mind in abeyance. The smell
pf the cab was still faintly present to his senses,
and a certain leaden chill about his feet; all else

OF JOHN NICHOLSON a49

had disappeared in one vast oppression of calamity
and physical faintness. It was drawing on to noon
— two-and-twenty hours since he had broken
bread; in the interval, he had suffered tortures of
sorrow and alarm, and been partly tipsy; and
though it was impossible to say he slept, yet when
the cab stopped and the cabman thrust his head
into the window, his attention had to be recalled
from depths of vacancy.

" If you '11 no' stand me a dram/' said the driver,
with a well-merited severity of tone and manner,
" I dare say ye '11 have no objection to my taking
one mysel' ? "

"Yes — no — do what you like," returned
John; and then, as he watched his tormentor-
mount the stairs and enter the whisky-shop, there
floated into his mind a sense as of something long
ago familiar. At that he started fully awake, and
stared at the shop-fronts. Yes, he knew them;
but when ? and how ? Long since, he thought ; and
then, casting his eye through the front glass, which
had been recently occluded by the figure of the
jarvey, he beheld the tree-tops of the rookery in
Randolph Crescent. He was close to home —
home, where he had thought, at that hour, to be
sitting in the well-remembered drawing-room in
friendly converse ; and, instead — — !

It was his first impulse to drop into the bottom
of the cab; his next, to cover his face with his
hands. So he sat, while the cabman toasted the
publican, and the publican toasted the cabman, and
both reviewed the affairs of the nation ; so he still

250 THE MISADVENTURES

sat, when his master condescended to return, and
drive off at last down-hill, along the curve of Lyne-
doch Place; but even so sitting, as he passed the
end of his father's street, he took one glance from
between shielding ringers, and beheld a doctor's
carriage at the door.

"Well, just so," thought he; "I'll have killed
my father ! And this is Christmas-day ! "

If Mr. Nicholson died, it was down this same
road he must journey to the grave; and down this
road, on the same errand, his wife had preceded
him years before ; and many other leading citizens,
with the proper trappings and attendance of the
end. And now, in that frosty, ill-smelling, straw-
carpeted, and ragged-cushioned cab, with his breath
congealing on the glasses, where else was John him-
self advancing to ?

The thought stirred his imagination, which
began to manufacture many thousand pictures,
bright and fleeting, like the shapes in a kaleido-
scope; and now he saw himself, ruddy and com-
fortered, sliding in the gutter; and, again, a little
woe-begone, bored urchin tricked forth in crape
and weepers, descending this same hill at the foot's-
pace of mourning coaches, his mother's body just
preceding him; and yet again, his fancy, running
far in front, showed him his destination — now
standing solitary in the low sunshine, with the
sparrows hopping on the threshold and the dead
man within staring at the roof — and now, with a
sudden change, thronged about with white-faced,
hand-uplifting neighbours, and doctor bursting

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 251

through their midst and fixing his stethoscope as
he went, the policeman shaking a sagacious head
beside the body. It was to this he feared that he
was driving; in the midst of this he saw himself
arrive, heard himself stammer faint explanations,
and felt the hand of the constable upon his shoulder.
Heavens! how he wished he had played the man-
lier part; how he despised himself that he had
fled that fatal neighbourhood when all was quiet,
and should now be tamely travelling back when it
was thronging with avengers!

Any strong degree of passion lends, even to the
dullest, the forces of the imagination. And so now
as he dwelt on what was probably awaiting him at
the end of this distressful drive — John, who saw
things little, remembered them less, and could not
have described them at all, beheld in his mind's eye
the garden of the Lodge, detailed as in a map ; he
went to and fro in it, feeding his terrors; he saw
the hollies, the snowy borders, the paths where he
had sought Alan, the high conventual walls, the
shut door — what ! was the door shut ? Ay, truly,
he had shut it — shut in his money, his escape, his
future life — shut it with these hands, and none
could now open it! He heard the snap of the
spring-lock like something bursting in his brain,
and sat astonied.

And then he woke again, terror jarring through
his vitals. This was no time to be idle; he must
be up and doing, he must think. Once at the end of
this ridiculous cruise, once at the Lodge door, there
would be nothing for it but to turn the cab and

i$i THE MISADVENTURES

trundle back again. Why, then, go so far? why
add another feature of suspicion to a case already
so suggestive ? why not turn at once ? It was easy
to say, turn ; but whither ? He had nowhere now
to go to ; he could never — he saw it in letters of
blood — he could never pay that cab; he was
saddled with that cab for ever. Oh, that cab ! his
soul yearned and burned, and his bowels sounded
to be rid of it. He forgot all other cares. He
must first quit himself of this ill-smelling vehicle
and of the human beast that guided it — first do
that; do that, at least; do that at once.

And just then the cab suddenly stopped, and
there was his persecutor rapping on the front glass.
John let it down, and beheld the port-wine coun-
tenance inflamed with intellectual triumph.

" I ken wha ye are ! " cried the husky voice. " I
mind ye now. Ye 're a Nucholson. I drove ye
to Hermiston to a Christmas party, and ye came
back on the box, and I let ye drive."

It is a fact. John knew the man ; they had been
even friends. His enemy, he now remembered,
was a fellow of great good-nature — endless good-
nature — with a boy ; why not with a man ? Why
not appeal to his better side? He grasped at the
new hope.

" Great Scott ! and so you did," he cried, as if
in a transport of delight, his voice sounding false
in his own ears. " Well, if that 's so, I Ve some-
thing to say to you. I '11 just get out, I guess.
Where are we, any way? "

The driver had fluttered his ticket in the eyes of

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 253

the branch-toll keeper, and they were now brought
to on the highest and most solitary part of the by-
road. On the left, a row of fieldside trees beshaded
it ; on the right, it was bordered by naked fallows,
undulating down-hill to the Queensferry Road ; in
front, Corstorphine Hill raised its snow-bedabbled,
darkling woods against the sky. John looked all
about him, drinking the clear air like wine; then
his eyes returned to the cabman's face as he sat,
not ungleefully, awaiting John's communication,
with the air of one looking to be tipped.

The features of that face were hard to read,
drink had so swollen them, drink had so painted
them, in tints that varied from brick red to mul-
berry. The small grey eyes blinked, the lips
moved, with greed ; greed was the ruling passion ;
and though there was some good-nature, some
genuine kindliness, a true human touch, in the old
toper, his greed was now so set afire by hope, that
all other traits of character lay dormant. He sat
there a monument of gluttonous desire.

John's heart slowly fell. He had opened his lips,
but he stood there and uttered naught. He sounded
the well of his courage, and it was dry. He groped
in his treasury of words, and it was vacant. A
devil of dumbness had him by the throat ; the devil
of terror babbled in his ears ; and suddenly, with-
out a word uttered, with no conscious purpose
formed in his will, John whipped about, tumbled
over the roadside wall, and began running for his
life across the fallows.

He had not gone far, he was not past the midst

254 JOHN NICHOLSON

of the first field, when his whole brain thundered
within him, " Fool ! You have your watch ! " The
shock stopped him, and he faced once more toward
the cab. The driver was leaning over the wall,
brandishing his whip, his face empurpled, roaring
like a bull. And John saw (or thought) that he
had lost the chance. No watch would pacify the
man's resentment now; he would cry for ven-
geance also. John would be had under the eye of
the police; his tale would be unfolded, his secret
plumbed, his destiny would close on him at last,
and for ever.

He uttered a deep sigh ; and just as the cabman,
taking heart of grace, was beginning at last to scale
the wall, his defaulting customer fell again to run-
ning, and disappeared into the further fields.

CHAPTER VIII

SINGULAR INSTANCE OF THE UTILITY OF

PASS-KEYS

WHERE he ran at first, John never very
clearly knew ; nor yet how long a time
elapsed ere he found himself in the by-
road near the lodge of Ravelston, propped against
the wall, his lungs heaving like bellows, his legs
leaden-heavy, his mind possessed by one sole desire
— to lie down and be unseen. He remembered the
thick coverts round the quarry-hole pond, an un-
trodden corner of the world where he might surely
find concealment till the night should fall. Thither
he passed down the lane ; and when he came there,
behold! he had forgotten the frost, and the pond
was alive with young people skating, and the pond-
side coverts were thick with lookers-on. He looked
on awhile himself. There was one tall, graceful
maiden, skating hand in hand with a youth, on
whom she bestowed her bright eyes perhaps too
patently ; and it was strange with what anger John
beheld her. He could have broken forth in curses ;
he could have stood there, like a mortified tramp,
and shaken his fist and vented his gall upon her
by the hour — or so he thought ; and the next mo-
ment his heart bled for the girl. " Poor creature,

256 THE MISADVENTURES

it 's little she knows ! " he sighed. " Let her en-
joy herself while she can ! " But was it possible,
when Flora used to smile at him on the Braid
ponds, she could have looked so fulsome to a sick-
hearted bystander?

The thought of one quarry, in his frozen wits,
suggested another; and he plodded off toward
Craig Leith. A wind had sprung up out of the
north-west; it was cruel keen, it dried him like
a fire, and racked his finger- joints. It brought
clouds, too; pale, swift, hurrying clouds, that
blotted heaven and shed gloom upon the earth. He
scrambled up among the hazelled rubbish heaps that
surround the caldron of the quarry, and lay flat
upon the stones. The wind searched close along
the earth, the stones were cutting and icy, the bare
hazels wailed about him; and soon the air of the
afternoon began to be vocal with those strange and
dismal harpings that herald snow. Pain and misery
turned in John's limbs to a harrowing impatience
and blind desire of change; now he would roll in
his harsh lair, and when the flints abraded him, was
almost pleased; now he would crawl to the edge
of the huge pit and look dizzily down. He saw
the spiral of the descending roadway, the steep
crags, the clinging bushes, the peppering of snow-
wreaths, and far down in the bottom, the dimin-
ished crane. Here, no doubt, was a way to end it.
But it somehow did not take his fancy.

And suddenly he was aware that he was hungry ;
ay, even through the tortures of the cold, even
through the frosts of despair, a gross, desperate

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 257

longing after food, no matter what, no matter how,
began to wake and spur him. Suppose he pawned
his watch ? But no, on Christmas-day — this was
Christmas-day ! — the pawn-shop would be closed.
Suppose he went to the public-house close by at
Blackhall, and offered the watch, which was worth
ten pounds, in payment for a meal of bread and
cheese ? The incongruity was too remarkable ; the
good folks would either put him to the door, or
only let him in to send for the police. He turned
his pockets out one after another ; some San Fran-
cisco tram-car checks, one cigar, no lights, the
pass-key to his father's house, a pocket-handker-
chief, with just a touch of scent : no, money could
be raised on none of these. There was nothing
for it but to starve; and after all, what mattered
it? That also was a door of exit.

He crept close among the bushes, the wind play-
ing round him like a lash ; his clothes seemed thin
as paper, his joints burned, his skin curdled on his
bones. He had a vision of a high-lying cattle-drive
in California, and the bed of a dried stream with
one muddy pool, by which the vaqueros had en-
camped : splendid sun over all, the big bonfire blaz-
ing, the strips of cow browning and smoking on
a skewer of wood ; how warm it was, how savoury
the steam of scorching meat! And then again he
remembered his manifold calamities, and burrowed
and wallowed in the sense of his disgrace and
shame. And next he was entering Frank's res-
taurant in Montgomery Street, San Francisco; he
had ordered a pan-stew and venison chops, of

258 THE MISADVENTURES

which he was immoderately fond, and as he sat
waiting, Munroe, the good attendant, brought him
a whisky punch; he saw the strawberries float on
the delectable cup, he heard the ice chink about
the straws. And then he woke again to his de-
tested fate, and found himself sitting, humped
together, in a windy combe of quarry refuse —
darkness thick about him, thin flakes of snow flying
here and there like rags of paper, and the strong
shuddering of his body clashing his teeth like a
hiccup.

We have seen John in nothing but the stormiest
condition; we have seen him reckless, desperate,
tried beyond his moderate powers; of his daily
self, cheerful, regular, not unthrifty, we have seen
nothing ; and it may thus be a surprise to the reader,
to learn that he was studiously careful of his health.
This favourite preoccupation now awoke. If he
were to sit there and die of cold, there would be
mighty little gained ; better the police cell and the
chances of a jury trial, than the miserable certainty
of death at a dike-side before the next winter's
dawn, or death a little later in the gas-lighted wards
of an infirmary.

He rose on aching legs, and stumbled here and
there among the rubbish heaps, still circumvented
by the yawning crater of the quarry; or perhaps
he only thought so, for the darkness was already
dense, the snow was growing thicker, and he moved
like a blind man, and with a blind man's terrors.
At last he climbed a fence, thinking to drop into
the road, and found himself staggering, instead,

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 259

among the iron furrows of a ploughland, endless,
it seemed, as a whole county. And next he was
in a wood, beating among young trees; and then
he was aware of a house with many lighted win-
dows, Christmas carriages waiting at the doors,
and Christmas drivers (for Christmas has a double
edge) becoming swiftly hooded with snow. From
this glimpse of human cheerfulness, he fled like
Cain ; wandered in the night, unpiloted, careless
of whither he went; fell, and lay, and then rose
again and wandered further; and at last, like a
transformation scene, behold him in the lighted
jaws of the city, staring at a lamp which had
already donned the tilted night-cap of the snow.
It came thickly now, a " Feeding Storm " ; and
while he yet stood blinking at the lamp, his feet
were buried. He remembered something like it
in the past, a street-lamp crowned and caked upon
the windward side with snow, the wind uttering
its mournful hoot, himself looking on, even as
now; but the cold had struck too sharply on his
wits, and memory failed him as to the date and
sequel of the reminiscence.

His next conscious moment was on the Dean
Bridge; but whether he was John Nicholson of a
bank in a California street, or some former John,
a clerk in his father's office, he had now clean for-
gotten. Another blank, and he was thrusting
his pass-key into the door-lock of his father's
house.

Hours must have passed. Whether crouched
on the cold stones or wandering in the fields among

260 THE MISADVENTURES

the snow, was more than he could tell ; but hours
had passed. The finger of the hall clock was close
on twelve; a narrow peep of gas in the hall-lamp
shed shadows ; and the door of the back room —
his father's room — was open and emitted a warm
light. At so late an hour, all this was strange ; the
lights should have been out, the doors locked, the
good folk safe in bed. He marvelled at the irregu-
larity, leaning on the hall-table; and marvelled to
himself there; and thawed and grew once more
hungry, in the warmer air of the house.

The clock uttered its premonitory catch ; in five
minutes Christmas-day would be among the days
of the past — Christmas! — what a Christmas!
Well, there was no use waiting; he had come
into that house, he scarce knew how ; if they were
to thrust him forth again, it had best be done at
once; and he moved to the door of the back room
and entered.

Oh, well, then he was insane, as he had long
believed.

- There, in his father's room, at midnight, the fire
was roaring and the gas blazing; the papers, the
sacred papers — to lay a hand on which was crim-
inal — had all been taken off and piled along the
floor ; a cloth was spread, and a supper laid, upon
the business table; and in his father's chair a
woman, habited like a nun, sat eating. As he
appeared in the doorway, the nun rose, gave a
low cry, and stood staring. She was a large
woman, strong, calm, a little masculine, her fea-
tures marked with courage and good sense; and

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 261

as John blinked back at her, a faint resemblance
dodged about his memory, as when a tune haunts
us, and yet will not be recalled.

" Why, it 's John ! " cried the nun.

" I dare say I 'm mad," said John, unconsciously
following King Lear ; " but, upon my word, I do
believe you 're Flora."

" Of course I am," replied she.

And yet it is not Flora at all, thought John;
Flora was slender, and timid, and of changing
colour, and dewy-eyed; and had Flora such an
Edinburgh accent? But he said none of these
things, which was perhaps as well. What he said
was, " Then why are you a nun ? "

" Such nonsense ! " said Flora. " I 'm a, sick-
nurse; and I am here nursing your sister, with
whom, between you and me, there is precious little
the matter. But that is not the question. The
point is: How do you come here? and are you
not ashamed to show yourself? "

" Flora," said John, sepulchrally, " I have n't
eaten anything for three days. Or, at least, I
don't know what day it is ; but I guess I 'm
starving."

" You unhappy man ! " she cried. " Here, sit
down and eat my supper ; and I '11 just run
up-stairs and see my patient, not but what I
doubt she 's fast asleep ; for Maria is a malade
imaginaire"

With this specimen of the French, not of Strat-
ford-atte-Bowe, but of a finishing establishment in
Moray Place, she left John alone in his father's

262 THE MISADVENTURES

sanctum. He fell at once upon the food; and it
is to be supposed that Flora had found her patient
wakeful, and been detained with some details of
nursing, for he had time to make a full end of
all there was to eat, and not only to empty the
teapot, but to fill it again from a kettle that was
fitfully singing on his father's fire. Then he sat
torpid, and pleased, and bewildered; his misfor-
tunes were then half forgotten; his mind con-
sidering, not without regret, this unsentimental
return to his old love.

He was thus engaged, when that bustling woman
noiselessly re-entered.

" Have you eaten ? " said she. " Then tell me
all about it."

It was a long and (as the reader knows) a piti-
ful story ; but Flora heard it with compressed lips.
She was lost in none of those questionings of
human destiny that have, from time to time, ar-
rested the flight of my own pen ; for women, such
as she, are no philosophers, and behold the concrete
only. And women, such as she, are very hard on
the imperfect man.

" Very well," said she, when he had done ; " then
down upon your knees at once, and beg God's
forgiveness."

And the great baby plumped upon his knees,
and did as he was bid; and none the worse for
that! But while he was heartily enough request-
ing forgiveness on general principles, the rational
side of him distinguished, and wondered if, per-
haps, the apology were not due upon the other

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 263

part. And when he rose again from that becom-
ing exercise, he first eyed the face of his old love
doubtfully, and then, taking heart, uttered his
protest.

" I must say, Flora," said he, " in all this busi-
ness, I can see very little fault of mine."

" If you had written home," replied the lady,
" there would have been none of it. If you had
even gone to Murrayfield reasonably sober, you
would never have slept there, and the worst would
not have happened. Besides, the whole thing be-
gan years ago. You got into trouble, and when
your father, honest man, was disappointed, you
took the pet, or got afraid, and ran away from
punishment. Well, you Ve had your own way of
it, John, and I don't suppose you like it."

" I sometimes fancy I 'm not much better than
a fool," sighed John.

" My dear John," said she, " not much! "

He looked at her, and his eye fell. A certain
anger rose within him; here was a Flora he dis-
owned; she was hard; she was of a set colour;
a settled, mature, undecorative manner; plain of
speech, plain of habit — he had come near saying,
plain of face. And this changeling called herself
by the same name as the many-coloured, clinging
maid of yore; she of the frequent laughter, and
the many sighs, and the kind, stolen glances. And
to make all worse, she took the upper hand with
him, which (as John well knew) was not the true
relation of the sexes. He steeled his heart against
this sick-nurse.

264 THE MISADVENTURES

" And how do you come to be here ? " he
asked.

She told him how she had nursed her father in
his long illness, and when he died, and she was
left alone, had taken to nurse others, partly from
habit, partly to be of some service in the world;
partly, it might be, for amusement. " There 's
no accounting for taste," said she. And she told
him how she went largely to the houses of old
friends, as the need arose; and how she was thus
doubly welcome, as an old friend first, and then
as an experienced nurse, to whom doctors would
confide the gravest cases.

" And, indeed, it 's a mere farce my being here
for poor Maria," she continued ; " but your father
takes her ailments to heart, and I cannot always
be refusing him. We are great friends, your
father and I; he was very kind to me long ago
— ten years ago."

A strange stir came in John's heart. All this
while had he been thinking only of himself? All
this while, why had he not written to Flora? In
penitential tenderness, he took her hand, and, to
his awe and trouble, it remained in his, com-
pliant. A voice told him this was Flora, after
all — told him so quietly, yet with a thrill of
singing.

" And you never married ? " said he.

" No, John ; I never married," she replied.

The hall clock striking two recalled them to the
sense of time.

" And now," said she, " you have been fed and

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 265

warmed, and I have heard your story, and now
it 's high time to call your brother."

" Oh ! " cried John, chap-fallen ; " do you think
that absolutely necessary?"

" / can't keep you here ; I am a stranger," said
she. " Do you want to run away again ? I thought
you had enough of that."

He bowed his head under the reproof. She
despised him, he reflected, as he sat once more
alone; a monstrous thing for a woman to despise
a man; and strangest of all, she seemed to like
him. Would his brother despise him, too? And
would his brother like him?

And presently the brother appeared, under
Flora's escort; and, standing afar off beside the
doorway, eyed the hero of this tale.

" So this is you ? " he said, at length.

" Yes, Alick, it 's me — it 's John," replied the
elder brother, feebly.

" And how did you get in here ? " inquired the
younger.

" Oh, I had my pass-key," says John.

" The deuce you had ! " said Alexander. " Ah,
you lived in a better world! There are no pass-
keys going now."

" Well, father was always averse to them,"
sighed John. And the conversation then broke
down, and the brothers looked askance at one
another in silence.

" Well, and what the devil are we to do ? " said
Alexander. " I suppose if the authorities got wind
of you, you would be taken up ? "

266 THE MISADVENTURES

" It depends on whether they 've found the body
or not," returned John. " And then there 's that
cabman, to be sure ! "

"Oh, bother the body!" said Alexander. "I
mean about the other thing. That 's serious."

