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diff --git a/old/14373.txt b/old/14373.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d70506f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14373.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7832 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Noble Life, by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: A Noble Life + +Author: Dinah Maria Mulock Craik + +Release Date: December 17, 2004 [eBook #14373] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NOBLE LIFE*** + + +E-text prepared by Robin Eugene Escovado + + + +A NOBLE LIFE + +by + +DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK + +Author of _John Halifax, Gentleman_, _Christian's Mistake_, +&c., &c., &c. + +New York +Harper & Brothers, Publishers +Franklin Square + + + + + + + +Dedicated, with the affection of eighteen years, +To Uncle George + + + + + +Chapter 1 + +Many years ago, how many need not be recorded, there lived in his +ancestral castle, in the far north of Scotland, the last Earl of +Cairnforth. + +You will not find his name in "Lodge's Peerage," for, as I say, he was +the last earl, and with him the title became extinct. It had been borne +for centuries by many noble and gallant men, who had lived worthily or +died bravely. But I think among what we call "heroic" lives--lives +the story of which touches us with something higher than pity, and +deeper than love--there never was any of his race who left behind a +history more truly heroic than he. + +Now that it is all over and done--now that the soul so mysteriously +given has gone back unto Him who gave it, and a little green turf in the +kirk-yard behind Cairnforth Manse covers the poor body in which it dwelt +for more than forty years, I feel it might do good to many, and would do +harm to none, if I related the story--a very simple one, and more +like a biography than a tale--of Charles Edward Stuart Montgomerie, +last Earl of Cairnforth. + +He did not succeed to the title; he was born Earl of Cairnforth, his +father having been drowned in the loch a month before, the wretched +countess herself beholding the sight from her castle windows. She lived +but to know she had a son and heir--to whom she desired might be +given his father's name: then she died--more glad than sorry to +depart, for she had loved her husband all her life, and had only been +married to him a year. Perhaps, had she once seen her son, she might +have wished less to die than to live, if only for his sake; however, it +was not God's will that this should be. So, at two days old, the "poor +little earl"--as from his very birth people began compassionately to +call him--was left alone in the world, without a single near relative +or connection, his parents having both been only children, but with his +title, his estate, and twenty thousand a year. + +Cairnforth Castle is one of the loveliest residences in all Scotland. +It is built on the extremity of a long tongue of land which stretches +out between two salt-water lochs--Loch Beg, the "little," and Loch +Mhor, the "big" lake. The latter is grand and gloomy, shut in by bleak +mountains, which sit all round it, their feet in the water, and their +heads in mist and cloud. But Loch Beg is quite different. It has +green, cultivated, sloping shores, fringed with trees to the water's +edge, and the least ray of sunshine seems always to set it dimpling with +wavy smiles. Now and then a sudden squall comes down from the chain of +mountains far away beyond the head of the loch, and then its waters +begin to darken--just like a sudden frown over a bright face; the +waves curl and rise, and lash themselves into foam, and any little +sailing boat, which has been happily and safely riding over them five +minutes before, is often struck and capsized immediately. Thus it +happened when the late earl was drowned. + +The minister--the Rev. Alexander Cardross--had been sailing with +him; had only just landed, and was watching the boat crossing back +again, when the squall came down. Though this region is a populous +district now, with white villas dotted like daisies all along the green +shores, there was then not a house in the whole peninsula of Cairnforth +except the Castle, the Manse, and a few cottages, called the "clachan." +Before help was possible, the earl and his boatman, Neil Campbell, were +both drowned. The only person saved was little Malcolm Campbell-- +Neil's brother--a boy about ten years old. + +In most country parishes of Scotland or England there is an almost +superstitious feeling that "the minister," or "the clergyman," must be +the fittest person to break any terrible tidings. So it ought to be. +Who but the messenger of God should know best how to communicate His +awful will, as expressed in great visitations of Calamity? In this case +no one could have been more suited for his solemn office than Mr. +Cardross. He went up to the Castle door, as he had done to that of many +a cottage bearing the same solemn message of sudden death, to which +there could be but one answer--"Thy will be done." + +But the particulars of that terrible interview, in which he had to tell +the countess what already her