The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter's Tale by Robert Louis Stevenson (most popular ebook readers txt) 📖

by the wind; and I know not whether in cowardice or misery, turned aside and looked upon the floor. “These are dreadful tidings,” said I at length, when her silence began to put me in some fear; “and you and I behove to be the more bold if the house is to be saved.” Still she answered nothing. “There is Miss Katharine, besides,” I added: “unless we bring this matter through, her inheritance is like to be of shame.”

I do not know if it was the thought of her child or the naked word shame, that gave her deliverance; at least, I had no sooner spoken than a sound passed her lips, the like of it I never heard; it was as though she had lain buried under a hill and sought to move that burthen. And the next moment she had found a sort of voice.

“It was a fight,” she whispered. “It was not—” and she paused upon the word.

“It was a fair fight on my dear master’s part,” said I. “As for the other, he was slain in the very act of a foul stroke.”

“Not now!” she cried.

“Madam,” said I, “hatred of that man glows in my bosom like a burning fire; ay, even now he is dead. God knows, I would have stopped the fighting, had I dared. It is my shame I did not. But when I saw him fall, if I could have spared one thought from pitying of my master, it had been to exult in that deliverance.”

I do not know if she marked; but her next words were, “My lord?”

“That shall be my part,” said I.

“You will not speak to him as you have to me?” she asked.

“Madam,” said I, “have you not some one else to think of? Leave my lord to me.”

“Some one else?” she repeated.

“Your husband,” said I. She looked at me with a countenance illegible. “Are you going to turn your back on him?” I asked.

Still she looked at me; then her hand went to her heart again. “No,” said she.

“God bless you for that word!” I said. “Go to him now, where he sits in the hall; speak to him—it matters not what you say; give him your hand; say, ‘I know all;’—if God gives you grace enough, say, ‘Forgive me.’”

“God strengthen you, and make you merciful,” said she. “I will go to my husband.”

“Let me light you there,” said I, taking up the candle.

“I will find my way in the dark,” she said, with a shudder, and I think the shudder was at me.

So we separated—she down stairs to where a little light glimmered in the hall-door, I along the passage to my lord’s room. It seems hard to say why, but I could not burst in on the old man as I could on the young woman; with whatever reluctance, I must knock. But his old slumbers were light, or perhaps he slept not; and at the first summons I was bidden enter.

He, too, sat up in bed; very aged and bloodless he looked; and whereas he had a certain largeness of appearance when dressed for daylight, he now seemed frail and little, and his face (the wig being laid aside) not bigger than a child’s. This daunted me; nor less, the haggard surmise of misfortune in his eye. Yet his voice was even peaceful as he inquired my errand. I set my candle down upon a chair, leaned on the bed-foot, and looked at him.

“Lord Durrisdeer,” said I, “it is very well known to you that I am a partisan in your family.”

“I hope we are none of us partisans,” said he. “That you love my son sincerely, I have always been glad to recognise.”

“Oh! my lord, we are past the hour of these civilities,” I replied. “If we are to save anything out of the fire, we must look the fact in its bare countenance. A partisan I am; partisans we have all been; it is as a partisan that I am here in the middle of the night to plead before you. Hear me; before I go, I will tell you why.”

“I would always hear you, Mr. Mackellar,” said he, “and that at any hour, whether of the day or night, for I would be always sure you had a reason. You spoke once before to very proper purpose; I have not forgotten that.”

“I am here to plead the cause of my master,” I said. “I need not tell you how he acts. You know how he is placed. You know with what generosity, he has always met your other—met your wishes,” I corrected myself, stumbling at that name of son. “You know—you must know—what he has suffered—what he has suffered about his wife.”

“Mr. Mackellar!” cried my lord, rising in bed like a bearded lion.

“You said you would hear me,” I continued. “What you do not know, what you should know, one of the things I am here to speak of, is the persecution he must bear in private. Your back is not turned before one whom I dare not name to you falls upon him with the most unfeeling taunts; twits him—pardon me, my lord—twits him with your partiality, calls him Jacob, calls him clown, pursues him with ungenerous raillery, not to be borne by man. And let but one of you appear, instantly he changes; and my master must smile and courtesy to the man who has been feeding him with insults; I know, for I have shared in some of it, and I tell you the life is insupportable. All these months it has endured; it began with the man’s landing; it was by the name of Jacob that my master was greeted the first night.”

My lord made a movement as if to throw aside the clothes and rise. “If there be any truth in this—” said he.

“Do I look like a man lying?” I interrupted, checking him with my hand.

“You should have told me at first,” he odd.

“Ah, my lord! indeed I should, and you may well hate the face of this unfaithful servant!” I cried.

“I will take order,” said he, “at once.” And again made the movement to rise.

Again I checked him. “I have not done,” said I. “Would God I had! All this my dear, unfortunate patron has endured without help or countenance. Your own best word, my lord, was only gratitude. Oh, but he was your son, too! He had no other father. He was hated in the country, God knows how unjustly. He had a loveless marriage. He stood on all hands without affection or support—dear, generous, ill-fated, noble heart!”