"Is that what my father spoke about?" asked
John. " I don't even know what it is."

" About your robbing your bank in California,
of course," replied Alexander.

It was plain, from Flora's face, that this was
the first she had heard of it; it was plainer still,
from John's, that he was innocent.

" I ! " he exclaimed. " I rob my bank ! My
God! Flora, this is too much; even you must
allow that."

" Meaning you did n't? " asked Alexander.

" I never robbed a soul in all my days," cried
John : " except my father, if you call that robbery;
and I brought him back the money in this room,
and he would n't even take it ! "

" Look here, John," said his brother ; " let us
have no misunderstanding upon this. Macewen
saw my father ; he told him a bank you had worked
for in San Francisco was wiring over the habitable
globe to have you collared — that it was supposed
you had nailed thousands ; and it was dead certain
you had nailed three hundred. So Macewen said,
and I wish you would be careful how you answer.
I may tell you also, that your father paid the three
hundred on the spot."

" Three hundred ?" repeated John. "Three hun-
dred pounds, you mean ? That 's fifteen hundred

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 267

dollars. Why, then, it 's Kirkman ! " he broke
out. " Thank Heaven ! I can explain all that. I
gave them to Kirkman to pay for me the night
before I left — fifteen hundred dollars, and a
letter to the manager. What do they suppose I
would steal fifteen hundred dollars for? I 'm rich;
I struck it rich in stocks. It 's the silliest stuff I
ever heard of. All that 's needful is to cable to the
manager : Kirkman has the fifteen hundred — find
Kirkman. He was a fellow-clerk of mine, and a
hard case ; but to do him justice, I did n't think he
was as hard as this."

" And what do you say to that, Alick ? " asked
Flora.

" I say the cablegram shall go to-night ! " cried
Alexander, with energy. " Answer prepaid, too.
If this can be cleared away — and upon my word
I do believe it can — we shall all be able to hold up
our heads again. Here, you John, you stick down
the address of your bank manager. You, Flora,
you can pack John into my bed, for which I have
no further use to-night. As for me, I am off to
the post-office, and thence to the High Street about
the dead body. The police ought to know, you
see, and they ought to know through John; and
I can tell them some rigmarole about my brother
being a man of highly nervous organisation, and
the rest of it. And then, I '11 tell you what, John
— did you notice the name upon the cab ? "

John gave the name of the driver, which, as I
have not been able to command the vehicle, I here
suppress.

268 THE MISADVENTURES

"Well," resumed Alexander, "I'll call round
at their place before I come back, and pay your
shot for you. In that way, before breakfast-time,
you '11 be as good as new."

John murmured inarticulate thanks. To see his
brother thus energetic in his service moved him
beyond expression; if he could not utter what he
felt, he showed it legibly in his face ; and Alexander
read it there, and liked it the better in that dumb
delivery.

" But there 's one thing," said the latter, " cable-
grams are dear; and I dare say you remember
enough of the governor to guess the state of my
finances."

" The trouble is," said John, " that all my stamps
are in that beastly house."

" All your what ? " asked Alexander.

" Stamps — money," explained John. " It *s an
American expression ; I 'm afraid I contracted one
or two."

" I have some," said Flora. " I have a pound
note up-stairs."

" My dear Flora," returned Alexander, " a pound
note won't see us very far; and besides, this is
my father's business, and I shall be very much sur-
prised if it is n't my father who pays for it."

" I would not apply to him yet ; I do not think
that can be wise," objected Flora.

" You have a very imperfect idea of my re-
sources, and none at all of my effrontery," replied
Alexander. " Please observe."

He put John from his way, chose a stout knife

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 269

among the supper things, and with surprising quick-
ness broke into his father's drawer.

" There 's nothing easier when you come to try,"
he observed, pocketing the money.

" I wish you had not done that," said Flora.
u You will never hear the last of it."

" Oh, I don't know," returned the young man ;
" the governor is human after all. And now, John,
let me see your famous pass-key. Get into bed, and
don't move for any one till I come back. They
won't mind you not answering when they knock;
I generally don't myself."

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH MR. NICHOLSON ACCEPTS THE
PRINCIPLE OF AN ALLOWANCE

IN spite of the horrors of the day and the tea-
drinking of the night, John slept the sleep
of infancy. He was awakened by the maid,
as it might have been ten years ago, tapping at the
door. The winter sunrise was painting the east;
and as the window was to the back of the house,
it shone into the room with many strange colours
of refracted light. Without, the houses were all
cleanly roofed with snow; the garden walls were
coped with it a foot in height ; the greens lay glit-
tering. Yet strange as snow had grown to John
during his years upon the Bay of San Francisco,
it was what he saw within that most affected him.
For it was to his own room that Alexander had
been promoted; there was the old paper with the
device of flowers, in which a cunning fancy might
yet detect the face of Skinny Jim, of the Academy,
John's former dominie ; there was the old chest
of drawers; there were the chairs — one, two,
three — three as before. Only the carpet was new,
and the litter of Alexander's clothes and books and
drawing materials, and a pencil-drawing on the

JOHN NICHOLSON 271

wall, which (in John's eyes) appeared a marvel of
proficiency.

He was thus lying, and looking, and dreaming,
hanging, as it were, between two epochs of his life,
when Alexander came to the door, and made his
presence- known in a loud whisper. John let him
in, and jumped back into the warm bed.

" Well, John," said Alexander, " the cablegram
is sent in your name, and twenty words of answer
paid. I have been to the cab office and paid your
cab, even saw the old gentleman himself, and prop-
erly apologised. He was mighty placable, and in-
dicated his belief you had been drinking. Then I
knocked up old Macewen out of bed, and explained
affairs to him as he sat and shivered in a dressing-
gown. And before that I had been to the High
Street, where they have heard nothing of your
dead body, so that I inclined to the idea that you
dreamed it."

" Catch me! " said John.

" Well, the police never do know anything,"
assented Alexander ; " and at any rate, they have
despatched a man to inquire and to recover your
trousers and your money, so that really your bill
is now fairly clean ; and I see but one lion in your
path — the governor."

" I '11 be turned out again, you '11 see," said John,
dismally.

" I don't imagine so," returned the other; "not
if you do what Flora and I have arranged; and
your business now is to dress, and lose no time
about it. Is your watch right ? Well, you have a

272 THE MISADVENTURES

quarter of an hour. By five minutes before the
half hour you must be at table, in your old seat,
under Uncle Duthie's picture. Flora will be there
to keep you countenance; and we shall see what
we shall see."

" Would n't it be wiser for me to stay in bed ? "
said John.

"If you mean to manage your own concerns,
you can do precisely what you like," replied Alex-
ander ; " but if you are not in your place five
minutes before the half hour I wash my hands of
you, for one."

And thereupon he departed. He had spoken
warmly, but the truth is, his heart was somewhat
troubled. And as he hung over the balusters,
watching for his father to appear, he had hard ado
to keep himself braced for the encounter that must
follow.

" If he takes it well, I shall be lucky," he re-
flected. " If he takes it ill, why, it '11 be a herring
across John's tracks, and perhaps all for the best.
He 's a confounded muff, this brother of mine, but
he seems a decent soul."

At that stage a door opened below with a certain
emphasis, and Mr. Nicholson was seen solemnly
to descend the stairs, and pass into his own apart-
ment. Alexander followed, quaking inwardly, but
with a steady face. He knocked, was bidden to
enter, and found his father standing in front of the
forced drawer, to which he pointed as he spoke.

" This is a most extraordinary thing," said he ;
" I have been robbed ! "

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 273

" I was afraid you would notice it," observed his
son ; " it made such a beastly hash of the table."

" You were afraid I would notice it ? " repeated
Mr. Nicholson. "And, pray, what may that
mean ? "

" That I was a thief, sir," returned Alexander.
" I took all the money in case the servants should
get hold of it; and here is the change, and a note
of my expenditure. You were gone to bed, you
see, and I did not feel at liberty to knock you up;
but I think when you have heard the circumstances,
you will do me justice. The fact is, I have reason
to believe there has been ' some dreadful error
about my brother John; the sooner it can be
cleared up the better for all parties ; it was a piece
of business, sir — and so I took it, and decided,
on my own responsibility, to send a telegram to
San Francisco. Thanks to my quickness we may
hear to-night. There appears to be no doubt, sir,
that John has been abominably used."

" When did this take place? " asked the father.

" Last night, sir, after you were asleep," was the
reply.

" It 's most extraordinary," said Mr. Nicholson.
" Do you mean to say you have been out all
night?"

" All night, as you say, sir. I have been to the
telegraph and the police office, and Mr. Macewen's.
Oh, I had my hands full," said Alexander.

" Very irregular," said the father. " You think
of no one but yourself."

" I do not see that I have much to gain in bring-
18

274 THE MISADVENTURES

ing back my elder brother," returned Alexander,
shrewdly.

The answer pleased the old man; he smiled.
" Well, well, I will go into this after breakfast,"
said he.

" I 'm sorry about the table," said the son.

" The table is a small matter ; I think nothing
of that," said the father.

" It 's another example," continued the son, " of
the awkwardness of a man having no money of
his own. If I had a proper allowance, like other
fellows of my age, this would have been quite
unnecessary."

" A proper allowance ! " repeated his father, in
tones of blighting sarcasm, for the expression was
not new to him. " I have never grudged you
money for any proper purpose."

" No doubt, no doubt," said Alexander, " but
then you see you ar'n't always on the spot to
have the thing explained to you. Last night for
instance "

" You could have wakened me last night," in-
terrupted his father.

" Was it not some similar affair that first got
John into a mess ? " asked the son, skilfully evading
the point.

But the father was not less adroit. " And pray,
sir, how did you come and go out of the house? "
he asked.

" I forgot to lock the door, it seems," replied
Alexander.

" I have had cause to complain of that too often,"

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 275

said Mr. Nicholson. " But still I do not under-
stand. Did you keep the servants up ? "

" I propose to go into all that at length after
breakfast," returned Alexander. " There is the
half hour going; we must not keep Miss Mackenzie
waiting."

And greatly daring, he opened the door.

Even Alexander, who, it must have been per-
ceived, was on terms of comparative freedom with
his parents; even Alexander had never before
dared to cut short an interview in this high-handed
fashion. But the truth is the very mass of his
son's delinquencies daunted the old gentleman. He
was like the man with the cart of apples — this was
beyond him! That Alexander should have spoiled
his table, taken his money, stayed out all night,
and then coolly acknowledged all, was something
undreamed of in the Nicholsonian philosophy, and
transcended comment. The return of the change,
which the old gentleman still carried in his hand,
had been a feature of imposing impudence ; it had
dealt him a staggering blow. Then there was
the reference to John's original flight — a subject
which he always kept resolutely curtained in his
own mind; for he was a man who loved to have
made no mistakes, and when he feared he might
have made one kept the papers sealed. In view
of all these surprises and reminders, and of his
son's composed and masterful demeanour, there
began to creep on Mr. Nicholson a sickly misgiv-
ing. He seemed beyond his depth; if he did or
said anything, he might come to regret it. The

276 THE MISADVENTURES

young man, besides, as he had pointed out himself,
was playing a generous part. And if wrong had
been done — and done to one who was, after, and
in spite of, all, a Nicholson — it should certainly
be righted.

All things considered, monstrous as it was to
be cut short in his inquiries, the old gentleman
submitted, pocketed the change, and followed his
son into the dining-room. During these few steps
he once more mentally revolted, and once more,
and this time finally, laid down his arms: a still,
small voice in his bosom having informed him
authentically of a piece of news ; that he was afraid
of Alexander. The strange thing was that he was
pleased to be afraid of him. He was proud of
his son; he might be proud of him; the boy
had character and grit, and knew what he was
doing.

These were his reflections as he turned the
corner of the dining-room door. Miss Mackenzie
was in the place of honour, conjuring with a tea-
pot and a cozy; and, behold! there was another
person present, a large, portly, whiskered man of
a very comfortable and respectable air, who now
rose from his seat and came forward, holding out
his hand.

" Good-morning, father," said he.

Of the contention of feeling that ran high in Mr.
Nicholson's starched bosom, no outward sign was
visible; nor did he delay long to make a choice
of conduct. Yet in that interval he had reviewed
a great field of possibilities both past and future;

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 277

whether it was possible he had not been perfectly-
wise in his treatment of John; whether it was
possible that John was innocent; whether, if he
turned John out a second time, as his outraged
authority suggested, it was possible to avoid a
scandal; and whether, if he went to that ex-
tremity, it was possible that Alexander might
rebel.

" Hum ! " said Mr. Nicholson, and put his hand,
limp and dead, into John's.

And then, in an embarrassed silence, all took
their places ; and even the paper — from which it
was the old gentleman's habit to suck mortifica-
tion daily, as he marked the decline of our in-
stitutions— even the paper lay furled by his
side.

But presently Flora came to the rescue. She
slid into the silence with a technicality, asking if
John still took his old inordinate amount of sugar.
Thence it was but a step to the burning question
of the day; and in tones a little shaken, she com-
mented on the interval since she had last made tea
for the prodigal, and congratulated him on his
return. And then addressing Mr. Nicholson, she
congratulated him also in a manner that defied his
ill-humour; and from that launched into the tale
of John's misadventures, not without some suitable
suppressions.

Gradually Alexander joined; between them,
whether he would or no, they forced a word or
two from John ; and these fell so tremulously, and
spoke so eloquently of a mind oppressed with

278 THE MISADVENTURES

dread, that Mr. Nicholson relented. At length
even he contributed a question: and before the
meal was at an end all four were talking even
freely.

Prayers followed, with the servants gaping at
this new-comer whom no one had admitted; and
after prayers there came that moment on the clock
which was the signal for Mr. Nicholson's departure.

" John," said he, " of course you will stay here.
Be very careful not to excite Maria, if Miss Mac-
kenzie thinks it desirable that you should see her.
Alexander, I wish to speak with you alone." And
then, when they were both in the back room : " You
need not come to the office to-day," said he; " you
can stay and amuse your brother, and I think it
would be respectful to call on Uncle Greig. And
by the bye " (this spoken with a certain — dare
we say? — bashfulness), "I agree to concede the
principle of an allowance ; and I will consult with
Dr. Durie, who is quite a man of the world and
has sons of his own, as to the amount. And, my
fine fellow, you may consider yourself in luck ! "
he added, with a smile.

" Thank you," said Alexander.

Before noon a detective had restored to John
his money, and brought news, sad enough in truth,
but perhaps the least sad possible. Alan had been
found in his own house in Regent's Terrace, under
care of the terrified butler. He was quite mad,
and instead of going to prison, had gone to Morn-
ingside Asylum. The murdered man, it appeared,

OF JOHN NICHOLSON 279

was an evicted tenant who had for nearly a year
pursued his late landlord with threats and insults;
and beyond this, the cause and details of the tragedy
were lost.

When Mr. Nicholson returned from dinner they
were able to put a despatch into his hands : " John
V. Nicholson, Randolph Crescent, Edinburgh. —
Kirkham has disappeared ; police looking for him.
All understood. Keep mind quite easy. — Austin."
Having had this explained to him, the old gentle-
man took down the cellar key and departed for two
bottles of the 1820 port. Uncle Greig dined there
that day, and Cousin Robina, and, by an odd
chance, Mr. Macewen; and the presence of these
strangers relieved what might have been otherwise
a somewhat strained relation. Ere they departed,
the family was welded once more into a fair sem-
blance of unity.

In the end of April John led Flora — or, as
more descriptive, Flora led John — to the altar,
if altar that may be called which was indeed the
drawing-room mantel-piece in Mr. Nicholson's
house, with the Reverend Dr. Durie posted on the
hearth-rug in the guise of Hymen's priest.

The last I saw of them, on a recent visit to the
north, was at a dinner-party in the house of my
old friend Gellatly Macbride; and after we had,
in classic phrase, " rejoined the ladies," I had an
opportunity to overhear Flora conversing with
another married woman on the much canvassed
matter of a husband's tobacco.

" Oh, yes! " said she; " I only allow Mr. Nichol-

280 JOHN NICHOLSON

son four cigars a day. Three he smokes at fixed
times — after a meal, you know, my dear; and
the fourth he can take when he likes with any
friend."

" Bravo ! " thought I to myself ; " this is the wife
for my friend John ! "

THE STORY OF A LIE

THE STORY OF A LIE

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCES THE ADMIRAL

WHEN Dick Naseby was in Paris he
made some odd acquaintances, for he
was one of those who have ears to
hear, and can use their eyes no less than their
intelligence. He made as many thoughts as Stuart
Mill ; but his philosophy concerned flesh and blood,
and was experimental as to its method. He was
a type-hunter among mankind. ^He despised small
game and insignificant personalities, whether in
the shape of dukes or bagmen, letting them go by
like seaweed; but show him a refined or powerful
face, let him hear a plangent or a penetrating voice,
fish for him with a living look in some one's eye,
a passionate gesture, a meaning or ambiguous
smile, and his mind was instantaneously awakened.
" There was a man, there was a woman," he seemed
to say, and he stood up to the task of compre-
hension with the delight of an artist in his art.

And indeed, rightly considered, this interest of
his was an artistic interest. There is no science
in the personal study of human nature. All com-
prehension is creation; the woman I love is some-

284 THE STORY OF A LIE

what of my handiwork; and the great lover, like
the great painter, is he that can so embellish his
subject as to make her more than human, whilst
yet by a cunning art he has so based his apotheosis
on the nature of the case that the woman can go
on being a true woman, and give her character free
play, and show littleness or cherish spite, or be
greedy of common pleasures, and he continue to
worship without a thought of incongruity. To
love a character is only the heroic way of under-
standing it. When we love, by some noble method
of our own or some nobility of mien or nature in
the other, we apprehend the loved one by what is
noblest in ourselves. When we are merely study-
ing an eccentricity, the method of our study is
but a series of allowances. To begin to under-
stand is to begin to sympathise; for comprehen-
sion comes only when we have stated another's
faults and virtues in terms of our owrQ Hence
the proverbial toleration of artists for their own
evil creations. Hence, too, it came about that
Dick Naseby, a high-minded creature, and as
scrupulous and brave a gentleman as you would
want to meet, held in a sort of affection the
various human creeping things whom he had met
and studied.

One of these was Mr. Peter Van Tromp, an
English-speaking, two-legged animal of the inter-
national genus, and by profession of general and
more than equivocal utility. Years before he had
been a painter of some standing in a colony, and
portraits signed " Van Tromp " had celebrated the

THE STORY OF A LIE 285

greatness of colonial governors and judges. In
those days he had been married, and driven his
wife and infant daughter in a pony trap. What
were the steps of his declension? No one ex-
actly knew. Here he was at least, and had been,
any time these past ten years, a sort of dismal para-
site upon the foreigner in Paris.

It would be hazardous to specify his exact in-
dustry. Coarsely followed, it would have merited
a name grown somewhat unfamiliar to our ears.
Followed as he followed it, with a skilful reticence,
in a kind of social chiaroscuro, it was still possible
for the polite to call him a professional painter.
His lair was in the Grand Hotel and the gaudi-
est cafes. There he might be seen jotting off a
sketch with an air of some inspiration; and he
was always affable, and one of the easiest of men
to fall in talk withal. A conversation usually
ripened into a peculiar sort of intimacy, and it
was extraordinary how many little services Van
Tromp contrived to render in the course of six-
and-thirty hours. He occupied a position between
a friend and a courier, which made him worse than
embarrassing to repay. But those whom he
obliged could always buy one of his villainous
little pictures, or, where the favours had been
prolonged and more than usually delicate, might
order and pay for a large canvas, with perfect
certainty that they would hear no more of the
transaction.

Among resident artists he enjoyed the celebrity
of a non-professional sort. He had spent more

286 THE STORY OF A LIE

money — no less than three individual fortunes,
it was whispered — than any of his associates
could ever hope to gain. Apart from his colonial
career, he had been to Greece in a brigantine with
four brass carronades; he had travelled Europe
in a chaise-and-four, drawing bridle at the palace
doors of German princes; queens of song and
dance had followed him like sheep and paid his
tailor's bills. And to behold him now, seeking
small loans with plaintive condescension, spong-
ing for breakfast on an art student of nineteen,
a fallen Don Juan who had neglected to die at
the propitious hour, had a colour of romance for
young imaginations. His name and his bright
past, seen through the prism of whispered gossip,
had gained him the nickname of The Admiral.

Dick found him one day at the receipt of custom,
rapidly painting a pair of hens and a cock in a
little water-colour sketching-box, and now and
then glancing at the ceiling like a man who should
seek inspiration from the muse. Dick thought it
remarkable that a painter should choose to work
over an absinthe in a public cafe, and looked the
man over. The aged rakishness of his appearance
was set off by a youthful costume; he had dis-
reputable grey hair and a disreputable, sore, red
nose; but the coat and the gesture, the outworks
of the man, were still designed for show. Dick
came up to his table and inquired if he might look
at what the gentleman was doing. No one was
so delighted as the Admiral.

" A bit of a thing," said he. " I just dash them

THE STORY OF A LIE 287

off like that. I — I dash them off," he added, with
a gesture.

" Quite so," said Dick, who was appalled by the
feebleness of the production.

" Understand me," continued Van Tromp, " I
am a man of the world. And yet — once an artist
always an artist. All of a sudden a thought takes
me in the street ; I become its prey ; it 's like a
pretty woman ; no use to struggle ; I must — dash
it off."

* I see," said Dick.