own eyes had witnessed--though they +refused to believe the truth--the minister never repeated to any +creature except his wife. And afterward, during the four weeks that +Lady Cairnforth survived her husband, he was the only person, beyond her +necessary attendants, who saw her until she died. + +The day after her death he was suddenly summoned to the castle by Mr. +Menteith, an Edinburg writer to the signet, and confidential agent, or +factor, as the office called in Scotland, to the late earl. + +"They'll be sending for you to baptize the child. It's early--but +the pair bit thing may be delicate, and they may want it done at once, +before Mr. Menteith returns to Edinburg." + +"Maybe so, Helen; so do not expect me back till you see me." + +Thus saying, the minister quitted his sunshiny manse garden, where he +was working peacefully among his raspberry-bushes, with his wife looking +on, and walked, in meditative mood, through the Cairnforth woods, now +blue with hyacinths in their bosky shadows, and in every nook and corner +starred with great clusters of yellow primroses, which in this part of +the country grow profusely, even down to within a few feet of high-water +mark, on the tidal shores of the lochs. Their large, round, smiling +faces, so irresistibly suggestive of baby smiles at sight of them, and +baby fingers clutching at them, touched the heart of the good minister, +who had left two small creatures of his own--a "bit girlie" of five, +and a two-year-old boy--playing on his grass-plot at home with some +toys of the countess's giving: she had always been exceedingly kind to +the Manse children. + +He thought of her, lying dead; and then of her poor little motherless +and fatherless baby, whom, if she had any consciousness in her +death-hour, it must have been a sore pang to her to leave behind. And +the tears gathered again and again in the good man's eyes, shutting out +from his vision all the beauty of the spring. + +He reached the grand Italian portico, built by some former earl with a +taste for that style, and yet harmonizing well with the smooth lawn, +bounded by a circle of magnificent trees, through which came glimpses of +the glittering loch. The great doors used almost always to stand open, +and the windows were rarely closed--the countess like sunshine and +fresh air, but now all was shut up and silent, and not a soul was to be +seen about the place. + +Mr. Cardross sighed, and walked round to the other side of the castle, +where was my lady's flower-garden, or what was to be made into one. +Then he entered by French windows, from a terrace overlooking it, my +lord's library, also incomplete. For the earl, who was by no means a +bookish man, had only built that room since his marriage, to please his +wife, whom perhaps he loved all the better that she was so exceedingly +unlike himself. Now both were away--their short dream of married +life ended, their plans and hopes crumbled into dust. As yet, no +external changes had been made, the other solemn changes having come so +suddenly. Gardeners still worked in the parterres, and masons and +carpenters still, in a quiet and lazy manner, went on completing the +beautiful room; but there was no one to order them--no one watched +their work. Except for workmen, the place seemed so deserted that Mr. +Cardross wandered through the house for some time before he found a +single servant to direct him to the person of whom he was in search. + +Mr. Menteith sat alone in a little room filled with guns and fishing +rods, and ornamented with stag's heads, stuffed birds, and hunting +relics of all sorts, which had been called, not too appropriately, the +earl's "study." He was a little, dried-up man, about fifty years old, +of sharp but not unkindly aspect. When the minister entered, he looked +up from the mass of papers which he seemed to have been trying to reduce +into some kind of order--apparently the late earl's private papers, +which had been untouched since his death, for there was a sad and +serious shadow over what otherwise have been rather a humorous face. + +"Welcome, Mr. Cardross; I am indeed glad to see you. I took the liberty +of sending for you, since you are the only person with whom I can +consult--we can consult, I should say, for Dr. Hamilton wished it +likewise--on this--this most painful occasion." + +"I shall be very glad to be of the slightest service," returned Mr. +Cardross. "I had the utmost respect for those that are away." He had +the habit, this tender-hearted, pious man, who, with all his learning, +kept a religious faith as simple as a child's, as speaking of the dead +as only "away." + +The two gentlemen sat down together. They had often met before, for +whenever there were guests at Cairnforth Castle the earl always invited +the minister and his wife to dinner, but they had never fraternized +much. Now, a common sympathy, nay, more, a common grief--for +something beyond sympathy, keen personal regret, was evidently felt by +both for the departed earl and countess--made them suddenly familiar. + +"Is the child doing well?" was Mr. Cardross's first and most natural +question; but it seemed to puzzle Mr. Menteith exceedingly. + +"I suppose so--indeed, I