“Your tears do you much honour and me much shame,” says my lord, with a palsied trembling. “But you do me some injustice. Henry has been ever dear to me, very dear. James (I do not deny it, Mr. Mackellar), James is perhaps dearer; you have not seen my James in quite a favourable light; he has suffered under his misfortunes; and we can only remember how great and how unmerited these were. And even now his is the more affectionate nature. But I will not speak of him. All that you say of Henry is most true; I do not wonder, I know him to be very magnanimous; you will say I trade upon the knowledge? It is possible; there are dangerous virtues: virtues that tempt the encroacher. Mr. Mackellar, I will make it up to him; I will take order with all this. I have been weak; and, what is worse, I have been dull!”

“I must not hear you blame yourself, my lord, with that which I have yet to tell upon my conscience,” I replied. “You have not been weak; you have been abused by a devilish dissembler. You saw yourself how he had deceived you in the matter of his danger; he has deceived you throughout in every step of his career. I wish to pluck him from your heart; I wish to force your eyes upon your other son; ah, you have a son there!”

“No, no,” said he, “two sons—I have two sons.”

I made some gesture of despair that struck him; he looked at me with a changed face. “There is much worse behind?” he asked, his voice dying as it rose upon the question.

“Much worse,” I answered. “This night he said these words to Mr. Henry: ‘I have never known a woman who did not prefer me to you, and I think who did not continue to prefer me.’”

“I will hear nothing against my daughter,” he cried; and from his readiness to stop me in this direction, I conclude his eyes were not so dull as I had fancied, and he had looked not without anxiety upon the siege of Mrs. Henry.

“I think not of blaming her,” cried I. “It is not that. These words were said in my hearing to Mr. Henry; and if you find them not yet plain enough, these others but a little after: Your wife, who is in love with me!’”

“They have quarrelled?” he said.

I nodded.

“I must fly to them,” he said, beginning once again to leave his bed.

“No, no!” I cried, holding forth my hands.

“You do not know,” said he. “These are dangerous words.”

“Will nothing make you understand, my lord?” said I.

His eyes besought me for the truth.

I flung myself on my knees by the bedside. “Oh, my lord,” cried I, “think on him you have left; think of this poor sinner whom you begot, whom your wife bore to you, whom we have none of us strengthened as we could; think of him, not of yourself; he is the other sufferer—think of him! That is the door for sorrow—Christ’s door, God’s door: oh! it stands open. Think of him, even as he thought of you. ‘Who is to tell the old man?’—these were his words. It was for that I came; that is why I am here pleading at your feet.”

“Let me get up,” he cried, thrusting me aside, and was on his feet before myself. His voice shook like a sail in the wind, yet he spoke with a good loudness; his face was like the snow, but his eyes were steady and dry.

“Here is too much speech,” said he. “Where was it?”

“In the shrubbery,” said I.

“And Mr. Henry?” he asked. And when I had told him he knotted his old face in thought.

“And Mr. James?” says he.

“I have left him lying,” said I, “beside the candles.”

“Candles?” he cried. And with that he ran to the window, opened it, and looked abroad. “It might be spied from the road.”

“Where none goes by at such an hour,” I objected.

“It makes no matter,” he said. “One might. Hark!” cries he. “What is that?”

It was the sound of men very guardedly rowing in the bay; and I told him so.

“The freetraders,” said my lord. “Run at once, Mackellar; put these candles out. I will dress in the meanwhile; and when you return we can debate on what is wisest.”

I groped my way downstairs, and out at the door. From quite a far way off a sheen was visible, making points of brightness in the shrubbery; in so black a night it might have been remarked for miles; and I blamed myself bitterly for my incaution. How much more sharply when I reached the place! One of the candlesticks was overthrown, and that taper quenched. The other burned steadily by itself, and made a broad space of light upon the frosted ground. All within that circle seemed, by the force of contrast and the overhanging blackness, brighter than by day. And there was the bloodstain in the midst; and a little farther off Mr. Henry’s sword, the pommel of which was of silver; but of the body, not a trace. My heart thumped upon my ribs, the hair stirred upon my scalp, as I stood there staring—so strange was the sight, so dire the fears it wakened. I looked right and left; the ground was so hard, it told no story. I stood and listened till my ears ached, but the night was hollow about me like an empty church; not even a ripple stirred upon the shore; it seemed you might have heard a pin drop in the county.

I put the candle out, and the blackness fell about me groping dark; it was like a crowd surrounding me; and I went back to the house of Durrisdeer, with my chin upon my shoulder, startling, as I went, with craven suppositions. In the door a figure moved to meet me, and I had near screamed with terror ere I recognised Mrs. Henry.

“Have you told him?” says she.

“It was he who sent me,” said I. “It is gone. But why are you here?”

“It