" Yes," pursued the painter ; " it all comes
easily, easily to me ; it is not my business ; it 's a
pleasure. Life is my business — life — this great
city, Paris — Paris after dark — its lights, its
gardens, its odd corners. Aha ! " he cried, " to
be young again! The heart is young, but the
heels are leaden. A poor, mean business, to grow
old ! Nothing remains but the coup d'ceil, the con-
templative man's enjoyment, Mr. ," and he

paused for the name.

" Naseby," returned Dick.

The other treated him at once to an exciting
beverage, and expatiated on the pleasure of meet-
ing a compatriot in a foreign land; to hear him
you would have thought they had encountered in
Central Africa. Dick had never found any one
take a fancy to him so readily, nor show it in an
easier or less offensive manner. He seemed tickled
with him as an elderly fellow about town might
be tickled by a pleasant and witty lad; he indi-
cated that he was no precisian, but in his wildest

288 THE STORY OF A LIE

times had never been such a blade as he thought
Dick. Dick protested, but in vain. This manner
of carrying an intimacy at the bayonet's point was
Van Tromp's stock-in-trade. With an older man
he insinuated himself ; with youth he imposed him-
self, and in the same breath imposed an ideal on
his victim, who saw that he must work up to it
or lose the esteem of this old and vicious patron.
And what young man can bear to lose a character
for vice ?

At last, as it grew towards dinner-time, " Do
you know Paris ? " asked Van Tromp.

" Not so well as you, I am convinced," said Dick.

"And so am I," returned Van Tromp gaily.

" Paris ! My young friend — you will allow
me? — when you know Paris as I do, you will
have seen Strange Things. I say no more; all
I say is, Strange Things. We are men of the
world, you and I, and in Paris, in the heart of
civilised existence. This is an opportunity, Mr.
Naseby. Let us dine. Let me show you where
to dine.,,

Dick consented. On the way to dinner the
Admiral showed him where to buy gloves, and
made him buy them; where to buy cigars, and
made him buy a vast store, some of which he
obligingly accepted. At the restaurant he showed
him what to order, with surprising consequences
in the bill. What he made that night by his per-
centages it would be hard to estimate. And all
the while Dick smilingly consented, understanding
well that he was being done, but taking his losses

THE STORY OF A LIE 289

in the pursuit of character, as a hunter sacrifices
his dogs. As for the Strange Things, the reader
will be relieved to hear that they were no stranger
than might have been expected, and he may find
things quite as strange without the expense of a
Van Tromp for guide. Yet he was a guide of
no mean order, who made up for the poverty of
what he had to show by a copious, imaginative
commentary.

" And such," said he with a hiccup, " such is
Paris."

" Pooh ! " said Dick, who was tired of the
performance.

The Admiral hung an ear, and looked up side-
long with a glimmer of suspicion.

" Good-night," said Dick; " I 'm tired."

" So English ! " cried Van Tromp, clutching
him by the hand. " So English ! So blase! Such
a charming companion! Let me see you home."

" Look here," returned Dick, " I have said good-
night, and now I 'm going. You 're an amusing
old boy ; I like you, in a sense ; but here 's an end
of it for to-night. Not another cigar, not another
grog, not another percentage out of me."

" I beg your pardon ! " cried the Admiral with
dignity.

" Tut, man ! " said Dick ; " you 're not offended ;
you 're a man of the world, I thought. I 've been
studying you, and it 's over. Have I not paid for
the lesson? Au revoir."

Van Tromp laughed gaily, shook hands up to
the elbows, hoped cordially they would meet again

*9

290 THE STORY OF A LIE

and that often, but looked after Dick as he de-
parted with a tremor of indignation. After that
they two not unfrequently fell in each other's way,
and Dick would often treat the old boy to break-
fast on a moderate scale and in a restaurant of
his own selection. Often, too, he would lend Van
Tromp the matter of a pound, in view of that
gentleman's contemplated departure for Australia;
there would be a scene of farewell almost touching
in character, and a week or a month later they
would meet on the same boulevard without sur-
prise or embarrassment. And in the meantime
Dick learned more about his acquaintance on all
sides; heard of his yacht, his chaise-and-four, his
brief season of celebrity amid a more confiding
population, his daughter, of whom he loved to
whimper in his cups, his sponging, parasitical,
nameless way of life; and with each new detail
something that was not merely interest nor yet
altogether affection grew up in his mind towards
this disreputable stepson of the arts. Ere he left
Paris Van Tromp was one of those whom he
entertained to a farewell supper ; and the old gen-
tleman made the speech of the evening, and then
fell below the table, weeping, smiling, paralysed.

CHAPTER II

A LETTER TO THE PAPERS

OLD Mr. Naseby had the sturdy, untutored
nature of the upper middle class. The
universe seemed plain to him. " The
thing's right," he would say, or "the thing's
wrong " ; and there was an end of it. There was
a contained, prophetic energy in his utterances,
even on the slightest affairs; he saw the damned
thing; if you did not, it must be from perversity
of will; and this sent the blood to his head.
Apart from this, which made him an exacting
companion, he was one of the most upright, hot-
tempered old gentlemen in England. Florid, with
white hair, the face of an old Jupiter, and the
figure of an old fox-hunter, he enlivened the Vale
of Thyme from end to end on his big, cantering
chestnut.

He had a hearty respect for Dick as a lad of
parts. Dick had a respect for his father as the
best of men, tempered by the politic revolt of a
youth who has to see to his own independence.
Whenever the pair argued, they came to an open
rupture; and arguments were frequent, for they
were both positive, and both loved the work of the
intelligence. It was a treat to hear Mr. Naseby

a92 THE STORY OF A LIE

defending the Church of England in a volley of
oaths, or supporting ascetic morals with an en-
thusiasm not entirely innocent of port wine. Dick
used to wax indignant, and none the less so be-
cause, as his father was a skilful disputant, he
found himself not seldom in the wrong. On these
occasions he would redouble in energy, and declare
that black was white, and blue yellow, with much
conviction and heat of manner; but in the morn-
ing such a licence of debate weighed upon him like
a crime, and he would seek out his father, where
he walked before breakfast on a terrace overlook-
ing all the Vale of Thyme.

" I have to apologise, sir, for last night "

he would begin,

" Of course you have," the old gentleman would
cut in cheerfully. " You spoke like a fool. Say
no more about it."

" You do not understand me, sir. I refer to a
particular point. I confess there is much force in
your argument from the doctrine of possibilities."

" Of course there is," returned his father.
" Come down and look at the stables. Only," he
would add, " bear this in mind, and do remember
that a man of my age and experience knows more
about what he is saying than a raw boy."

He would utter the word " boy " even more
offensively than the average of fathers, and the
light way in which he accepted these apologies
cut Dick to the heart. The latter drew slighting
comparisons, and remembered that he was the
only one who ever apologised. This gave him

THE STORY OF A LIE 293

a high station in his own esteem, and thus con-
tributed indirectly to his better behaviour; for
he was scrupulous as well as high-spirited, and
prided himself on nothing more than on a just
submission.

So things went on until the famous occasion
when Mr. Naseby, becoming engrossed in securing
the election of a sound party candidate to Parlia-
ment, wrote a flaming letter to the papers. The
letter had about every demerit of party letters in
general: it was expressed with the energy of a
believer; it was personal; it was a little more
than half unfair, and about a quarter untrue. The
old man did not mean to say what was untrue,
you may be sure; but he had rashly picked up
gossip, as his prejudice suggested, and now rashly
launched it on the public with the sanction of his
name.

" The Liberal candidate," he concluded, " is
thus a public turncoat. Is that the sort of man
we want? He has been given the lie, and has
swallowed the insult. Is that the sort of man we
want? I answer, No! with all the force of my
conviction, I answer, No!"

And then he signed and dated the letter with an
amateur's pride, and looked to be famous by the
morrow.

Dick, who had heard nothing of the matter, was
up first on that inauspicious day, and took the
journal to an arbour in the garden. He found his
father's manifesto in one column; and in another
a leading article. " No one that we are aware of,"

<294 THE STORY OF A LIE

ran the arcticle, " had consulted Mr. Naseby on the
subject, but if he had been appealed to by the whole
body of electors, his letter would be none the less
ungenerous and unjust to Mr. Dal ton. We do
not choose to give the lie to Mr. Naseby, for we
are too well aware of the consequences, but we
shall venture instead to print the facts of both
cases referred to by this red-hot partisan in another
portion of our issue. Mr. Naseby is of course a
large proprietor in our neighbourhood : but fidelity
to facts, decent feeling, and English grammar, are
all of them qualities more important than the pos-
session of land. Mr. N is doubtless a great

man; in his large gardens and that half-mile of
greenhouses, where he has probably ripened his
intellect and temper, he may say what he will to his
hired vassals, but (as the Scots say) —

here
He maunna think to domineer.

Liberalism/' continued the anonymous journalist,
" is of too free and sound a growth," etc.

Richard Naseby read the whole thing from be-
ginning to end; and a crushing shame fell upon
his spirit. His father had played the fool ; he had
gone out noisily to war, and come back with con-
fusion. The moment that his trumpets sounded,
he had been disgracefully unhorsed. There was
no question as to the facts; they were one and
all against the Squire. Richard would have given
his ears to have suppressed the issue; but as that
could not be done, he had his horse saddled, and,

THE STORY OF A LIE 295

furnishing himself with a convenient staff, rode off
at once to Thymebury.

The editor was at breakfast in a large, sad
apartment. The absence of furniture, the extreme
meanness of the meal, and the haggard, bright-
eyed, consumptive look of the culprit, unmanned
our hero; but he clung to his stick and was stout
and warlike.

"You wrote the article in this morning's
paper ? " he demanded.

" You are young Mr. Naseby? I published it,"
replied the editor, rising.

" My father is an old man," said Richard ; and
then with an outburst, " And a damned sight finer
fellow than either you or Dalton ! " He stopped
and swallowed ; he was determined that all should
go with regularity. " I have but one question to
put to you, sir," he resumed. " Granted that my
father was misinformed, would it not have been
more decent to withhold the letter and communicate
with him in private ? "

" Believe me," returned the editor, " that alter-
native was not open to me. Mr. Naseby told me in
a note that he had sent his letter to three other
journals, and in fact threatened me with what he
called exposure if I kept it back from mine, I am
really concerned at what has happened; I sym-
pathise and approve of your emotion, young gen-
tleman; but the attack on Mr. Dalton was gross,
very gross, and I had no choice but to offer him
my columns to reply. Party has its duties, sir,"
added the scribe, kindling as one who should

<l96 THE STORY OF A LIE

propose a sentiment ; " and the attack was
gross."

Richard stood for half a minute digesting the
answer; and then the god of fair play came up-
permost in his heart, and, murmuring " Good-
morning," he made his escape into the street.

His horse was not hurried on the way home,
and he was late for breakfast. The Squire was
standing with his back to the fire in a state bor-
dering on apoplexy, his fingers violently knitted
under his coat-tails. As Richard came in, he
opened and shut his mouth like a codfish, and his
eyes protruded.

" You have seen that, sir ? " he cried, nodding
towards the paper.

" Yes, sir," said Richard.

" Oh, you Ve read it, have you ? "

" Yes ; I have read it," replied Richard, looking
at his foot.

" Well," demanded the old gentleman, " and
what have you to say to it, sir ? "

" You seem to have been misinformed," said
Dick.

" Well ? What then ? Is your mind so sterile,
sir? Have you not a word of comment? no
proposal ? "

" I fear, sir, you must apologise to Mr. Dalton.
It would be more handsome, indeed, it would be
only just, and a free acknowledgment would go
far " Richard paused, no language appear-
ing delicate enough to suit the case.

" That is a suggestion which should have come

THE STORY OF A LIE 297

from me, sir," roared the father. " It is out of
place upon your lips. It is not the thought of a
loyal son. Why, sir, if my father had been plunged
in such deplorable circumstances, I should have
thrashed the editor of that vile sheet within an inch
of his life. I should have thrashed the man, sir.
It would have been the action of an ass; but it
would have shown that I had the blood and the
natural affections of a man. Son? You are no
son, no son of mine, sir ! "

"Sir!" said Dick.

" I '11 tell you what you are, sir," pursued the
Squire. " You 're a Benthamite. I disown you.
Your mother would have died for shame; there
was no modern cant about your mother; she
thought — she said to me, sir — I 'm glad she 's
in her grave, Dick Naseby. Misinformed! Mis-
informed, sir? Have you no loyalty, no spring,
no natural affections? Are you clockwork, hey?
Away ! This is no place for you. Away ! "
(waving his hands in the air) " Go away! Leave
me!"

At this moment Dick beat a retreat in a disarray
of nerves, a whistling and clamour of his own
arteries, and in short in such a final bodily disorder
as made him alike incapable of speech or hearing.
And in the midst of all this turmoil, a sense
of unpardonable injustice remained graven in his
memory.

CHAPTER III

IN THE ADMIRAL'S NAME

THERE was no return to the subject.
Dick and his father were henceforth on
terms of coldness. The upright old gen-
tleman grew more upright when he met his son,
buckramed with immortal anger; he asked after
Dick's health, and discussed the weather and the
crops with an appalling courtesy ; his pronunciation
was point-device, his voice was distant, distinct,
and sometimes almost trembling with suppressed
indignation.

As for Dick, it seemed to him as if his life
had come abruptly to an end. He came out of
his theories and clevernesses ; his premature man-
of-the-worldness, on which he had prided himself
on his travels, " shrank like a thing ashamed "
before this real sorrow. Pride, wounded honour,
pity, and respect tussled together daily in his heart ;
and now he was within an ace of throwing him-
self upon his father's mercy, and now of slipping
forth at night and coming back no more to Naseby
House. He suffered from the sight of his father,
nay, even from the neighbourhood of this familiar
valley, where every corner had its legend, and
he was besieged with memories of childhood. If

THE STORY OF A LIE 299

he fled into a new land, and among none but
strangers, he might escape his destiny, who knew ?
and begin again light-heartedly. From that chief
peak of the hills, that now and then, like an up-
lifted finger, shone in an arrow of sunlight through
the broken clouds, the shepherd in clear weather
might perceive the shining of the sea. There, he
thought, was hope. But his heart failed him when
he saw the Squire; and he remained. His fate
was not that of the voyager by sea and land; he
was to travel in the spirit, and begin his journey
sooner than he supposed.

For it chanced one day that his walk led him
into a portion of the uplands which was almost
unknown to him. Scrambling through some rough
woods, he came out upon a moorland reaching
towards the hills. A few lofty Scots firs grew
hard by upon a knoll; a clear fountain near the
foot of the knoll sent up a miniature streamlet
which meandered in the heather. A shower had
just skimmed by, but now the sun shone brightly,
and the air smelt of the pines and the grass. On
a stone under the trees sat a young lady sketching.
We have learned to think of women in a sort of
symbolic transfiguration, based on clothes; and
one of the readiest ways in which we conceive our
mistress is as a composite thing, principally petti-
coats. But humanity has triumphed over clothes;
the look, the touch of a dress has become alive;
and the woman who stitched herself into these
material integuments has now permeated right
through and gone out to the tip of her skirt. It

300 THE STORY OF A LIE

was only a black dress that caught Dick Naseby's
eye; but it took possession of his mind, and all
other thoughts departed. He drew near and the
girl turned around. Her face startled him ; it was
a face he wanted; and he took it in at once like
breathing air.

" I beg your pardon," he said, taking off his
hat, " you are sketching."

" Oh ! " she exclaimed, " for my own amuse-
ment. I despise the thing."

" Ten to one you do yourself injustice," re-
turned Dick. " Besides, it 's a freemasonry. I
sketch myself, and you know what that implies."

"No. What?" she asked.

" Two things," he answered. " First, that I am
no very difficult critic; and second, that I have a
right to see your picture."

She covered the block with both her hands.
" Oh no," she said ; "lam ashamed."

" Indeed, I might give you a hint," said Dick.
" Although no artist myself, I have known many ;
in Paris I had many for friends, and used to prowl
among studios."

" In Paris ? " she cried, with a leap of light into
her eyes. " Did you ever meet Mr. Van Tromp? "

" I ? Yes. Why, you are not the Admiral's
daughter, are you ? "

"The Admiral? Do they call him that?" she
cried. " Oh, how nice, how nice of them ! It is
the younger men who call him so, is it not ? "

" Yes," said Dick, somewhat heavily.

" You can understand now," she said, with an

THE STORY OF A LIE 301

unspeakable accent of contented and noble-minded
pride, " why it is I do not choose to show my
sketch. Van Tromp's daughter! The Admiral's
daughter ! I delight in that name. The Admiral !
And so you know my father ? "

" Well/' said Dick, " I met him often ; we were
even intimate. He may have mentioned my name
— Naseby."

" He writes so little. He is so busy, so devoted
to his art! I have had a half wish," she added,
laughing, "that my father was a plainer man,
whom I could help — to whom I could be a credit ;
but only sometimes, you know, and with only half
my heart. For a great painter! You have seen
his works ? "

" I have seen some of them," returned Dick ;
" they — they are very nice."

She laughed aloud. "Nice?" she repeated.
" I see you don't care much for art."

" Not much," he admitted ; " but I know that
many people are glad to buy Mr. Van Tromp's
pictures."

" Call him the Admiral ! " she cried. " It sounds
kindly and familiar; and I like to think that
he is appreciated and looked up to by young
painters. He has not always been appreciated;
he had a cruel life for many years; and when
I think " — there were tears in her eyes — " when
I think of that, I feel inclined to be a fool,"
she broke off. " And now I shall go home. You
have filled me full of happiness; for think, Mr.
Naseby, I have not seen my father since I was

302 THE STORY OF A LIE

six years old; and yet he is in my thoughts all
day! You must come and call on me; my
aunt will be delighted, I am sure; and then you
will tell me all — all about my father, will you
not?"

Dick helped her to get her sketching traps to-
gether ; and when all was ready she gave Dick her
hand and a frank return of pressure.

" You are my father's friend/' she said ; " we
shall be great friends too. You must come and see
me soon.,,

Then she was gone down the hillside at a run;
and Dick stood by himself in a state of some bewil-
derment and even distress. There were elements
of laughter in the business; but the black dress,
and the face that belonged to it, and the hand that
he had held in his, inclined him to a serious view.
What was he, under the circumstances, called upon
to do? Perhaps to avoid the girl ? Well, he would
think about that. Perhaps to break the truth to
her? Why, ten to one, such was her infatuation,
he would fail. Perhaps to keep up the illusion, to
colour the raw facts; to help her to false ideas,
while yet not plainly stating falsehoods? Well,
he would see about that; he would also see about
avoiding the girl. He saw about this last so well,
that the next afternoon beheld him on his way to
visit her.

In the meantime the girl had gone straight home,
light as a bird, tremulous with joy, to the little
cottage where she lived alone with a maiden aunt ;
and to that lady, a grim, sixty years old Scots-

THE STORY OF A LIE 303

woman, with a nodding head, communicated news
of her encounter and invitation.

" A friend of his ? " cried the aunt. " What like
is he? What did he say was his name? "

She was dead silent, and stared at the old woman
darkling. Then very slowly, " I said he was my
father's friend; I have invited him to my house,
and come he shall," she said; and with that she
walked off to her room, where she sat staring at
the wall all the evening. Miss M'Glashan, for
that was the aunt's name, read a large Bible in the
kitchen with some of the joys of martyrdom.

It was perhaps half-past three when Dick pre-
sented himself, rather scrupulously dressed, before
the cottage door; he knocked, and a voice bade
him enter. The kitchen, which opened directly
off the garden, was somewhat darkened by foliage ;
but he could see her as she approached from the
far end to meet him. This second sight of her
surprised him. Her strong black brows spoke
of temper easily aroused and hard to quiet; her
mouth was small, nervous, and weak; there was
something dangerous and sulky underlying, in her
nature, much that was honest, compassionate, and
even noble.

" My father's name," she said, " has made you
very welcome."

And she gave him her hand with a sort of curt-
sey. It was a pretty greeting, although somewhat
mannered ; and Dick felt himself among the gods.
She led him through the kitchen to a parlour, and
presented him to Miss M'Glashan.

3o4 THE STORY OF A LIE

" Esther," said the aunt, " see and make Mr.
Naseby his tea."

As soon as the girl was gone upon this hospi-
table intent, the old woman crossed the room and
came quite near to Dick as if in menace.

" Ye know that man ? " she asked, in an impe-
rious whisper.

"Mr. Van Tromp?" said Dick. "Yes; I
know him."

"Well, and what brings ye here?" she said.
" I could n't save the mother — her that *s dead —
but the bairn ! " She had a note in her voice that
filled poor Dick with consternation. " Man," she
went on, " what is it now ? Is it money? "

" My dear lady," said Dick, " I think you misin-
terpret my position. I am young Mr. Naseby of
Naseby House. My acquaintance with Mr. Van
Tromp is really very slender; I am only afraid
that Miss Van Tromp has exaggerated our inti-
macy in her own imagination. I know positively
nothing of his private affairs, and do not care to
know. I met him casually in Paris — that is all."

Miss M'Glashan drew a long breath. " In
Paris ? " she said. " Well, and what do you think
of him ? — what do ye think of him ? " she re-
peated, with a different scansion, as Richard, who
had not much taste for such a question, kept her
waiting for an answer.

" I found him a very agreeable companion," he
said.

" Ay," said she, " did ye ! And how does he win
his bread ? "

THE STORY OF A LIE 305

" I fancy," he gasped, " that Mr. Van Tromp
has many generous friends.' '

" I '11 warrant ! " she sneered ; and before Dick
could find more to say, she was gone from the
room.

Esther returned with the tea-things, and sat
down.

" Now," she said cosily, " tell me all about my
father."

" He " — stammered Dick — " he is a very
agreeable companion."

" I shall begin to think it is more than you are,
Mr. Naseby," she said, with a laugh. " I am his
daughter, you forget. Begin at the beginning,
and tell me all you have seen of him, all he said
and all you answered. You must have met some-
where; begin with that."

So with that he began: how he had found the
Admiral painting in a cafe ; how his art so possessed
him that he could not wait till he got home to —
well, to dash off his idea; how (this in reply to a
question) his idea consisted of a cock crowing and
two hens eating corn; how he was fond of cocks
and hens; how this did not lead him to neglect
more ambitious forms of art ; how he had a picture
in his studio of a Greek subject which was said to
be remarkable from several points of view; how
no one had seen it nor knew the precise site of the
studio in which it was being vigorously though
secretly confected; how (in answer to a sugges-
tion) this shyness was common to the Admiral,
Michelangelo, and others; how they (Dick and

20 „

306 THE STORY OF A LIE

Van Tromp) had struck up an acquaintance at
once, and dined together that same night; how he
(the Admiral) had once given money to a beggar;
how he spoke with effusion of his little daughter;
how he had once borrowed money to send her a
doll — a trait worthy of Newton — she being then
in her nineteenth year at least; how, if the doll
never arrived (which it appeared it never did), the
trait was only more characteristic of the highest
order of creative intellect ; how he was — no, not
beautiful — striking, yes, Dick would go so far,
decidedly striking in appearance; how his boots
were made to lace and his coat was black, not cut-
away, a frock ; and so on, and so on by the yard.
It was astonishing how few lies were necessary.
After all, people exaggerated the difficulty of life.
A little steering, just a touch of the rudder now and
then, and with a willing listener there is no limit
to the domain of equivocal speech. Sometimes
Miss M'Glashan made a freezing sojourn in the
parlour; and then the task seemed unaccountably
more difficult; but to Esther, who was all eyes
and ears, her face alight with interest, his stream
of language flowed without break or stumble, and
his mind was ever fertile in ingenious evasions
and

What an afternoon it was for Esther!

" Ah ! " she cried at last, " it 's good to hear all
this! My aunt, you should know, is narrow and
too religious; she cannot understand an artist's
life. It does not frighten me," she added grandly ;
" I am an artist's daughter."

THE STORY OF A LIE 307

With that speech, Dick consoled himself for his
imposture; she was not deceived so grossly after
all; and then, if a fraud, was not the fraud piety
itself? — and what could be more obligatory than
to keep alive in the heart of a daughter that filial
trust and honour which, even although misplaced,
became her like a jewel of the mind? There
might be another thought, a shade of cowardice,
a selfish desire to please; poor Dick was merely
human ; and what would you have had him do ?

CHAPTER IV

ESTHER ON THE FILIAL RELATION

A MONTH later Dick and Esther met at the
stile beside the cross roads; had there
L been any one to see them but the birds
and summer insects, it would have been remarked
that they met after a different fashion from the
day before. Dick took her in his arms, and their
lips were set together for a long while. Then he
held her at arm's length, and they looked straight
into each other's eyes.

" Esther ! " he said, — you should have heard
his voice.

"Dick!" said she.

"My darling !"

It was some time before they started for their
walk; he kept an arm about her, and their sides
were close together as they walked; the sun, the
birds, the west wind running among the trees, a
pressure, a look, the grasp tightening round a single
finger, these things stood them in lieu of thought
and filled their hearts with joy. The path they were
following led them through a wood of pine-trees
carpeted with heather and blueberry, and upon this
pleasant carpet Dick, not without some seriousness,
made her sit down.

THE STORY OF A LIE 309

" Esther ! " he began, " there is something you
ought to know. You know my father is a rich man,
and you would think, now that we love each other,
we might marry when we pleased. But I fear,
darling, we may have long to wait and shall want
all our courage. "

" I have courage for anything," she said, " I
have all I want ; with you and my father, I am so
well off, and waiting is made so happy, that I could
wait a lifetime and not weary."

He had a sharp pang at the mention of the Ad-
miral. " Hear me out," he continued. " I ought
to have told you this before; but it is a thought
I shrink from ; if it were possible, I should not tell
you even now. My poor father and I are scarce on
speaking terms."

" Your father," she repeated, turning pale.

" It must sound strange to you ; but yet I can-
not think I am to blame," he said. " I will tell you
how it happened."

" O Dick ! " she said, when she had heard him
to an end. " How brave you are, and how proud !
Yet I would not be proud with a father. I would
tell him all."

" What ! " cried Dick, " go in months after, and
brag that I had meant to thrash the man, and then
did n't ? And why ? Because my father had made
a bigger ass of himself than I supposed. My dear,
that 's nonsense."

She winced at his words and drew away. " But
then that is all he asks," she pleaded. " If he only
knew that you had felt that impulse, it would make

310 THE STORY OF A LIE

him so proud and happy. He would see you were
his own son after all, and had the same thoughts
and the same chivalry of spirit. And then you did
yourself injustice when you spoke just now. It was
because the editor was weak and poor and excused
himself, that you repented your first determination.
Had he been a big red man, with whiskers, you
would have beaten him — you know you would —
if Mr. Naseby had been ten times more committed.
Do you think, if you can tell it to me, and I un-
derstand at once, that it would be more difficult to
tell it to your own father, or that he would not be
more ready to sympathise with you than I am?
And I love you, Dick ; but then he is your father."

" My dear," said Dick desperately, " you do not
understand; you do not know what it is to be
treated with daily want of comprehension and
daily small injustices, through childhood and boy-
hood and manhood, until you despair of a hearing,
until the thing rides you like a nightmare, until you
almost hate the sight of the man you love, and
who 's your father after all. In short, Esther, you
don't know what it is to have a father, and that 's
what blinds you."

" I see," she said musingly, " you mean that I
am fortunate in my father. But I am not so fortu-
nate after all ; you forget, I do not know him ; it
is you who know him; he is already more your
father than mine." And here she took his hand.
Dick's heart had grown as cold as ice. " But I am
sorry for you, too," she continued, " it must be
very sad and lonely."

THE STORY OF A LIE 311

" You misunderstand me," said Dick chokingly,
" My father is the best man I know in all this
world; he is worth a hundred of me, only he
does n't understand me, and he can't be made to."

There was a silence for awhile. " Dick," she
began again, " I am going to ask a favour ; it 's
the first time since you said you loved me. May I
see your father — see him pass, I mean, where he
will not observe me? "

"Why?" asked Dick.

" It is a fancy ; you forget, I am romantic about
fathers."

The hint was enough for Dick; he consented
with haste, and full of hang-dog penitence and dis-
gust, took her down by a back way and planted her
in the shrubbery, whence she might see the Squire
ride by to dinner. There they both sat silent, but
holding hands, for nearly half an hour. At last
the trotting of a horse sounded in the distance, the
park gates opened with a clang, and then Mr.
Naseby appeared, with stooping shoulders and a
heavy, bilious countenance, languidly rising to the
trot. Esther recognised him at once; she had
often seen him before, though with her huge in-
difference for all that lay outside the circle of her
love, she had never so much as wondered who
he was; but now she recognised him, and found
him ten years older, leaden and springless, and
stamped by an abiding sorrow.

" O Dick, Dick ! " she said, and the tears began
to shine upon her face as she hid it in his bosom ;
his own fell thickly, too. They had a sad walk

312 THE STORY OF A LIE

home, and that night, full of love and good counsel,
Dick exerted every art to please his father, to con-
vince him of his respect and affection, to heal up
this breach of kindness, and reunite two hearts.
But alas ! the Squire was sick and peevish ; he had
been all day glooming over Dick's estrangement —
for so he put it to himself — and now with growls,
cold words, and the cold shoulder, he beat off
all advances, and entrenched himself in a just
resentment.

CHAPTER V

THE PRODIGAL FATHER MAKES HIS
DEBUT AT HOME

THAT took place upon a Thursday. On
the Thursday following, as Dick was
walking by appointment, earlier than
usual, in the direction of the cottage, he was ap-
palled to meet in the lane a fly from Thymebury,
containing the human form of Miss M'Glashan.
The lady did not deign to remark him in her
passage; her face was suffused with tears, and
expressed much concern for the packages by which
she was surrounded. He stood still, and asked
himself what this circumstance might portend. It
was so beautiful a day that he was loth to forecast
evil, yet something must perforce have happened
at the cottage, and that of a decisive nature; for
here was Miss M'Glashan on her travels, with a
small patrimony in brown paper parcels, and the
old lady's bearing implied hot battle and unqualified
defeat. Was the house to be closed against him?
Was Esther left alone, or had some new protector
made his appearance from among the millions of
Europe? It is the character of love to loathe the
near relatives of the loved one; chapters in the
history of the human race have justified this

3H THE STORY OF A LIE

feeling, and the conduct of uncles, in particular, has
frequently met with censure from the independent
novelist. Miss M'Glashan was now seen in the
rosy colours of regret; whoever succeeded her,
Dick felt the change would be for the worse. He
hurried forward in this spirit; his anxiety grew
upon him with every step ; as he entered the garden
a voice fell upon his ear, and he was once more
arrested, not this time by doubt, but by an indubi-
table certainty of ill.

The thunderbolt had fallen; the Admiral was
here.

Dick would have retreated, in the panic terror
of the moment; but Esther kept a bright look-out
when her lover was expected. In a twinkling she
was by his side, brimful of news and pleasure, too
glad to notice his embarrassment, and in one of
those golden transports of exultation which tran-
scend not only words but caresses. She took him
by the end of the fingers (reaching forward to
take them, for her great preoccupation was to
save time), she drew him towards her, pushed him
past her in the door, and planted him face to face
with Mr. Van Tromp, in a suit of French country
velveteens and with a remarkable carbuncle on
his nose. Then, as though this was the end of
what she could endure in the way of joy, Esther
turned and ran out of the room.

The two men remained looking at each other
with some confusion on both sides. Van Tromp
was naturally the first to recover; he put out his
hand with a fine gesture.

THE STORY OF A LIE 315

" And you know my little lass, my Esther ? " he
said. " This is pleasant, this is what I have con-
ceived of home. A strange word for the old rover ;
but we all have a taste for home and the homelike,
disguise it how we may. It has brought me here,
Mr. Naseby," he concluded, with an intonation
that would have made his fortune on the stage,
so just, so sad, so dignified, so like a man of the
world and a philosopher, " and you see a man who
is content."

" I see," said Dick.

" Sit down," continued the parasite, setting the
example. " Fortune has gone against me. (I am
just sirrupping a little brandy — after my jour-
ney.) I was going down, Mr. Naseby; between
you and me I was decave; I borrowed fifty
francs, smuggled my valise past the concierge
— a work of considerable tact — and here I
am!"

" Yes," said Dick ; " and here you are." He
was quite idiotic.

Esther at this moment re-entered the room.

" Are you glad to see him ? " she whispered in
liis ear, the pleasure in her voice almost bursting
through the whisper into song.

"Oh yes," said Dick; "very!"

" I knew you would be," she replied ; " I told
him how you loved him."

" Help yourself," said the Admiral, " help your-
self; and let us drink to a new existence."

"To a new existence," repeated Dick; and he
raised the tumbler to his lips, but set it down

316 THE STORY OF A LIE

untasted. He had had enough of novelties for one
day.

Esther was sitting on a stool beside her father's
feet, holding her knees in her arms, and looking
with pride from one to the other of her two visitors.
Her eyes were so bright that you were never sure
if there were tears in them or not ; little voluptuous
shivers ran about her body ; sometimes she nestled
her chin into her throat, sometimes threw back
her head with ecstasy; in a word, she was in that
state when it is said of people that they cannot con-
tain themselves for happiness. It would be hard
to exaggerate the agony of Richard.

And, in the meantime, Van Tromp ran on
interminably.

" I never forget a friend/' said he, " nor yet an
enemy : of the latter I never had but two — myself
and the public; and I fancy I have had my ven-
geance pretty freely out of both." He chuckled.
" But those days are done. Van Tromp is no more.
He was a man who had successes, — I believe you
know I had successes, — to which we shall refer
no further," pulling down his neckcloth with a
smile. " That man exists no more : by an exer-
cise of will I have destroyed him. There is some-
thing like it in the poets. First, a brilliant and
conspicuous career — the observed, I may say, of
all observers, including the bum-baily: and then,
presto! a quiet, sly, old, rustic bonhomme, culti-
vating roses. In Paris, Mr. Naseby "

" Call him Richard, father," said Esther.

" Richard, if he will allow me. Indeed, we are

THE STORY OF A LIE 317

old friends, and now near neighbours; and, a
propos, how are we off for neighbours, Richard?
The cottage stands, I think, upon your father's
land, a family which I respect — and the wood, I
understand, is Lord Trevanion's. Not that I care ;
I am an old Bohemian. I have cut society with a
cut direct; I cut it when I was prosperous, and
now I reap my reward, and can cut it with dignity
in my declension. These are our little amours
propres, my daughter ; your father must respect
himself. Thank you, yes ; just a leetle, leetle, tiny

— thanks, thanks ; you spoil me. But, as I was say-
ing, Richard, or was about to say, my daughter has
been allowed to rust ; her aunt was a mere duenna ;
hence, in parenthesis, Richard, her distrust of me;
my nature and that of the duenna are poles asunder

— poles! But, now that I am here, now that I
have given up the fight, and live henceforth for
one only of my works — I have the modesty to
say it is my best — my daughter — well, we shall
put all that to rights. The neighbours, Richard ? "

Dick was understood to say that there were many
good families in the Vale of Thyme.

" You shall introduce us," said the Admiral.

Dick's shirt was wet; he made a lumbering ex-
cuse to go ; which Esther explained to herself by a
fear of intrusion, and so set down to the merit side
of Dick's account, while she proceeded to detain
him.

" Before our walk ? " she cried. " Never ! I
must have my walk."

"Let us all go," said the Admiral, rising.

318 THE STORY OF A LIE

" You do not know that you are wanted," she
cried, leaning on his shoulder with a caress. " I
might wish to speak to my old friend about my
new father. But you shall come to-day, you shall
do all you want; I have set my heart on spoiling
you."

" I will take just one drop more," said the Ad-
miral, stooping to help himself to brandy. " It
is surprising how this journey has fatigued me.
But I am growing old, I am growing old, I am
growing old, and — I regret to add — bald."

He cocked a white wide-awake coquettishly
upon his head — the habit of the lady-killer clung
to him; and Esther had already thrown on her
hat, and was ready, while he was still studying the
result in a mirror: the carbuncle had somewhat
painfully arrested his attention.

" We are papa now ; we must be respectable,"
he said to Dick, in explanation of his dandyism:
and then he went to a bundle and chose himself
a staff. Where were the elegant canes of his
Parisian epoch? This was a support for age, and
designed for rustic scenes. Dick began to see
and appreciate the man's enjoyment in a new part,
when he saw how carefully he had " made it up."
He had invented a gait for this first country stroll
with his daughter, which was admirably in key.
He walked with fatigue ; he leaned upon the staff ;
he looked round him with a sad, smiling sympathy
on all that he beheld ; he even asked the name of
a plant, and rallied himself gently for an old town-
bird, ignorant of nature. " This country life will

THE STORY OF A LIE 319

make me young again," he sighed. They reached
the top of the hill towards the first hour of evening ;
the sun was descending heaven, the colour had all
drawn into the west; the hills were modelled in
their least contour by the soft, slanting shine ; and
the wide moorlands, veined with glens and hazel-
woods, ran west and north in a hazy glory of light.
Then the painter awakened in Van Tromp.

"Gad, Dick," he cried, "what value!"

An ode in four hundred lines would not have
seemed so touching to Esther ; her eyes rilled with
happy tears; yes, here was the father of whom
she had dreamed, whom Dick had described ;
simple, enthusiastic, unworldly, kind, a painter at
heart, and a fine gentleman in manner.

And just then the Admiral perceived a house by
the wayside, and something depending over the
house door which might be construed as a sign
by the hopeful and thirsty.

" Is that," he asked, pointing with his stick, " an
inn?"

There was a marked change in his voice, as
though he attached some importance to the in-
quiry : Esther listened, hoping she should hear wit
or wisdom.

Dick said it was.

" You know it ? " inquired the Admiral.

" I have passed it a hundred times, but that is
all," replied Dick.

" Ah," said Van Tromp, with a smile and shak-
ing his head ; " you are not an old campaigner ;
you have the world to learn. Now I, you see, find

320 THE STORY OF A LIE

an inn so very near my own home, and my first
thought is — my neighbours. I shall go forward
and make my neighbour's acquaintance; no, you
needn't come; I shall not be a moment."

And he walked off briskly towards the inn,
leaving Dick alone with Esther on the road.

" Dick," she exclaimed, " I am so glad to get a
word with you; I am so happy, I have such a
thousand things to say ; and I want you to do me
a favour. Imagine, he has come without a paint-
box, without an easel ; and I want him to have all.
I want you to get them for me in Thymebury.
You saw, this moment, how his heart turned to
painting. They can't live without it," she added;
meaning perhaps Van Tromp and Michelangelo.

Up to that moment she had observed nothing
amiss in Dick's behaviour. She was too happy to
be curious ; and his silence, in presence of the great
and good being whom she called her father, had
seemed both natural and praiseworthy. But now
that they were alone, she became conscious of a
barrier between her lover and herself, and alarm
sprang up in her heart.

" Dick," she cried, " you don't love me."

" I do that," he said heartily.

" But you are unhappy ; you are strange ; you
— you are not glad to see my father," she con-
cluded, with a break in her voice.

" Esther," he said, " I tell you that I love you ;
if you love me, you know what that means, and that
all I wish is to see you happy. Do you think I
cannot enjoy your pleasure ? Esther, I do. If I am

THE STORY OF A LIE 321

uneasy, if I am alarmed, if Oh, believe me,

try and believe in me/' he cried, giving up argu-
ment with perhaps a happy inspiration.

But the girl's suspicions were aroused; and
although she pressed the matter no further (in-
deed her father was already seen returning), it by
no means left her thoughts. At one moment she
simply resented the selfishness of a man who had
obtruded his dark looks and passionate language
on her joy ; for there is nothing that a woman can
less easily forgive than the language of a passion
which, even if only for the moment, she does not
share. At another, she suspected him of jealousy
against her father ; and for that, although she could
see excuses for it, she yet despised him. And at
least, in one way or the other, here was the dan-
gerous beginning of a separation between two
hearts. Esther found herself at variance with her
sweetest friend; she could no longer look into his
heart and find it written in the same language as
her own ; she could no longer think of him as the
sun which radiated happiness upon her life, for
she had turned to him once, and he had breathed
upon her black and chilly, radiated blackness and
frost. To put the whole matter in a word, she was
beginning, although ever so slightly, to fall out of
love.

2r

CHAPTER VI

THE PRODIGAL FATHER GOES ON FROM
STRENGTH TO STRENGTH

WE will not follow all the steps of the
Admiral's return and installation, but
hurry forward towards the catastro-
phe, merely chronicling by the way a few salient
incidents, wherein we must rely entirely upon the
evidence of Richard, for Esther to this day has
never opened her mouth upon this trying passage
of her life, and as for the Admiral — well, that
naval officer, though still alive, and now more
suitably installed in a seaport town where he has a
telescope and a flag in his front garden, is inca-
pable of throwing the slightest gleam of light upon
the affair. Often and often has he remarked to
the present writer : " If I know what it was all

about, sir, I '11 be " in short, be what I hope

he will not. And then he will look across at his
daughter's portrait, a photograph, shake his head
with an amused appearance, and mix himself an-
other grog by way of consolation. Once I have
heard him go further, and express his feelings
with regard to Esther in a single but eloquent

THE STORY OF A LIE 323

word. " A minx, sir," he said, not in anger, rather
in amusement; and he cordially drank her health
upon the back of it. His worst enemy must admit
him to be a man without malice; he never bore a
grudge in his life, lacking the necessary taste and
industry of attention.

Yet it was during this obscure period that the
drama was really performed; and its scene was
in the heart of Esther, shut away from all eyes.
Had this warm, upright, sullen girl been differently
used by destiny, had events come upon her even in
a different succession, for some things lead easily
to others, the whole course of this tale would have
been changed, and Esther never would have run
away. As it was, through a series of acts and
words of which we know but few, and a series of
thoughts which any one may imagine for himself,
she was awakened in four days from the dream
of a life.

The first tangible cause of disenchantment was
when Dick brought home a painters arsenal on
Friday evening. The Admiral was in the chimney-
corner, once more " sirrupping " some brandy-and-
water, and Esther sat at the table at work. They
both came forward to greet the new arrival; and
the girl, relieving him of his monstrous burthen,
proceeded to display her offerings to her father.
Van Tromp's countenance fell several degrees; he
became quite querulous.

" God bless me," he said ; and then, " I must
really ask you not to interfere, child," in a tone of
undisguised hostility.

324 THE STORY OF A LIE

" Father," she said, " forgive me ; I knew you
had given up your art "

" Oh, yes," cried the Admiral ; " I Ve done with
it to the judgment day! "

" Pardon me again," she said firmly, " but I do
not, I cannot think that you are right in this. Sup-
pose the world is unjust, suppose that no one under-
stands you, you have still a duty to yourself. And
oh, don't spoil the pleasure of your coming home
to me; show me that you can be my father and
yet not neglect your destiny. I am not like some
daughters; I will not be jealous of your art, and
I will try to understand it."

The situation was odiously farcical. Richard
groaned under it; he longed to leap forward and
denounce the humbug. And the humbug himself?
Do you fancy he was easier in his mind? I am
sure, on the other hand, that he was actually miser-
able ; and he betrayed his sufferings by a perfectly
silly and undignified access of temper, during
which he broke his pipe in several places, threw
his brandy-and-water in the fire, and employed
words which were very plain although the drift
of them was somewhat vague. It was of very
brief duration. Van Tromp was himself again,
and in a most delightful humour within three
minutes of the first explosion.

" I am an old fool," he said frankly. " I was
spoiled when a child. As for you, Esther, you
take after your mother; you have a morbid sense
of duty, particularly for others; strive against it,
my dear — strive against it. And as for the

THE STORY OF A LIE 325

pigments, well, I '11 use them some of these days ;
and to show that I 'm in earnest, I '11 get Dick
here to prepare a canvas."

Dick was put to this menial task forthwith, the
Admiral not even watching how he did, but quite
occupied with another grog and a pleasant vein of
talk.

A little after Esther arose, and making some
pretext, good or bad, went off to bed. Dick was
left hobbled by the canvas, and was subjected to
Van Tromp for about an hour.

The next day, Saturday, it is believed that little
intercourse took place between Esther and her
father; but towards the afternoon Dick met the
latter returning from the direction of the inn,
where he had struck up quite a friendship with the
landlord. Dick wondered who paid for these ex-
cursions, and at the thought that the reprobate must
get his pocket-money where he got his board and
lodging, from poor Esther's generosity, he had it
almost in his heart to knock the old gentleman
down. He, on his part, was full of airs and graces
and geniality.

" Dear Dick," he said, taking his arm, " this is
neighbourly of you ; it shows your tact to meet me
when I had a wish for you. I am in pleasant
spirits; and it is then that I desire a friend."

"lam glad to hear that you are so happy," re-
torted Dick bitterly. " There 's certainly not much
to trouble you."

" No," assented the Admiral, " not much. I got
out of it in time; and here — well, here every-

326 THE STORY OF A LIE

thing pleases me. I am plain in my tastes. A
propoSy you have never asked me how I liked my
daughter."

" No," said Dick roundly ; " I certainly have
not."

" Meaning you will not. And why, Dick ? She
is my daughter, of course ; but then I am a man of
the world and a man of taste, and perfectly quali-
fied to give an opinion with impartiality — yes,
Dick, with impartiality. Frankly, I am not disap-
pointed in her. She has good looks ; she has them
from her mother. She is devoted, quite devoted
to me "

" She is the best woman in the world ! " broke
out Dick.

" Dick," cried the Admiral, stopping short ;
" I have been expecting this. Let us — let us go
back to the ' Trevanion Arms/ and talk this matter
out over a bottle."

" Certainly not," said Dick. " You have had
far too much already."

The parasite was on the point of resenting this ;
but a look at Dick's face, and some recollections of
the terms on which they had stood in Paris, came to
the aid of his wisdom and restrained him.

" As you please," he said ; " although I don't
know what you mean — nor care. But let us walk,
if you prefer it. You are still a young man ; when

you are my age But, however, to continue.

You please me, Dick; you have pleased me from
the first; and to say truth, Esther is a trifle fan-
tastic, and will be better when she is married. She

THE STORY OF A LIE 327

has means of her own, as of course you are aware.
They come, like the looks, from her poor, dear,
good creature of a mother. She was blessed in
her mother. I mean she shall be blessed in her
husband, and you are the man, Dick, you and
not another. This very night I will sound her
affections."

Dick stood aghast.

"Mr. Van Tromp, I implore you," he said;
" do what you please with yourself, but, for God's
sake, let your daughter alone."

" It is my duty," replied the Admiral, " and
between ourselves, you rogue, my inclination too.
I am as matchmaking as a dowager. It will be
more discreet for you to stay away to-night. Fare-
well. You leave your case in good hands ; I have
the tact of these little matters by heart ; it is not my
first attempt."

All arguments were in vain ; the old rascal stuck
to his point ; nor did Richard conceal from himself
how seriously this might injure his prospects, and
he fought hard. Once there came a glimmer of
hope. The Admiral again proposed an adjourn-
ment to the " Trevanion Arms," and when Dick
had once more refused, it hung for a moment in
the balance whether or not the old toper would
return there by himself. Had he done so, of course
Dick could have taken to his heels, and warned
Esther of what was coming, and of how it had
begun. But the Admiral, after a pause, decided
for the brandy at home, and made off in that
direction.

328 THE STORY OF A LIE

We have no details of the sounding.

Next day the Admiral was observed in the parish
church, very properly dressed. He found the
places, and joined in response and hymn, as to the
manner born; and his appearance, as he intended
it should, attracted some attention among the wor-
shippers. Old Naseby, for instance, had observed
him.

" There was a drunken-looking blackguard op-
posite us in church," he said to his son as they
drove home ; " do you know who he was ? "

" Some fellow — Van Tromp, I believe," said
Dick.

" A foreigner too ! " observed the Squire.

Dick could not sufficiently congratulate himself
on the escape he had effected. Had the Admiral
met him with his father, what would have been the
result ? And could such a catastrophe be long post-
poned? It seemed to him as if the storm were
nearly ripe; and it was so more nearly than he
thought.

He did not go to the cottage in the afternoon,
withheld by fear and shame ; but when dinner was
over at Naseby House, and the Squire had gone off
into a comfortable doze, Dick slipped out of the
room, and ran across country, in part to save time,
in part to save his own courage from growing
cold; for he now hated the notion of the cottage
or the Admiral, and if he did not hate, at least
feared to think of Esther. He had no clue to her
reflections ; but he could not conceal from his own
heart that he must have sunk in her esteem, and

THE STORY OF A LIE 329

the spectacle of her infatuation galled him like an
insult.

He knocked and was admitted. The room looked
very much as on his last visit, with Esther at the
table and Van Tromp beside the fire; but the
expression of the two faces told a very different
story. The girl was paler than usual; her eyes
were dark, the colour seemed to have faded from
round them, and her swiftest glance was as intent
as a stare. The appearance of the Admiral, on the
other hand, was rosy, and flabby, and moist; his
jowl hung over his shirt collar, his smile was loose
and wandering, and he had so far relaxed the
natural control of his eyes, that one of them was
aimed inward, as if to catch the growth of the
carbuncle. We are warned against bad judg-
ments; but the Admiral was certainly not sober.
He made no attempt to rise when Richard entered,
but waved his pipe flightily in the air, and gave
a leer of welcome. Esther took as little notice of
him as might be.

" Aha ! Dick ! " cried the painter. " I Ve been
to church ; I have, upon my word. And I saw you
there, though you did n't see me. And I saw u
devilish pretty woman, by Gad. If it were not for
this baldness, and a ^yid of crapulous air I can't
disguise from myself — if \t were n't for this and
that and t'other thing — I — I \e forgot what I
was saying. Not that that matters, I 've heaps of
things to say. I'm in a communicative vein to-
night. I '11 let out all my cats, even unto seventy
times seven. I 'm in what I call the stage, and

330 THE STORY OF A LIE

all I desire is a listener, although he were deaf,
to be as happy as Nebuchadnezzar."

Of the two hours which followed upon this it
is unnecessary to give more than a sketch. The
Admiral was extremely silly, now and then amus-
ing, and never really offensive. It was plain that
he kept in view the presence of his daughter, and
chose subjects and a character of language that
should not offend a lady. On almost any other
occasion Dick would have enjoyed the scene.
Van Tromp's egotism, flown with drink, struck a
pitch above mere vanity. He became candid and
explanatory; sought to take his auditors entirely
into his confidence, and tell them his inmost con-
viction about himself. Between his self-knowledge,
which was considerable, and his vanity, which was
immense, he had created a strange hybrid animal,
and called it by his own name. How he would
plume his feathers over virtues which would have
gladdened the heart of Caesar or St. Paul; and
anon, complete his own portrait with one of those
touches of pitiless realism which the satirist so
often seeks in vain.

" Now, there 's Dick," he said, " he 's shrewd ;
he saw through me the first time we met, and told
me so — told me so to my face, which I had the
virtue to keep. I bear you no malice for it, Dick ;
you were right; I am a humbug."

You may fancy how Esther quailed at this
new feature of the meeting between her two
idols.

And then, again, in a parenthesis:

THE STORY OF A LIE 331

" That," said Van Tromp, " was when I had to
paint those dirty daubs of mine."

And a little further on, laughingly said, perhaps,
but yet with an air of truth :

" I never had the slightest hesitation in sponging
upon any human creature."

Thereupon Dick got up.

" I think, perhaps," he said, " we had better all
be thinking of going to bed." And he smiled with
a feeble and deprecatory smile.

" Not at all," cried the Admiral, " I know a
trick worth two of that. Puss here," indicating
his daughter, " shall go to bed ; and you and I
will keep it up till all 's blue."

Thereupon Esther arose in sullen glory. She
had sat and listened for two mortal hours while her
idol defiled himself and sneered away his godhead.
One by one, her illusions had departed; and now
he wished to order her to bed in her own house!
now he called her Puss! now, even as he uttered
the words, toppling on his chair, he broke the stem
of his tobacco pipe in three ! Never did the sheep
turn upon her shearer with a more commanding
front. Her voice was calm, her enunciation a little
slow, but perfectly distinct, and she stood before
him, as she spoke, in the simplest and most maid-
enly attitude.

" No," she said, " Mr. Naseby will have the
goodness to go home at once, and you will go to
bed."

The broken fragments of pipe fell from the Ad-
miral's ringers; he seemed by his countenance to

332 THE STORY OF A LIE

have lived too long in a world unworthy of him;
but it is an odd circumstance, he attempted no re-
ply, and sat thunderstruck, with open mouth.

Dick she motioned sharply towards the door,
and he could only obey her. In the porch, finding
she was close behind him, he ventured to pause and
whisper, " You have done right."

" I have done as I pleased," she said. " Can he
paint?"

" Many people like his paintings," returned
Dick, in stifled tones ; " I never did ; I never said
I did," he added, fiercely defending himself before
he was attacked.

" I ask you if he can paint. I will not be put
off. Can he paint ? " she repeated.

" No," said Dick.

" Does he even like it ? "

" Not now, I believe."

" And he is drunk ? " — she leaned upon the
word with hatred.

" He has been drinking."

" Go," she said, and was turning to re-enter the
house when another thought arrested her. " Meet
me to-morrow morning at the stile," she said.

" I will," replied Dick.

And then the door closed behind her, and Dick
was alone in the darkness. There was still a chink
of light above the sill, a warm, mild glow behind
the window; the roof of the cottage and some
of the banks and hazels were defined in denser
darkness against the sky ; but all else was formless,
breathless, and noiseless like the pit. Dick remained

THE STORY OF A LIE 333

as she had left him, standing squarely on one foot
and resting only on the toe of the other, and as he
stood he listened with his soul. The sound of a
chair pushed sharply over the floor startled his heart
into his mouth ; but the silence which had thus been
disturbed settled back again at once upon the cot-
tage and its vicinity. What took place during this
interval is a secret from the world of men; but
when it was over the voice of Esther spoke evenly
and without interruption for perhaps half a minute,
and as soon as that ceased heavy and uncertain
footfalls crossed the parlour and mounted lurching
up the stairs. The girl had tamed her father,
Van Tromp had gone obediently to bed; so much
was obvious to the watcher in the road. And yet
he still waited, straining his ears, and with terror
and sickness at his heart; for if Esther had fol-
lowed her father, if she had even made one move-
ment in this great conspiracy of men and nature
to be still, Dick must have had instant knowledge
of it from his station before the door; and if she
had not moved, must she not have fainted? or
might she not be dead?

He could hear the cottage clock deliberately
measure out the seconds ; time stood still with him ;
an almost superstitious terror took command of his
faculties; at last, he could bear no more, and
springing through the little garden in two bounds,
he put his face against the window. The blind,
which had not been drawn fully down, left an open
chink about an inch in height along the bottom of
the glass, and the whole parlour was thus exposed

334 THE STORY OF A LIE

to Dick's investigation. Esther sat upright at
the table, her head resting on her hand, her eyes
fixed upon the candle. Her brows were slightly
bent, her mouth slightly open; her whole atti-
tude so still and settled that Dick could hardly
fancy that she breathed. She had not stirred at
the sound of Dick's arrival. Soon after, making
a considerable disturbance amid the vast silence of
the night, the clock lifted up its voice, whined for
awhile like a partridge, and then eleven times
hooted like a cuckoo. Still Esther continued im-
movable and gazed upon the candle. Midnight
followed, and then one of the morning; and still
she had not stirred, nor had Richard Naseby dared
to quit the window. And then about half-past one,
the candle she had been thus intently watching
flared up into a last blaze of paper, and she
leaped to her feet with an ejaculation, looked
about her once, blew out the light, turned round,
and was heard rapidly mounting the staircase in
the. dark.

\ Dick was left once more alone to darkness and
to that dulled and dogged state of mind when a
man thinks that misery must now have done her
worst, and is almost glad to think so. He turned
and walked slowly towards the stile; she had told
him no hour, and he was determined, whenever she
came, that she should find him waiting^ As he got
there the day began to dawn, and he leaned over
a hurdle and beheld the shadows flee away. Up
went the sun at last out of a bank of clouds that
were already disbanding in the east ; a herald wind

THE STORY OF A LIE 335

had already sprung up to sweep the leafy earth
and scatter the congregated dewdrops. " Alas ! "
thought Dick Naseby, " how can any other day
come so distastefully to me? " He still wanted his
experience of the morrow.

CHAPTER VII

THE ELOPEMENT

IT was probably on the stroke of ten, and
Dick had been half asleep for some time
against the bank, when Esther came up the
road carrying a bundle. Some kind of instinct, or
perhaps the distant light footfalls, recalled him,
while she was still a good way off, to the posses-
sion of his faculties, and he half raised himself and
blinked upon the world. It took him some time to
re-collect his thoughts. He had awakened with a
certain blank and childish sense of pleasure; but
this feeling gradually died away, and was then
suddenly and stunningly succeeded by a conviction
of the truth. The whole story of the past night
sprang into his mind with every detail, as by an
exercise of the direct and speedy sense of sight,
and he arose from the ditch and, with rueful cour-
age, went to meet his love.

She came up to him steady and fast, her face still
pale, but to all appearance perfectly composed;
and she showed neither surprise, relief, nor pleas-
ure at rinding her lover on the spot. Nor did she
offer him her hand.

" Here I am," said he.

"Yes," she replied; and then, without a pause

THE STORY OF A LIE 337

or any change of voice, " I want you to take me
away," she added.

" Away ? " he repeated. " How ? Where ? "

" To-day," she said. " I do not care where it
is, but I want you to take me away."

" For how long? I do not understand," gasped
Dick.

" I shall never come back here any more," was
all she answered.

Wild words uttered, as these were, with perfect
quiet of manner, exercise a double influence on the
hearer's mind. Dick was confounded ; he recovered
from astonishment only to fall into doubt and alarm.
He looked upon her frozen attitude, so discour-
aging for a lover to behold, and recoiled from the
thoughts which it suggested.

" To me? " he asked. " Are you coming to me,
Esther?"

" I want you to take me away," she repeated,
with weary impatience. " Take me away — take
me away from here."

The situation was not sufficiently defined. Dick
asked himself with concern whether she were al-
together in her right wits. To take her away, to
marry her, to work off his hands for her support,
Dick was content to do all this; yet he required
some show of love on her part. He was not one
of those tough-hided and small-hearted males who
would marry their love at the point of the bayonet
rather than not marry her at all. He desired that
a woman should come to his arms with an attract-
ive willingness, if not with ardour. And Esther's

338 THE STORY OF A LIE

bearing was more that of despair than that of love.
It chilled him and taught him wisdom.

* Dearest/' he urged, " tell me what you wish,
and you shall have it; tell me your thoughts, and
then I can advise you. But to go from here with-
out a plan, without forethought, in the heat of the
moment, is madder thar madness, and can help
nothing. I am not speaking like a man, but I
speak, the truth ; and I tell you again, the thing 's
absurd, and wrong, and hurtful."

She looked at him with a lowering, languid look
of wrath.

" So you will not take me? " she said. " Well,
I will go alone."

And she began to step forward on her way.
But he threw himself before her.

" Esther, Esther! " he cried.

" Let me go — don't touch me — what right
have you to interfere? Who are you, to touch
me?" she flashed out, shrill with anger.

Then being made bold by her violence, he took
her firmly, almost roughly, by the arm, and held
her while he spoke.

" You know well who I am, and what I am,
and that I love you. You say I will not help you ;
but your heart knows the contrary. It is you who
will not help me; for you will not tell me what
you want. You see — or you could see, if you
took the pains to look — how I have waited here
all night to be ready at your service. I only asked
information; I only urged you to consider; and
I still urge you to think better of your fancies.

THE STORY OF A LIE 339

But if your mind is made up, so be it ; I will beg
no longer; I will give you my order; and I will
not allow — not allow you to go hence alone/'

She looked at him for awhile with cold, unkind
scrutiny, like one who tries the temper of a tool.

" Well, take me away then," she said, with a
sigh.

" Good," said Dick. " Come with me to the
stables ; there we shall get the pony-trap and drive
to the junction. To-night you shall be in London.
I am yours so wholly that no words can make
me more so; and, besides, you know it, and the
words are needless. May God help me to be good
to you, Esther — may God help me ! for I see that
you will not."

So, without more speech, they set out together,
and were already got some distance from the spot,
ere he observed that she was still carrying the hand-
bag. She gave it up to him, passively, but when
he offered her his arm, merely shook her head and
pursed up her lips. The sun shone clearly and
pleasantly; the wind was fresh and brisk upon
their faces, and smelt racily of woods and meadows.
As they went down into the Valley of the Thyme,
the babble of the stream rose into the air like a
perennial laughter. On the far-away hills, sun-
burst and shadow raced along the slopes and leaped
from peak to peak. Earth, air, and water, each
seemed in better health and had more of the
shrewd salt of life in them than upon ordinary
mornings ; and from east to west, from the lowest
glen to the height of heaven, from every look and

34Q THE STORY OF A LIE

touch and scent, a human creature could gather
the most encouraging intelligence as to the dura-
bility and spirit of the universe.

Through all this walked Esther, picking her
small steps like a bird, but silent and with a cloud
under her thick eyebrows. She seemed insensible,
not only of nature, but of the presence of her
companion. She was altogether engrossed in her-
self, and looked neither to right nor to left, but
straight before her on the road. When they came
to the bridge, however, she halted, leaned on the
parapet, and stared for a moment at the clear,
brown pool, and swift, transient snowdrift of the
rapids.

" I am going to drink," she said ; and descended
the winding footpath to the margin.

There she drank greedily in her hands, and
washed her temples with water. The coolness
seemed to break, for an instant, the spell that lay
upon her ; for, instead of hastening forward again
in her dull, indefatigable tramp, she stood still
where she was, for near a minute, looking straight
before her. And Dick from above on the bridge
where he stood to watch her, saw a strange, equiv-
ocal smile dawn slowly on her face and pass away
again at once and suddenly, leaving her as grave
as ever; and the sense of distance, which it is so
cruel for a lover to endure, pressed with every
moment more heavily on her companion. Her
thoughts were all secret ; her heart was locked and
bolted; and he stood without, vainly wooing her
with his eyes.

THE STORY OF A LIE 341

" Do you feel better ? " asked Dick, as she at
last rejoined him; and after the constraint of so
long a silence, his voice sounded foreign to his
own ears.

She looked at him for an appreciable fraction of
a minute ere she answered, and when she did, it
was in the monosyllable — " Yes."

Dick's solicitude was nipped and frosted. His
words died away on his tongue. Even his eyes,
despairing of encouragement, ceased to attend on
hers. And they went on in silence through Kirton
hamlet, where an old man followed them with his
eyes, and perhaps envied them their youth and
love; and across the ivy beck where the mill was
splashing and grumbling low thunder to itself in
the chequered shadow of the dell, and the miller
before the door was beating flour from his hands
as he whistled a modulation; and up by the high
spinney, whence they saw the mountains upon
either hand; and down the hill again to the back
courts and offices of Naseby House. Esther had
kept ahead all the way, and Dick plodded obedi-
ently in her wake; but as they neared the stables,
he pushed on and took the lead. He would have
preferred her to await him in the road while he
went on and brought the carriage back, but after
so many repulses and rebuffs he lacked courage
to offer the suggestion. Perhaps, too, he felt it
wiser to keep his convoy within sight. So they
entered the yard in Indian file, like a tramp and
his wife.

The groom's eyebrows rose as he received the

342 THE STORY OF A LIE

order for the pony-phaeton, and kept rising during
all his preparations. Esther stood bolt upright and
looked steadily at some chickens in the corner of
the yard. Master Richard himself, thought the
groom, was not in his ordinary; for in truth, he
carried the hand-bag like a talisman, and either
stood listless, or set off suddenly walking in one
direction after another with brisk, decisive foot-
steps. Moreover, he had apparently neglected to
wash his hands, and bore the air of one return-
ing from a prolonged nutting ramble. Upon the
groom's countenance there began to grow up an
expression as of one about to whistle. And hardly
had the carriage turned the corner and rattled into
the highroad with this inexplicable pair, than the
whistle broke forth — prolonged, and low, and
tremulous; and the groom, already so far re-
lieved, vented the rest of his surprise in one
simple English word, friendly to the mouth of
Jack-tar and the sooty pitman, and hurried to
spread the news round the servants' hall of
Naseby House. Luncheon would be on the table
in little beyond an hour; and the Squire, on sit-
ing down, would hardly fail to ask for Master
Richard. Hence, as the intelligent reader can
foresee, this groom has a part to play in the
imbroglio.

Meantime, Dick had been thinking deeply and
bitterly. It seemed to him as if his love had gone
from him indeed, yet gone but a little way; as if
he needed but to find the right touch or intonation,
and her heart would recognise him and be melted.

THE STORY OF A LIE 343

Yet he durst not open his mouth, and drove in
silence till they had passed the main park-gates
and turned into the cross-cut lane along the wall.
Then it seemed to him as if it must be now, or
never.

" Can't you see you are killing me? " he cried.
" Speak to me, look at me, treat me like a human
man."

She turned slowly and looked him in the face
with eyes that seemed kinder. He dropped the
reins and caught her hand, and she made no resist-
ance although her touch was unresponsive. But
when, throwing one arm round her waist, he
sought to kiss her lips, not like a lover indeed,
not because he wanted to do so, but ^s a desperate
man who puts his fortunes to the touch, she drew
away from him, with a knot in her forehead, backed
and shied about fiercely with her head, and pushed
him from her with her hand. Then there was no
room left for doubt, and Dick saw, as clear as
sunlight, that she had a distaste or nourished a
grudge against him.

"Then you don't love me?" he said, drawing
back from her, he also, as though her touch had
burnt him; and then, as she made no answer, he
repeated with another intonation, imperious and
yet still pathetic, " You don't love me, do you, do
you?"

" I don't know," she replied. " Why do you
ask me? Oh, how should I know? It has all
been lies together — lies, and lies, and lies ! "

He cried her name sharply, like a man who has

344 THE STORY OF A LIE

taken a physical hurt, and that was the last word
that either of them spoke until they reached Thyme-
bury Junction.

This was a station isolated in the midst of moor-
lands, yet living on the great up-line to London.
The nearest town, Thymebury itself, was seven
miles distant along the branch they call the Vale
of Thyme Railway. It was now nearly half an
hour past noon, the down train had just gone by,
and there would be no more traffic at the junction
until half-past three, when the local train comes
in to meet the up express at a quarter before four.
The stationmaster had already gone off to his
garden, which was half a mile away in a hollow
of the moor ; a porter, who was just leaving, took
charge of the phaeton, and promised to return it
before night to Naseby House ; only a deaf, snuffy,
and stern old man remained to play propriety for
Dick and Esther.

Before the phaeton had driven off, the girl had
entered the station and seated herself upon a bench.
The endless, empty moorlands stretched before her,
entirely unenclosed, and with no boundary but the
horizon. Two lines of rails, a wagon shed, and
a few telegraph posts alone diversified the outlook.
As for sounds, the silence was unbroken save by
the chant of the telegraph wires and the crying
of the plovers on the waste. With the approach
of midday the wind had more and more fallen, it
was now sweltering hot, and the air trembled in
the sunshine.

Dick paused for an instant on the threshold of

THE STORY OF A LIE 345

the platform. Then, in two steps, he was by her
side and speaking almost with a sob.

" Esther," he said, " have pity on me. What
have I done? Can you not forgive me? Esther,
you loved me once — can you not love me
still?"

" How can I tell you ? How am I to know ? "
she answered. " You are all a lie to me — all a
lie from first to last. You were laughing at my
folly, playing with me like a child, at the very time
when you declared you loved me. Which was
true? was any of it true? or was it all, all a
mockery? I am weary trying to find out. And
you say I loved you; I loved my father's friend.
I never loved, I never heard of, you, until that
man came home and I began to find myself de-
ceived. Give me back my father, be what you were
before, and you may talk of love indeed."

"Then you cannot forgive me — cannot?" he
asked.

" I have nothing to forgive," she answered.
" You do not understand."

" Is that your last word, Esther? " said he, very
white and biting his lip to keep it still.

" Yes ; that is my last word," replied she.

" Then we are here on false pretences, and we
stay here no longer," he said. " Had you still
loved me, right or wrong, I should have taken you
away, because then I could have made you happy.
But as it is — I must speak plainly — what you
proposed is degrading to you and an insult to me,
and a rank unkindness to your father. Your father

346 THE STORY OF A LIE

may be this or that, but you should use him like
a fellow-creature. "

" What do you mean ? " she flashed. " I leave
him my house and all my money; it is more than
he deserves. I wonder you dare speak to me
about that man. And besides, it is all he cares
for; let him take it, and let me never hear from
him again.,,

" I thought you romantic about fathers," he
said.

" Is that a taunt ? " she demanded.

" No," he replied, " it is an argument. No one
can make you like him, but don't disgrace him in
his own eyes. He is old, Esther, old and broken
down. Even I am sorry for him, and he has been
the loss of all I cared for. Write to your aunt;
when I see her answer you can leave quietly and
naturally, and I will take you to your aunt's door.
But in the meantime you must go home. You have
no money, and so you are helpless, and must do
as I tell you; and believe me, Esther, I do all for
your good, and your good only, so God help me."

She had put her hand into her pocket and with-
drawn it empty.

" I counted upon you," she wailed.

" You counted rightly, then," he retorted. " I
will not, to please you for a moment, make both of
us unhappy for our lives ; and since I cannot marry
you, we have only been too long away and must
go home at once."

" Dick," she cried suddenly, " perhaps I might
— perhaps in time — perhaps "

THE STORY OF A LIE 347

" There is no perhaps about the matter," inter-
rupted Dick. I must go and bring the phaeton.' '

And with that he strode from the station, all in
a glow of passion and virtue. Esther, whose eyes
had come alive and her cheeks flushed during these
last words, relapsed in a second into a state of
petrifaction. She remained without motion dur-
ing his absence, and when he returned suffered
herself to be put back into the phaeton, and driven
off on the return journey like an idiot or a tired
child. Compared with what she was now, her
condition of the morning seemed positively natural.
She sat cold and white and silent, and there was
no speculation in her eyes. Poor Dick flailed and
flailed at the pony, and once tried to whistle, but
his courage was going down; huge clouds of de-
spair gathered together in his soul, and from time
to time their darkness was divided by a piercing
flash of longing and regret. He had lost his love
— he had lost his love for good.

The pony was tired, and the hills very long
and steep, and the air sultrier than ever, for now
the breeze began to fail entirely. It seemed as
if this miserable drive would never be done, as
if poor Dick would never be able to go away
and be comfortably wretched by himself; for
all his desire was to escape from her presence
and the reproach of her averted looks. He had
lost his love, he thought — he had lost his love
for good.

They were already not far from the cottage,
when his heart again faltered and he appealed to

348 THE STORY OF A LIE

her once more, speaking low and eagerly in broken
phrases.

" I cannot live without your love," he concluded.

" I do not understand what you mean," she
replied, and I believe with perfect truth.

" Then," said he, wounded to the quick, " your
aunt might come and fetch you herself. Of course
you can command me as you please, but I think it
would be better so."

" Oh yes," she said wearily, " better so."

This was the only exchange of words between
them till about four o'clock ; the phaeton, mounting
the lane, " opened out " the cottage between the
leafy banks. Thin smoke went straight up from the
chimney; the flowers in the garden, the hawthorn
in the lane, hung down their heads in the heat;
the stillness was broken only by the sound of hoofs.
For right before the gate a livery servant rode
slowly up and down, leading a saddle horse. And
in this last Dick shuddered to identify his father's
chestnut.

Alas! poor Richard, what should this portend?

The servant, as in duty bound, dismounted and
took the phaeton into his keeping, yet Dick thought
he touched his hat to him with something of a grin.
Esther, passive as ever, was helped out and crossed
the garden with a slow and mechanical gait, and
Dick following close behind her, heard from within
the cottage his father's voice upraised in anathema,
and the shriller tones of the Admiral responding
in the key of war.

CHAPTER VIII

BATTLE ROYAL

SQUIRE NASEBY, on sitting down to lunch,
had inquired for Dick, whom he had not
seen since the day before at dinner ; and the
servant answering awkwardly that Master Richard
had come back, but had gone out again with the
pony-phaeton, his suspicions became aroused, and
he cross-questioned the man until the whole was
out. It appeared from this report that Dick had
been going about for nearly a month with a girl
in the Vale — a Miss Van Tromp ; that she lived
near Lord Trevanion's upper wood; that recently
Miss Van Tromp's papa had returned home from
foreign parts after a prolonged absence; that this
papa was an. old gentleman, very chatty and free
with his money in the public-house — whereupon
Mr. Naseby's face became encrimsoned; that the
papa, furthermore, was said to be an admiral —
whereupon Mr. Naseby spat out a whistle brief and
fierce as an oath; that Master Dick seemed very
friendly with the papa — " God help him ! " said
Mr. Naseby; that last night Master Dick had not
come in, and to-day he had driven away in the
phaeton with the young lady.

350 THE STORY OF A LIE

" Young woman," corrected Mr. Naseby.

" Yes, sir," said the man, who had been unwilling
enough to gossip from the first, and was now cowed
by the effect of his communications on the master.
" Young woman, sir ! "

"Had they luggage?" demanded the Squire.

" Yes, sir."

Mr. Naseby was silent for a moment, struggling
to keep down his emotion, and he mastered it so
far as to mount into the sarcastic vein, when he
was in the nearest danger of melting into the
sorrowful.

"And was this — this Van Dunk with them?"
he asked, dwelling scornfully on the name.

The servant believed not, and being eager to
shift the responsibility to other shoulders, sug-
gested that perhaps the master had better inquire
further from George the stableman in person.

" Tell him to saddle the chestnut and come with
me. He can take the grey gelding; for we may
ride fast. And then you can take away this trash,"
added Mr. Naseby, pointing to the luncheon ; and
he arose, lordly in his anger, and marched forth
upon the terrace to await his horse.

There Dick's old nurse shrunk up to him, for the
news went like wildfire over Naseby House, and
timidly expressed a hope that there was nothing
much amiss with the young master.

" I '11 pull him through," the Squire said grimly,
as though he meant to pull him through a threshing
mill ; I '11 save him from this gang ; God help
him with the next ! He has a taste for low com-

THE STORY OF A LIE 351

pany, and no natural affections to steady him. His
father was no society for him ; he must go fuddling
with a Dutchman, Nance, and now he 's caught.
Let us pray he '11 take the lesson,', he added, more
gravely, " but youth is here to make troubles, and
age to pull them out again."

Nance whimpered and recalled several episodes
of Dick's childhood, which moved Mr. Naseby to
blow his nose and shake her hard by the hand ; and
then, the horse having arrived opportunely, to get
himself without delay into the saddle and canter off.

He rode straight, hot spur, to Thymebury, where,
as was to be expected, he could glean no tidings of
the runaways. They had not been seen at the
George; they had not been seen at the station.
The shadow darkened on Mr. Naseby's face; the
junction did not occur to him ; his last hope was
for Van Tromp's cottage; thither he bade George
guide him, and thither he followed, nursing grief,
anxiety, and indignation in his heart.

" Here it is, sir," said George, stopping.

" What ! on my own land ! " he cried. " How *s
this? I let this place to somebody — M'Whirter
or M'Glashan."

" Miss M'Glashan was the young lady's aunt, sir,
I believe," returned George.

"Ay — dummies," said the Squire. "I shall
whistle for my rent too. Here, take my horse."

The Admiral, this hot afternoon, was sitting by
the window with a long glass. He already knew
the Squire by sight, and now, seeing him dismount
before the cottage and come striding through the

352 THE STORY OF A LIE

garden, concluded without doubt he was there to
ask for Esther's hand.

" This is why the girl is not yet home," he
thought ; " a very suitable delicacy on young
Naseby's part.'7

And he composed himself with some pomp, an-
swered the loud rattle of the riding-whip upon the
door with a dulcet invitation to enter, and com-
ing forward with a bow and a smile, " Mr. Naseby,
I believe," said he.

The Squire came armed for battle; took in his
man from top to toe in one rapid and scornful
glance, and decided on a course at once. He must
let the fellow see that he understood him.

"You are Mr. Van Tromp?" he returned
roughly, and without taking any notice of the prof-
fered hand.

" The same, sir," replied the Admiral. " Pray
be seated."

" No, sir," said the Squire point-blank, " I will
not be seated. I am told that you are an admiral,"
he added.

" No, sir, I am not an admiral," returned Van
Tromp, who now began to grow nettled and to
enter into the spirit of the interview.

"Then why do you call yourself one, sir?"

" I have to ask your pardon, I do not," says
Van Tromp, as grand as the Pope.

But nothing was of avail against the Squire.

"You sail under false colours from beginning
to end," he said. " Your very house was taken
under a sham name."

THE STORY OF A LIE 353

" It is not my house. I am my daughter's guest,"
replied the Admiral. " If it were my house "

" Well? " said the Squire, " what then? hey? "

The Admiral looked at him nobly, but was silent.

" Look here/' said Mr. Naseby, " this intimida-
tion is a waste of time; it is thrown away on me,
sir ; it will not succeed with me. I will not permit
you even to gain time by your fencing. Now, sir,
I presume you understand what brings me here."

" I am entirely at a loss to account for your in-
trusion," bows and waves Van Tromp.

" I will try to tell you, then. I come here as a
father " — down came the riding-whip upon the
table — "I have right and justice upon my side.
I understand your calculations, but you calculated
without me. I am a man of the world, and I see
through you and your manoeuvres. I am dealing
now with a conspiracy — I stigmatise it as such,
and I will expose it and crush it. And now I order
you to tell me how far things have gone, and
whither you have smuggled my unhappy son."

" My God, sir ! " Van Tromp broke out, " I have
had about enough of this. Your son ? God knows
where he is for me ! What the devil have I to do
with your son ? My daughter is out, for the matter
of that; I might ask you where she is, and what
would you say to that ? But this is all midsummer
madness. Name your business distinctly and be
off."

" How often am I to tell you ? " cried the Squire.
" Where did your daughter take my son to-day in
that cursed pony-carriage ? "

23

354 THE STORY OF A LIE

" In a pony-carriage ? " repeated Van Tromp.

"Yes, sir — with luggage."

"Luggage?" Van Tromp had turned a little
pale.

" Luggage, I said — luggage ! " shouted Naseby.
" You may spare me this dissimulation. Where 's
my son? You are speaking to a father, sir, a
father."

" But, sir, if this be true," out came Van Tromp
in a new key, " it is I who have an explanation to
demand."

" Precisely. There is the conspiracy," retorted
Naseby. " Oh," he added, "lama man of the
world. I can see through and through you."

Van Tromp began to understand.

" You speak a great deal about being a father,
Mr. Naseby," said he ; "I believe you forget that
the appellation is common to both of us. I am at
a loss to figure to myself, however dimly, how any
man — I have not said any gentleman — could so
brazenly insult another as you have been insulting
me since you entered this house. For the first time
I appreciate your base insinuations, and I despise
them and you. You were, I am told, a manu-
facturer ; I am an artist ; I have seen better days ;
I have moved in societies where you would not be
received, and dined where you would be glad to
pay a pound to see me dining. The so-called
aristocracy of wealth, sir, I despise. I refuse to
help you; I refuse to be helped by you. There
lies the door."

And the Admiral stood forth in a halo.

THE STORY OF A LIE 355

It was then that Dick entered. He had been
waiting in the porch for some time back, and
Esther had been listlessly standing by his side.
He had put out his hand to bar her entrance, and
she had submitted without surprise; and though
she seemed to listen, she scarcely appeared to com-
prehend. Dick, on his part, was as white as a
sheet; his eyes burned and his lips trembled with
anger as he thrust the door suddenly open, intro-
duced Esther with ceremonious gallantry, and stood
forward and knocked his hat firmer on his head
like a man about to leap.

"What is all this?" he demanded.

" Is this your father, Mr. Naseby? " inquired the
Admiral.

" It is," said the young man.

" I make you my compliments," returned Van
Tromp.

" Dick ! " cried his father, suddenly breaking
forth, " it is not too late, is it ? I have come here
in time to save you. Come, come away with me
• — come away from this place."

And he fawned upon Dick with his hands.

" Keep your hands off me," cried Dick, not
meaning unkindness, but because his nerves were
shattered by so many successive miseries.

" No, no," said the old man, " don't repulse your
father, Dick, when he has come here to save you.
Don't repulse me, my boy. Perhaps I have not
been kind to you, not quite considerate, too harsh ;
my boy, it was not for want of love. Think of
old times. I was kind to you then, was I not?

3S6 THE STORY OF A LIE

When you were a child, and your mother was with
us." Mr. Naseby was interrupted by a sort of sob.
Dick stood looking at him in a maze. " Come
away," pursued the father in a whisper; "you
need not be afraid of any consequences. I am a
man of the world, Dick; and she can have no
claim on you — no claim, I tell you ; and we '11 be
handsome too, Dick — we'll give them a good
round figure, father and daughter, and there 's
an end."

He had been trying to get Dick towards the
door, but the latter stood off.

" You had better take care, sir, how you insult
that lady," said the son, as black as night.

" You would not choose between your father
and your mistress ? " said the father.

" What do you call her, sir ? " cried Dick, high
and clear.

Forbearance and patience were not among Mr.
Naseby's qualities.

" I called her your mistress," he shouted, " and
I might have called her a "

" That is an unmanly lie," replied Dick, slowly.

"Dick!" cried the father, "Dick!"

"I do not care," said the son, strengthening
himself against his own heart ; "I — I have said
it, and it 's the truth."

There was a pause.

" Dick," said the old man at last, in a voice that
was shaken as by a gale of wind, " I am going.
I leave you with your friends, sir — with your
friends. I came to serve you, and now I go away

THE STORY OF A LIE 357

a broken man. For years I have seen this com-
ing, and now it has come. You never loved me.
Now you have been the death of me. You may
boast of that. Now I leave you. God pardon
you!"

With that he was gone; and the three who re-
mained together heard his horse's hoofs descend
the lane. Esther had not made a sign throughout
the interview, and still kept silence now that it
was over ; but the Admiral, who had once or twice
moved forward and drawn back again, now ad-
vanced for good.

" You are a man of spirit, sir," said he to Dick ;
" but though I am no friend to parental inter-
ference, I will say that you are heavy on the gov-
ernor." Then he added with a chuckle: "You
began, Richard, with a silver spoon, and here you
are in the water like the rest. Work, work, noth-
ing like work. You have parts, you have manners ;
why, with application, you may die a millionaire ! "

Dick shook himself ; he took Esther by the hand,
looking at her mournfully.

" Then this is farewell," he said.

" Yes," she answered. There was no tone in
her voice, and she did not return his gaze.

" For ever," added Dick.

" For ever," she repeated mechanically.

" I have had hard measure," he continued. " In
time, I believe I could have shown you I was
worthy, and there was no time long enough to
show how much I loved you. But it was not to
be. I have lost all."

358 THE STORY OF A LIE

He relinquished her hand, still looking at her,
and she turned to leave the room.

" Why, what in fortune's name is the meaning
of all this ? " cried Van Tromp. " Esther, come
back!"

"Let her go," said Dick, and he watched her
disappear with strangely mingled feelings. For
he had fallen into that stage when men have the
vertigo of misfortune, court the strokes of destiny,
and rush towards anything decisive, that it may
free them from suspense though at the cost of
ruin. It is one of the many minor forms of
suicide.

" She did not love me," he said, turning to her
father.

" I feared as much," said he, " when I sounded
her. Poor Dick, poor Dick! And yet I believe
I am as much cut up as you are. I was born to
see others happy."

"You forget," returned Dick, with something
like a sneer, " that I am now a pauper."

Van Tromp snapped his fingers.

" Tut ! " said he ; " Esther has plenty for us all."

Dick looked at him with some wonder. It had
never dawned upon him that the shiftless, thrift-
less, worthless, sponging parasite was yet, after all
and in spite of all, not mercenary in the issue of
his thoughts; yet so it was.

" Now," said Dick, " I must go."

" Go? " cried Van Tromp. " Where? Not one
foot, Mr. Richard Naseby. Here you shall stay
in the meantime! and — well, and do something

THE STORY OF A LIE 359

practical — advertise for a situation as private sec-
retary — and when you have it, go and welcome.
But in the meantime, sir, no false pride; we must
stay with our friends ; we must sponge awhile on
Papa Van Tromp, who has sponged so often upon
us."

" By God," cried Dick, " I believe you are the
best of the lot."

" Dick, my boy," replied the Admiral, winking,
" you mark me, I am not the worst."

" Then why," began Dick, and then paused.
" But Esther," he began again, once more to in-
terrupt himself. " The fact is, Admiral," he came
out with it roundly now, " your daughter wished
to run away from you to-day, and I only brought
her back with difficulty."

"In the pony-carriage?" asked the Admiral,
with the silliness of extreme surprise.

" Yes," Dick answered.

"Why, what the devil was she running away
from?"

Dick found the question unusually hard to
answer.

" Why," said he, " you know you 're a bit of a
rip."

" I behave to that girl, sir, like an archdeacon,"
replied Van Tromp warmly.

" Well — excuse me — but you know you
drink," insisted Dick.

" I know that I was a sheet in the wind's eye,
sir, once — once only, since I reached this place,"
retorted the Admiral. " And even then I was fit

360 THE STORY OF A LIE

for any drawing-room. I should like you to tell
me how many fathers, lay and clerical, go up-stairs
every day with a face like a lobster and cod's
eyes — and are dull, upon the back of it — not
even mirth for the money! No, if that's what
she runs for, all I say is, let her run."

"You see," Dick tried it again, "she has
fancies "

" Confound her fancies ! " cried Van Tromp.
"I used her kindly; she had her own way; I
was her father. Besides, I had taken quite a lik-
ing to the girl, and meant to stay with her for
good. But I tell you what it is, Dick, since she
has trifled with you — oh, yes, she did though!
— and since her old papa 's not good enough for
her — the devil take her, I say."

" You will be kind to her at least ? " said Dick.

" I never was unkind to a living soul," replied
the Admiral. " Firm I can be, but not unkind."

" Well," said Dick, offering his hand. " God
bless you, and farewell."

The Admiral swore by all his gods he should
not go. " Dick," he said, " you are a selfish dog;
you forget your old Admiral. You would n't leave
him alone, would you?"

It was useless to remind him that the house was
not his to dispose of, that being a class of consid-
erations to which his intelligence was closed; so
Dick tore himself off by force, and shouting a good-
bye, made off along the lane to Thymebury.

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH THE LIBERAL EDITOR APPEARS
AS "DEUS EX MACHINA"

IT was perhaps a week later, as old Mr. Naseby
sat brooding in his study, that there was
shown in upon him, on urgent business, a
little hectic gentleman shabbily attired.

" I have to ask pardon for this intrusion, Mr.
Naseby," he said ; " but I come here to perform a
duty. My card has been sent in, but perhaps you
may not know, what it does not tell you, that I am
the editor of the Thymebury Star."

Mr. Naseby looked up indignant.

" I cannot fancy," he said, " that we have much
in common to discuss."

" I have only a word to say — one piece of in-
formation to communicate. Some months ago, we
had — you will pardon my referring to it, it is
absolutely necessary — but we had an unfortunate
difference as to facts."

" Have you come to apologise ? " asked the
Squire sternly.

" No, sir ; to mention a circumstance. On the
morning in question, your son, Mr. Richard
Naseby "

362 THE STORY OF A LIE

" I do not permit his name to be mentioned."
" You will, however, permit me," replied the
Editor.

" You are cruel," said the Squire. He was right,
he was a broken man.

Then the Editor described Dick's warning visit;
and how he had seen in the lad's eye that there
was a thrashing in the wind, and had escaped
through pity only — so the Editor put it —
"through pity only, sir. And oh, sir," he went
on, " if you had seen him speaking up for you, I
am sure you would have been proud of your son.
I know I admired the lad myself, and indeed
that 's what brings me here."

" I have misjudged him," said the Squire. " Do
you know where he is ? "

" Yes, sir, he lies sick at Thymebury."
" You can take me to him ? "
" I can."

" I pray God he may forgive me," said the father.
And he and the Editor made post-haste for the
county town.

Next day the report went abroad that Mr.
Richard was reconciled to his father and had been
taken home to Naseby House. He was still ailing,
it was said, and the Squire nursed him like the
proverbial woman. Rumour in this instance did
no more than justice to the truth; and over the
sick-bed many confidences were exchanged, and
clouds that had been growing for years passed
away in a few hours, and as fond mankind loves
to hope, for ever. Many long talks had been fruit-

THE STORY OF A LIE 363

less in external action, though fruitful for the un-
derstanding of the pair; but at last, one showery
Tuesday, the Squire might have been observed
upon his way to the cottage in the lane.

The old gentleman had arranged his features
with a view to self-command, rather than external
cheerfulness; and he entered the cottage on his
visit of conciliation with the bearing of a clergy-
man come to announce a death.

The Admiral and his daughter were both within,
and both looked upon their visitor with more sur-
prise than favour.

" Sir," said he to Van Tromp, " I am told I
have done you much injustice."

There came a little sound in Esther's throat, and
she put her hand suddenly to her heart.

" You have, sir ; and the acknowledgment suf-
fices," replied the Admiral. "I am prepared, sir,
to be easy with you, since I hear you have made it
up with my friend Dick. But let me remind you
that you owe some apologies to this young lady
also."

" I shall have the temerity to ask for more than
her forgiveness," said the Squire. " Miss Van
Tromp," he continued, " once I was in great dis-
tress, and knew nothing of you or your character ;
but I believe you will pardon a few rough words
to an old man who asks forgiveness from his heart.
I have heard much of you since then; for you
have a fervent advocate in my house. I believe
you will understand that I speak of my son. He
is, I regret to say, very far from well; he docs

364 THE STORY OF A LIE

not pick up as the doctors had expected; he has
a great deal upon his mind, and, to tell the truth,
my girl, if you won't help us, I am afraid I shall
lose him. Come, now, forgive him ! I was angry
with him once myself, and I found I was in the
wrong. This is only a misunderstanding, like the
other, believe me; and, with one kind movement,
you may give happiness to him, and to me, and to
yourself/ '

Esther made a movement towards the door, but
long before she reached it she had broken forth
sobbing.

" It is all right," said the Admiral ; " I under-
stand the sex. Let me make you my compliments,
Mr. Naseby."

The Squire was too much relieved to be angry.

" My dear," said he to Esther, " you must not
agitate yourself."

" She had better go up and see him right away,"
suggested Van Tromp.

" I had not ventured to propose it," replied the
Squire. " Les convenances, I believe "

" Je m'en fiche," cried the Admiral, snapping his
fingers. " She shall go and see my friend Dick.
Run and get ready, Esther."

Esther obeyed.

" She has not — has not run away again ? " in-
quired Mr. Naseby, as soon as she was gone.

" No," said Van Tromp, " not again. She is a
devilish odd girl though, mind you that."

" But I cannot stomach the man with the car-
buncles," thought the Squire.

THE STORY OF A LIE 365

And this is why there is a new household and
a brand-new baby in Naseby Dower House; and
why the great Van Tromp lives in pleasant style
upon the shores of England; and why twenty-six
individual copies of the Thymebury Star are re-
ceived daily at the door of Naseby House.

THE BODY-SNATCHER

THE BODY-SNATCHER

EVERY night in the year, four of us sat in
the small parlour of the George at Deben-
ham — the undertaker, and the landlord,
and Fettes, and myself. Sometimes there would
be more; but blow high, blow low, come rain or
snow or frost, we four would be each planted in
his own particular arm-chair. Fettes was an old
drunken Scotchman, a man of education obviously,
and a man of some property, since he lived in idle-
ness. He had come to Debenham years ago, while
still young, and by a mere continuance of living
had grown to be an adopted townsman. His blue
camlet cloak was a local antiquity, like the church-
spire. His place in the parlour at the George, his
absence from church, his old, crapulous, disrepu-
table vices, were all things of course in Debenham.
He had some vague Radical opinions and some
fleeting infidelities, which he would now and
again set forth and emphasise with tottering
slaps upon the table. He drank rum — five glasses
regularly every evening; and for the greater
portion of his nightly visit to the George sat, with
his glass in his right hand, in a state of melancholy
alcoholic saturation. We called him the Doctor, for
he was supposed to have some special knowledge
of medicine, and had been known, upon a pinch, to

24

370 THE BODY-SNATCHER

set a fracture or reduce a dislocation; but beyond
these slight particulars, we had no knowledge of
his character and antecedents.

One dark winter night — it had struck nine
some time before the landlord joined us — there
was a sick man in the George, a great neighbouring
proprietor suddenly struck down with apoplexy on
his way to Parliament; and the great man's still
greater London doctor had been telegraphed to his
bedside. It was the first time that such a thing had
happened in Debenham, for the railway was but
newly open, and we were all proportionately moved
by the occurrence.

" He 's come," said the landlord, after he had
filled and lighted his pipe.

" He ? " said I. " Who ? — not the doctor ? *

" Himself," replied our host.

"What is his name?"

" Dr. Macfarlane," said the landlord.

Fettes was far through his third tumbler,
stupidly fuddled, now nodding over, now staring
mazily around him ; but at the last word he seemed
to awaken, and repeated the name " Macfarlane "
twice, quietly enough the first time, but with
sudden emotion at the second.

"Yes," said the landlord, "that's his name,
Dr. Wolfe Macfarlane."

Fettes became instantly sober; his eyes awoke,
his voice became clear, loud, and steady, his
language forcible and earnest. We were all
startled by the transformation, as if a man had
risen from the dead.

THE BODY-SNATCHER 371

" I beg your pardon," he said, " I am afraid I
have not been paying much attention to your talk.
Who is this Wolfe Macfarlane? " And then, when
he had heard the landlord out, " It cannot be, it
cannot be," he added ; " and yet I would like well
to see him face to face."

" Do you know him, Doctor ? " asked the under-
taker, with a gasp.

" God forbid ! " was the reply. " And yet the
name is a strange one ; it were too much to fancy
two. Tell me, landlord, is he old ? "

" Well," said the host, " he 's not a young man,
to be sure, and his hair is white; but he looks
younger than you."

" He is older, though ; years older. But," with
a slap upon the table, " it 's the rum you see in my
face — rum and sin. This man, perhaps, may have
an easy conscience and a good digestion. Con-
science ! Hear me speak. You would think I was
some good, old, decent Christian, would you not?
But no, not I ; I never canted. Voltaire might have
canted if he 'd stood in my shoes ; but the brains "
— with a rattling fillip on his bald head — t the
brains were clear and active, and I saw and made
no deductions."

" If you know this doctor," I ventured to re-
mark, after a somewhat awful pause, " I should
gather that you do not share the landlord's good
opinion."

Fettes paid no regard to me.

" Yes," he said, with sudden decision, " I must
see him face to face."

372 THE BODY-SNATCHER

There was another pause, and then a door was
closed rather sharply on the first floor, and a step
was heard upon the stair.

" That 's the doctor," cried the landlord. " Look
sharp, and you can catch him."

It was but two steps from the small parlour to
the door of the old George Inn ; the wide oak stair-
case landed almost in the street; there was room
for a Turkey rug and nothing more between the
threshold and the last round of the descent; but
this little space was every evening brilliantly lit up,
not only by the light upon the stair and the great
signal-lamp below the sign, but by the warm radi-
ance of the bar-room window. The George thus
brightly advertised itself to passers-by in the cold
street. Fettes walked steadily to the spot, and we,
who were hanging behind, beheld the two men
meet, as one of them had phrased it, face to face.
Dr. Macfarlane was alert and vigorous. His white
/hair set off his pale and placid, although energetic,
countenance. He was richly dressed in the finest
of broadcloth and the whitest of linen, with a great
gold watchchain, and studs and spectacles of the
same precious material. He wore a broad-folded
tie, white and speckled with lilac, and he carried on
his arm a comfortable driving-coat of fur. There
was no doubt but he became his years, breathing,
as he did, of wealth and consideration; and it
was a surprising contrast to see our parlour sot
— bald, dirty, pimpled, and robed in his old cam-
let cloak — confront him at the bottom of the
stairs.

THE BODY-SNATCHER 373

" Macfarlane! " he said somewhat loudly, more
like a herald than a friend.

The great doctor pulled up short on the fourth
step, as though the familiarity of the address sur-
prised and somewhat shocked his dignity.

f? Toddy Macfarlane ! " repeated Fettes.

The London man almost staggered. He stared
for the swiftest of seconds at the man before him,
glanced behind him with a sort of scare, and then
in a startled whisper, " Fettes ! " he said, " you !

" Ay," said the other, " me ! Did you think I
was dead too? We are not so easy shut of our
acquaintance.' '

" Hush, hush ! " exclaimed the doctor. " Hush,
hush ! this meeting is so unexpected — I can see
you are unmanned. I hardly knew you, I confess,
at first ; but I am overjoyed — overjoyed to have
this opportunity. For the present it must be how-
d'ye-do and good-bye in one, for my fly is waiting,
and I must not fail the train; but you shall —
let me see — yes — you shall give me your ad-
dress, and you can count on early news of me.
We must do something for you, Fettes. I fear you
are out at elbows ; but we must see to that for auld
lang syne, as once we sang at suppers."

" Money ! " cried Fettes ; " money from you !
The money that I had from you is lying where
I cast it in the rain."

Dr. Macfarlane had talked himself into some
measure of superiority and confidence, but the un-
common energy of this refusal cast him back into
his first confusion.

374 THE BODY-SNATCHER

A horrible, ugly look came and went across his
almost venerable countenance. " My dear fellow,"
he said, "be it as you please ; my last thought is to
offend you. I would intrude on none. I will leave
you my address, however "

" I do not wish it — I do not wish to know
the roof that shelters you," interrupted the other.
" I heard your name ; I feared it might be you ; I
wished to know if, after all, there were a God;
I know now that there is none. Begone ! "

He still stood in the middle of the rug, between
the stair and doorway ; and the great London phy-
sician, in order to escape, would be forced to step
to one side. It was plain that he hesitated before
the thought of this humiliation. White as he was,
there was a dangerous glitter in his spectacles;
but while he still paused uncertain, he became
aware that the driver of his fly was peering in from
the street at this unusual scene and caught a
glimpse at the same time of our little body from
the parlour, huddled by the corner of the bar. The
presence of so many witnesses decided him at once
to flee. He crouched together, brushing on the
wainscot, and made a dart like a serpent, striking
for the door. But his tribulation was not yet
entirely at an end, for even as he was passing
Fettes clutched him by the arm and these words
came in a whisper, and yet painfully distinct,
" Have you seen it again ? "

The great rich London doctor cried out aloud
with a sharp, throttling cry; he dashed his ques-
tioner across the open space, and, with his hands

THE BODY-SNATCHER 375

over his head, fled out of the door like a detected
thief. Before it had occurred to one of us to make
a movement the fly was already rattling toward the
station. The scene was over like a dream, but the
dream had left proofs and traces of its passage.
Next day the servant found the fine gold spectacles
broken on the threshold, and that very night we
were all standing breathless by the bar-room
window, and Fettes at our side, sober, pale, and
resolute in look.

" God protect us, Mr. Fettes ! " said the landlord,
coming first into possession of his customary
senses. " What in the universe is all this ? These
are strange things you have been saying."

Fettes turned toward us; he looked us each in
succession in the face. " See if you can hold your
tongues," said he. " That man Macfarlane is not
safe to cross ; those that have done so already have
repented it too late."

And then, without so much as finishing his third
glass, far less waiting for the other two, he bade us
good-bye and went forth, under the lamp of the
hotel, into the black night.

We three turned to our places in the parlour, with
the big red fire and four clear candles ; and as we
recapitulated what had passed the first chill of our
surprise soon changed into a glow of curiosity. We
sat late; it was the latest session I have known in
the old George. Each man, before we parted, had
his theory that he was bound to prove; and none
of us had any nearer business in this world than to
track out the past of our condemned companion.

376 THE BODY-SNATCHER

and surprise the secret that he shared with the great
London doctor. It is no great boast, but I believe
I was a better hand at worming out a story than
either of my fellows at the George; and perhaps
there is now no other man alive who could narrate
to you the following foul and unnatural events.

In his young days Fettes studied medicine in the
schools of Edinburgh. He had talent of a kind,
the talent that picks up swiftly what it hears and
readily retails it for its own. He worked little at
home j but he was civil, attentive, and intelligent in
the presence of his masters. They soon picked him
out as a lad who listened closely and remembered
well ; nay, strange as it seemed to me when I first
heard it, he was in those days well favoured, and
pleased by his exterior. There was, at that period,
a certain extramural teacher of anatomy, whom I
shall here designate by the letter K. His name
was subsequently too well known. The man who
bore it skulked through the streets of Edinburgh
in disguise, while the mob that applauded at the
execution of Burke called loudly for the blood of

his employer. But Mr. K was then at the top

of his vogue; he enjoyed a popularity due partly
to his own talent and address, partly to the inca-
pacity of his rival, the university professor. The
students, at least, swore by his name, and Fettes
believed himself, and was believed by others, to
have laid the foundations of success when he had
acquired the favour of this meteorically famous

man. ^Ir. K was a bon vivant as well as an

accomplished teacher ; he liked a sly illusion no less

THE BODY-SNATCHER 377

than a careful preparation. In both capacities
Fettes enjoyed and deserved his notice, and by the
second year of his attendance he held the half-
regular position of second demonstrator or sub-
assistant in his class.

In this capacity, the charge of the theatre and
lecture-room devolved in particular upon his
shoulders. He had to answer for the cleanliness of
the premises and the conduct of the other students,
and it was a part of his duty to supply, receive, and
divide the various subjects. It was with a view to
this last — at that time very delicate — affair that

he was lodged by Mr. K in the same wynd,

and at last in the same building, with the dissecting-
rooms. Here, after a night of turbulent pleasures,
his hand still tottering, his sight still misty and
confused, he would be called out of bed in the
black hours before the winter dawn by the unclean
and desperate interlopers who supplied the table.
He would open the door to these men, since in- *
famous throughout the land. He would help them
with their tragic burthen, pay them their sordid
price, and remain alone, when they were gone, with
the unfriendly relics of humanity. From such a
scene he would return to snatch another hour or
two of slumber, to repair the abuses of the night,
and refresh himself for the labours of the day.

Few lads could have been more insensible to the
impressions of a life thus passed among the en-
signs of mortality. His mind was closed against
all general considerations. He was incapable of
interest in the fate and fortunes of another, the

378 THE BODY-SNATCHER

slave of his own desires and low ambitions. Cold,
light, and selfish in the last resort, he had that
modicum of prudence, miscalled morality, which
keeps a man from inconvenient drunkenness or
punishable theft. He coveted, besides, a measure
of consideration from his masters and his fellow-
pupils, and he had no desire to fail conspicuously
in the external parts of life. Thus he made it his
pleasure to gain some distinction in his studies, and
day after day rendered unimpeachable eye-service

to his employer, Mr. K . For his day of

work he indemnified himself by nights of roaring,
blackguardly enjoyment; and when that balance
had been struck, the organ that he called his
conscience declared itself content.

The supply of subjects was a continual trouble to
him as well as to his master. In that large and
busy class, the raw material of the anatomists kept
perpetually running out; and the business thus
rendered necessary was not only unpleasant in it-
self, but threatened dangerous consequences to all
who were concerned. It was the policy of Mr.

K to ask no questions in his dealings with the

trade. " They bring the body, and we pay the
price," he used to say, dwelling on the alliteration
— " quid pro quo." And, again, and somewhat
profanely, " Ask no questions," he would tell his
assistants, " for conscience' sake." There was no
understanding that the subjects were provided by
the crime of murder. Had that idea been broached
to him in words, he would have recoiled in horror ;
but the lightness of his speech upon so grave a

THE BODY-SNATCHER 379

matter was, in itself, an offence against good man-
ners, and a temptation to the men with whom he
dealt. Fettes, for instance, had often remarked to
himself upon the singular freshness of the bodies.
He had been struck again and again by the hang-
dog, abominable looks of the ruffians who came to
him before the dawn ; and putting things together
clearly in his private thoughts, he perhaps attrib-
uted a meaning too immoral and too categorical
to the unguarded counsels of his master. He
understood his duty, in short, to have three
branches: to take what was brought, to pay the
price, and to avert the eye from any evidence of
crime.

One November morning this policy of silence
was put sharply to the test. He had been awake all
night with a racking toothache — pacing his room
like a caged beast or throwing himself in fury on
his bed — and had fallen at last into that pro-
found, uneasy slumber that so often follows on a
night of pain, when he was awakened by the third
or fourth angry repetition of the concerted signal.
There was a thin, bright moonshine ; it was bitter
cold, windy, and frosty; the town had not yet
awakened, but an indefinable stir already preluded
the noise and business of the day. The ghouls
had come later than usual, and they seemed more
than usually eager to be gone. Fettes, sick with
sleep, lighted them up-stairs. He heard their
grumbling Irish voices through a dream; and as
they stripped the sack from their sad merchandise
he leaned dozing, with his shoulder propped against

380 THE BODY-SNATCHER

the wall ; he had to shake himself to find the men
their money. As he did so his eyes lighted on the
dead face. He started ; he took two steps nearer,
with the candle raised.

"God Almighty!" he cried. "That is Jane
Galbraith!"

The men answered nothing, but they shuffled
nearer the door.

" I know her, I tell you," he continued. " She
was alive and hearty yesterday. It 's impossible
she can be dead ; it 's impossible you should have
got this body fairly."

" Sure, sir, you 're mistaken entirely," said one
of the men.

But the other looked Fettes darkly in the eyes,
and demanded the money on the spot.

It was impossible to misconceive the threat or to
exaggerate the danger. The lad's heart failed him.
He stammered some excuses, counted out the sum,
and saw his hateful visitors depart. No sooner
were they gone than he hastened to confirm his
doubts. By a dozen unquestionable marks he
identified the girl he had jested with the day before.
He saw, with horror, marks upon her body that
might well betoken violence. A panic seized him,
and he took refuge in his room. There he reflected
at length over the discovery that he had made;

considered soberly the bearing of Mr. K 's

instructions and the danger to himself of interfer-
ence in so serious a business, and at last, in sore
perplexity, determined to wait for the advice of his
immediate superior, the class assistant.

THE BODY-SNATCHER 381

This was a young doctor, Wolfe Macfarlane, a
high favourite among all the reckless students,
clever, dissipated, and unscrupulous to the last
degree. He had travelled and studied abroad.
His manners were agreeable and a little forward.
He was an authority on the stage, skilful on the
ice or the links with skate or golf -club ; he dressed
with nice audacity, and, to put the finishing touch
upon his glory, he kept a gig and a strong trotting-
horse. With Fettes he was on terms of inti-
macy; indeed, their relative positions called for
some community of life; and when subjects were
scarce the pair would drive far into the country
in Macfarlane's gig, visit and desecrate some lonely
graveyard, and return before dawn with their
booty to the door of the dissecting-room.

On that particular morning Macfarlane arrived
somewhat earlier than his wont. Fettes heard him,
and met him on the stairs, told him his story, and
showed him the cause of his alarm. Macfarlane
examined the marks on her body.

" Yes," he said with a nod, " it looks fishy."

" Well, what should I do? " asked Fettes.

" Do ? " repeated the other. " Do you want to
do anything? Least said soonest mended, I should
say."

" Some one else might recognise her," objected
Fettes. " She was as well known as the Castle
Rock."

" We '11 hope not," said Macfarlane, " and if
anybody does — well, you did n't, don't you see,
and there's an end. The fact is, this has been

382 THE BODY-SNATCHER

going on too long. Stir up the mud, and you '11

get K into the most unholy trouble ; you '11

be in a shocking box yourself. So will I, if you
come to that. I should like to know how any one
of us would look, or what the devil we should
have to say for ourselves, in any Christian witness-
box. For me, you know there '$ one thing certain
— that, practically speaking, all our subjects have
been murdered.,,

" Macfarlane ! " cried Fettes.

" Come now ! " sneered the other. "As if you
had n't suspected it yourself ! "

" Suspecting is one thing "

" And proof another. Yes, I know ; and I 'm
as sorry as you are this should have come here,"
tapping the body with his cane. " The next best
thing for me is not to recognise it ; and," he added
coolly, " I don't. You may, if you please. I don't
dictate, but I think a man of the world would do

as I do ; and I may add, I fancy that is what K

would look for at our hands. The question is,
Why did he choose us two for his assistants ? And
I answer, because he did n't want old wives."

This was the tone of all others to affect the mind
of a lad like Fettes. He agreed to imitate Mac-
farlane. The body of the unfortunate girl was
duly dissected, and no one remarked or appeared
to recognise her.

One afternoon, when his day's work was over,
Fettes dropped into a popular tavern and found
Macfarlane sitting with a stranger. This was a
small man, very pale and dark, with coal-black

THE BODY-SNATCHER 383

eyes. The cut of his features gave a promise of
intellect and refinement which was but feebly real-
ised in his manners, for he proved, upon a nearer
acquaintance, coarse, vulgar, and stupid. He ex-
ercised, however, a very remarkable control over
Macfarlane ; issued orders like the Great Bashaw ;
became inflamed at the least discussion or delay,
and commented rudely on the servility with which
he was obeyed. This most offensive person took
a fancy to Fettes on the spot, plied him with drinks,
and honoured him with unusual confidences on his
past career. If a tenth part of what he confessed
were true, he was a very loathsome rogue; and
the lad's vanity was tickled by the attention of so
experienced a man.

" I 'm a pretty bad fellow myself," the stranger
remarked, " but Macfarlane is the boy — Toddy
Macfarlane I call him. Toddy, order your friend
another glass." Or it might be, " Toddy, you
jump up and shut the door." " Toddy hates me,"
he said again. " Oh, yes, Toddy, you do ! "

" Don't you call me that confounded name,"
growled Macfarlane.

" Hear him ! Did you ever see the lads play
knife? He would like to do that all over my
body," remarked the stranger.

" We medicals have a better way than that,"
said Fettes. " When we dislike a dead friend of
ours, we dissect him."

Macfarlane looked up sharply, as though this
jest were scarcely to his mind.

The afternoon passed. Gray, for that was the

384 THE BODY-SNATCHER

stranger's name, invited Fettes to join them at
dinner, ordered a feast so sumptuous that the
tavern was thrown in commotion, and when all
was done commanded Macfarlane to settle the
bill. It was late before they separated; the man
Gray was incapably drunk. Macfarlane, sobered
by his fury, chewed the cud of the money he had
been forced to squander and the slights he had
been obliged to swallow. Fettes, with various
liquors singing in his head, returned home with
devious footsteps and a mind entirely in abeyance.
Next day Macfarlane was absent from the class,
and Fettes smiled to himself as he imagined him
still squiring the intolerable Gray from tavern to
tavern. As soon as the hour of liberty had struck
he posted from place to place in quest of his last
night's companions. He could find them, how-
ever, nowhere; so returned early to his rooms,
went early to bed, and slept the sleep of the just.

At four in the morning he was awakened by
the well-known signal. Descending to the door,
he was filled with astonishment to find Macfarlane
with his gig, and in the gig one of those long
and ghastly packages with which he was so well
acquainted.

" What ? " he cried. " Have you been out alone ?
How did you manage? "

But Macfarlane silenced him roughly, bidding
him turn to business. When they had got the
body up-stairs and laid it on the table, Macfarlane
made at first as if he were going away. Then he
paused and seemed to hesitate; and then, "You

THE BODY-SNATCHER 385

had better look at the face/' said he, in tones of
some constraint. " You had better/ ' he repeated,
as Fettes only stared at him in wonder.

" But where, and how, and when did you come
by it ? " cried the other.

" Look at the face," was the only answer.

Fettes was staggered; strange doubts assailed
him. He looked from the young doctor to the
body, and then back again. At last, with a start,
he did as he was bidden. He had almost expected
the sight that met his eyes, and yet the shock was
cruel. To see, fixed in the rigidity of death and
naked on that coarse layer of sack-cloth, the man
whom he had left well clad and full of meat and
sin upon the threshold of a tavern, awoke, even
in the thoughtless Fettes, some of the terrors of
the conscience. It was a eras tibi which re-echoed
in his soul, that two whom he had known should
have come to lie upon these icy tables. Yet
these were only secondary thoughts. His first
concern regarded Wolfe. Unprepared for a chal-
lenge so momentous, he knew not how to look
his comrade in the face. He durst not meet his
eye, and he had neither words nor voice at his
command.

It was Macfarlane himself who made the first
advance. He came up quietly behind and laid his
hand gently but firmly on the other's shoulder.

" Richardson," said he, " may have the head."

Now Richardson was a student who had long
been anxious for that portion of the human sub-
ject to dissect. There was no answer, and the

«5

386 THE BODY-SNATCHER

murderer resumed : " Talking of business, you must
pay me; your accounts, you see, must tally."

Fettes found a voice, the ghost of his own : " Pay
you ! " he cried. " Pay you for that ? "

" Why, yes, of course you must. By all means
and on every possible account, you must," returned
the other. " I dare not give it for nothing, you
dare not take it for nothing ; it would compromise
us both. This is another case like Jane Galbraith's.
The more things are wrong the more we must act

as if all were right. Where does old K keep

his money? "

" There," answered Fettes hoarsely, pointing to
a cupboard in the corner.

" Give me the key, then," said the other, calmly,
holding out his hand.

There was an instant's hesitation, and the die
was cast. Macfarlane could not suppress a ner-
vous twitch, the infinitesimal mark of an immense
relief, as he felt the key between his fingers. He
opened the cupboard, brought out pen and ink and
a paper-book that stood in one compartment, and
separated from the funds in a drawer a sum suit-
able to the occasion.

" Now, look here," he said, " there is the pay-
ment made — first proof of your good faith : first
step to your security. You have now to clinch it
by a second. Enter the payment in your book,
and then you for your part may defy the devil."

The next few seconds were for Fettes an agony
of thought; but in balancing his terrors it was
the most immediate that triumphed. Any future

THE BODY-SNATCHER 387

difficulty seemed almost welcome if he could avoid
a present quarrel with Macfarlane. He set down
the candle which he had been carrying all this
time, and with a steady hand entered the date,
the nature, and the amount of the transaction.

" And now," said Macfarlane, " it 's only fair
that you should pocket the lucre. I Ve had my
share already. By the bye, when a man of the
world falls into a bit of luck, has a few shillings
extra in his pocket — I 'm ashamed to speak of
it, but there 's a rule of conduct in the case. No
treating, no purchase of expensive class-books, no
squaring of old debts; borrow, don't lend."

" Macfarlane," began Fettes, still somewhat
hoarsely, " I have put my neck in a halter to
oblige you."

"To oblige me?" cried Wolfe. "Oh, come!
You did, as near as I can see the matter, what
you downright had to do in self-defence. Sup-
pose I got into trouble, where would you be?
This second little matter flows clearly from the
first. Mr. Gray is the continuation of Miss Gal-
braith. You can't begin and then stop. If you
begin, you must keep on beginning ; that 's the
truth. No rest for the wicked."

A horrible sense of blackness and the treachery
of fate seized hold upon the soul of the unhappy
student.

" My God ! " he cried, " but what have I done ?
and when did I begin? To be made a class as-
sistant — in the name of reason, where 's the harm
in that? Service wanted the position; Service

388 THE BODY-SNATCHER

might have got it. Would he have been where
/ am now ? "

" My dear fellow," said Macfarlane, " what a
boy you are ! What harm has come to you ? What
harm can come to you if you hold your tongue?
Why, man, do you know what this life is ? There
are two squads of us — the lions and the lambs.
If you 're a lamb, you '11 come to lie upon these
tables like Gray or Jane Galbraith ; if you 're a
lion, you '11 live and drive a horse like me, like
K , like all the world with any wit or cour-
age. You 're staggered at the first. But look at

K ! My dear fellow, you 're clever, you have

pluck. I like you, and K likes you. You

were born to lead the hunt; and I tell you, on
my honour and my experience of life, three days
from now you '11 laugh at all these scarecrows like
a high-school boy at a farce/'

And with that Macfarlane took his departure
and drove off up the wynd in his gig to get under
cover before daylight. Fettes was thus left alone
with his regrets. He saw the miserable peril in
which he stood involved. He saw, with inexpres-
sible dismay, that there was no limit to his weak-
ness, and that, from concession to concession, he
had fallen from the arbiter of Macfarlane's destiny
to his paid and helpless accomplice. He would
have given the world to have been a little braver
at the time, but it did not occur to him that he
might still be brave. The secret of Jane Galbraith
and the cursed entry in the daybook closed his
mouth.

THE BODY-SNATCHER 389

Hours passed; the class began to arrive; the
members of the unhappy Gray were dealt out to
one and to another, and received without remark.
Richardson was made happy with the head; and
before the hour of freedom rang Fettes trembled
with exultation to perceive how far they had al-
ready gone toward safety.

For two days he continued to watch, with in-
creasing joy, the dreadful process of disguise.

On the third day Macfarlane made his appear-
ance. He had been ill, he said; but he made
up for lost time by the energy with which he
directed the students. To Richardson in particu-
lar he extended the most valuable assistance and
advice, and that student, encouraged by the
praise of the demonstrator, burned high with
ambitious hopes, and saw the medal already in
his grasp.

Before the week was out Macfarlane's prophecy
had been fulfilled. Fettes had outlived his terrors
and had forgotten his baseness. He began to
plume himself upon his courage, and had so ar-
ranged the story in his mind that he could look
back on these events with an unhealthy pride. Of
his accomplice he saw but little. They met, of
course, in the business of the class; they received

their orders together from Mr. K . At times

they had a word or two in private, and Macfar-
lane was from first to last particularly kind and
jovial. But it was plain that he avoided any ref-
erence to their common secret; and even when
Fettes whispered to him that he had cast in his

390 THE BODY-SNATCHER

lot with the lions and forsworn the lambs, he
only signed to him smilingly to hold his peace.
At length an occasion arose which threw the

pair once more into a closer union. Mr. K

was again short of subjects; pupils were eager,
and it was a part of this teacher's pretensions to
be always well supplied. At the same time there
came the news of a burial in the rustic graveyard
of Glencorse. "Time has little changed the place
in question. It stood then, as now, upon a cross-
road, out of call of human habitations, and buried
fathom deep in the foliage of six cedar trees. The
cries of the sheep upon the neighbouring hills, the
streamlets upon either hand, one loudly singing
among pebbles, the other dripping furtively from
pond to pond, the stir of the wind in mountainous
old flowering chestnuts, and once in seven days
the voice of the bell and the old tunes of the pre-
centor, were the only sounds that disturbed the
silence around the rural church. The Resurrec-
tion Man — to use a by-name of the period — was
not to be deterred by any of the sanctities of cus-
tomary piety. It was part of his trade to despise
and desecrate the scrolls and trumpets of old tombs,
the paths worn by the feet of worshippers and
mourners, and the offerings and the inscriptions
of bereaved affection. To rustic neighbourhoods,
where love is more than commonly tenacious, and
where some bonds of blood or fellowship unite
the entire society of a parish, the body-snatcher,
far from being repelled by natural respect, was
attracted by the ease and safety of the task. To

THE BODY-SNATCHER 391

bodies that had been laid in earth, in joyful ex-
pectation of a far different awakening, there came
that hasty, lamp-lit, terror-haunted resurrection of
the spade and mattock. The coffin was forced, the
cerements torn, and the melancholy relics, clad in
sackcloth, after being rattled for hours on moon-
less by-ways, were at length exposed to uttermost
indignities before a class of gaping boys.

Somewhat as two vultures may swoop upon a
dying lamb, Fettes and Macfarlane were to be let
loose upon a grave in that green and quiet resting-
place. The wife of a farmer, a woman who had
lived for sixty years, and been known for nothing
but good butter and a godly conversation, was to
be rooted from her grave at midnight and carried,
dead and naked, to that far-away city that she
had always honoured with her Sunday's best; the
place beside her family was to be empty till the
crack of doom ; her innocent and almost venerable
members to be exposed to that last curiosity of the
anatomist.

Late one afternoon the pair set forth, well
wrapped in cloaks and furnished with a formid-
able bottle. It rained without remission — a cold,
dense, lashing rain. Now and again there blew
a puff of wind, but these sheets of falling water
kept it down. Bottle and all, it was a sad and
silent drive as far as Penicuik, where they were
to spend the evening. They stopped once, to hide
their implements in a thick bush not far from the
churchyard, and once again at the Fisher's Tryst,
to have a toast before the kitchen fire and vary

392 THE BODY-SNATCHER

their nips of whisky with a glass of ale. When
they reached their journey's end the gig was
housed, the horse was fed and comforted, and the
two young doctors in a private room sat down to
the best dinner and the best wine the house af-
forded. The lights, the fire, the beating rain upon
the window, the cold, incongruous work that lay
before them, added zest to their enjoyment of the
meal. With every glass their cordiality increased.
Soon Macfarlane handed a little pile of gold to
his companion.

" A compliment," he said. " Between friends

these little d d accommodations ought to fly

like pipe-lights."

Fettes pocketed the money, and applauded the
sentiment to the echo. " You are a philosopher,"
he cried. " I was an ass till I knew you. You

and K between you, by the Lord Harry ! but

you '11 make a man of me."

" Of course, we shall," applauded Macfarlane.
" A man ? I tell you, it required a man to back
me up the other morning. There are some big,
brawling, forty-year-old cowards who would have

turned sick at the look of the d d thing; but

not you — you kept your head. I watched you."

" Well, and why not ? " Fettes thus vaunted
himself. " It was no affair of mine. There was
nothing to gain on the one side but disturbance,
and on the other I could count on your gratitude,
don't you see?" And he slapped his pocket till
the gold pieces rang.

Macfarlane somehow felt a certain touch of

THE BODY-SNATCHER 393

alarm at these unpleasant words. He may have
regretted that he had taught his young companion
so successfully, but he had no time to interfere,
for the other noisily continued in this boastful
strain :

" The great thing is not to be afraid. Now,
between you and me, I don't want to hang —
that 's practical ; but for all cant, Macfarlane, I
was born with a contempt. Hell, God, Devil,
right, wrong, sin, crime, and all the old gallery
of curiosities — they may frighten boys, but men
of the world, like you and me, despise them.
Here 's to the memory of Gray ! "

It was by this time growing somewhat late.
The gig, according to order, was brought round
to the door with both lamps brightly shining, and
the young men had to pay their bill and take the
road. They announced that they were bound for
Peebles, and drove in that direction till they were
clear of the last houses of the town; then, ex-
tinguishing the lamps, returned upon their course,
and followed a by-road toward Glencorse. There
was no sound but that of their own passage, and
the incessant, strident pouring of the rain. It was
pitch dark ; here and there a white gate or a white
stone in the wall guided them for a short space
across the night; but for the most part it was at
a foot pace, and almost groping, that they picked
their way through that resonant blackness to their
solemn and isolated destination. In the sunken
woods that traverse the neighbourhood of the
burying-ground the last glimmer failed them, and

394 THE BODY-SNATCHER

it became necessary to kindle a match and reillu-
mine one of the lanterns of the gig. Thus, under
the dripping trees, and environed by huge and
moving shadows, they reached the scene of their
unhallowed labours.

They were both experienced in such affairs, and
powerful with the spade ; and they had scarce been
twenty minutes at their task before they were re-
warded by a dull rattle on the coffin lid. At the
same moment Macfarlane, having hurt his hand
upon a stone, flung it carelessly above his head.
The grave, in which they now stood almost to the
shoulders, was close to the edge of the plateau
of the graveyard; and the gig lamp had been
propped, the better to illuminate their labours,
against a tree, and on the immediate verge of the
steep bank descending to the stream. Chance had
taken a sure aim with the stone. Then came a
clang of broken glass; night fell upon them;
sounds alternately dull and ringing announced the
bounding of the lantern down the bank, and its
occasional collision with the trees. A stone or
two, which it had dislodged in its descent, rattled
behind it into the profundities of the glen; and
then silence, like night, resumed its sway; and
they might bend their hearing to its utmost pitch,
but naught was to be heard except the rain, now
marching to the wind, now steadily falling over
miles of open country.

They were so nearly at an end of their abhorred
task that they judged it wisest to complete it in
the dark. The coffin was exhumed and broken

THE BODY-SNATCHER 395

open; the body inserted in the dripping sack and
carried between them to the gig; one mounted
to keep it in its place, and the other, taking the
horse by the mouth, groped along by wall and
bush until they reached the wider road by the
Fisher's Tryst. Here was a faint, diffused ra-
diancy, which they hailed like daylight; by that
they pushed the horse to a good pace and began
to rattle along merrily in the direction of the
town.

They had both been wetted to the skin during
their operations, and now, as the gig jumped
among the deep ruts, the thing that stood propped
between them fell now upon one and now upon
the other. At every repetition of the horrid con-
tact each instinctively repelled it with the greater
haste; and the process, natural although it was,
began to tell upon the nerves of the companions.
Macfarlane made some ill-favoured jest about the
farmer's wife, but it came hollowly from his lips,
and was allowed to drop in silence. Still their
unnatural burthen bumped from side to side; and
now the head would be laid, as if in confidence,
upon their shoulders, and now the drenching sack-
cloth would flap icily about their faces. A creep-
ing chill began to possess the soul of Fettes. He
peered at the bundle, and it seemed somehow larger
than at first. All over the country-side, and from
every degree of distance, the farm dogs accom-
panied their passage with tragic ululations; and
it grew and grew upon his mind that some un-
natural miracle had been accomplished, that some

396 THE BODY-SNATCHER

nameless change had befallen the dead body, and
that it was in fear of their unholy burthen that
the dogs were howling.

" For God's sake," said he, making a great effort
to arrive at speech, " for God's sake, let 's have a
light!"

Seemingly Macfarlane was affected in the same
direction ; for, though he made no reply, he stopped
the horse, passed the reins to his companion, got
down, and proceeded to kindle the remaining lamp.
They had by that time got no farther than the
cross-road down to Auchenclinny. The rain still
poured as though the deluge were returning, and
it was no easy matter to make a light in such a
world of wet and darkness. When at last the
flickering blue flame had been transferred to the
wick and began to expand and clarify, and shed
a wide circle of misty brightness round the gig,
it became possible for the two young men to see
each other and the thing they had along with
them. The rain had moulded the rough sacking
to the outlines of the body underneath; the head
was distinct from the trunk, the shoulders plainly
modelled; something at once spectral and human
riveted their eyes upon the ghastly comrade of
their drive.

For some time Macfarlane stood motionless,
holding up the lamp. A nameless dread was
swathed, like a wet sheet, about the body, and
tightened the white skin upon the face of Fettes;
a fear that was meaningless, a horror of what
could not be, kept mounting to his brain. An-

THE BODY-SNATCHER 397

other beat of the watch, and he had spoken. But
his comrade forestalled him.

" That is not a woman," said Macfarlane, in a
hushed voice.

" It was a woman when we put her in," whis-
pered Fettes.

" Hold that lamp," said the other. " I must see
her face."

And as Fettes took the lamp his companion un-
tied the fastenings of the sack and drew down the
cover from the head. The light fell very clear
upon the dark, well-moulded features and smooth-
shaven cheeks of a too familiar countenance, often
beheld in dreams of both of these young men. A
wild yell rang up into the night ; each leaped from
his own side into the roadway; the lamp fell,
broke, and was extinguished; and the horse, ter-
rified by this unusual commotion, bounded and
went off toward Edinburgh at a gallop, bearing
along with it, sole occupant of the gig, the body
of the dead and long-dissected Gray.

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