can hardly say. This is a most difficult +and painful matter." + +"It was born alive, and is a son and heir, as I heard?" + +"Yes." + +"That is fortunate." + +"For some things; since, had it been a girl, the title would have +lapsed, and the long line of Earls of Cairnforth ended. At one time Dr. +Hamilton feared the child would be stillborn, and then, of course, the +earldom would have been extinct. The property must in that case have +passed to the earl's distant cousins, the Bruces, of whom you may have +heard, Mr. Cardross?" + +"I have; and there are few things, I fancy, which Lord Cairnforth would +have regretted more than such heir-ship." + +"You are right," said the keen W.S., evidently relieved. "It was my +instinctive conviction that you were in the late earl's confidence on +this point, which made me decide to send and consult with you. We must +take all precautions, you see. We are placed in a most painful and +responsible position--both Dr. Hamilton and myself." + +It was now Mr. Cardross's turn to look perplexed. No doubt it was a +most sad fatality which had happened, but still things did not seem to +warrant the excessive anxiety testified by Mr. Menteith. + +"I do not quite comprehend you. There might have been difficulties as +to the succession, but are they not all solved by the birth of a +healthy, living heir--whom we must cordially hope will long continue +to live?" + +"I hardly know if we ought to hope it," said the lawyer, very seriously. +"But we must 'keep a calm sough' on that matter for the present--so +far, at least, Dr. Hamilton and I have determined--in order to +prevent the Bruces from getting wind of it. Now, then, will you come +and see the earl?" + +"The earl!" re-echoed Mr. Cardross, with a start; then recollected +himself, and sighed to think how one goes and another comes, and all the +world moves on as before--passing, generation after generation, into +the awful shadow which no eye except that of faith can penetrate. Life +is a little, little day--hardly longer, in the end, for the man in +his prime than for the infant of an hour's span. + +And the minister, who was of meditative mood, thought to himself much as +a poet half a century later put into words--thoughts common to all +men, but which only such a man and such a poet could have crystallized +into four such perfect lines: + + "Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: + Thou madest man, he knows not why; + He thinks he was not made to die, + And Thou hast made him--Thou are just." + +Thus musing, Mr. Cardross followed up stairs toward the magnificent +nursery, which had been prepared months before, with a loving eagerness +of anticipation, and a merciful blindness to futurity, for the expected +heir of the Earls of Cairnforth. For, as before said, the only hope of +the lineal continuance of the race was in this one child. It lay in a +cradle resplendent with white satin hangings and lace curtains, and +beside it sat the nurse--a mere girl, but a widow already--Neil +Campbell's widow, whose first child had been born only two days after +her husband was drowned. Mr. Cardross knew that she had been suddenly +sent for out of the clachan, the countess having, with her dying breath, +desired that this young woman, whose circumstances were so like her own, +should be taken as wet-nurse to the new-born baby. + +So, in her widow's weeds, grave and sad, but very sweet-looking--she +had been a servant at the Castle, and was a rather superior young woman +--Janet Campbell took her place beside her charge with an expression +in her face as if she felt it was a charge left her by her lost +mistress, which must be kept solemnly to the end of her days--as it +was. + +The minister shook hands with her silently--she had gone through sore +affliction--but the lawyer addressed her in his quick, sharp, +business tone, under which he often disguised more emotion than he liked +to show. + +"You have not been dressing the child? Dr. Hamilton told you not to +attempt it." + +"Na, na, sir, I didna try," answered Janet, sadly and gently. + +"That is well. I'm a father of a family myself," added Mr. Menteith, +more gently: "I've six of them; but, thank the Lord, ne'er a one of them +like this. Take it on your lap, nurse, and let the minister look at it! +Ay, here comes Dr. Hamilton!" + +Mr. Cardross knew Dr. Hamilton by repute--as who did not? Since at +that period it was the widest-known name in the whole medical profession +in Scotland. And the first sight of him confirmed the reputation, and +made even a stranger recognize that his fame was both natural and +justifiable. But the minister had scarcely time to cast a glance on the +acute, benevolent, wonderfully powerful and thoughtful head, when his +attention was attracted by the poor infant, whom Janet was carefully +unswathing from innumerable folds of cotton wool. + +Mrs. Campbell was a widow of only a month, and her mistress, to whom she +had been much attached, lay dead in the next room, yet she had still a +few tears left, and they were dropping like rain over her mistress's +child. + +No wonder. It lay on her lap, the smallest, saddest specimen of +infantile deformity. It had a large head--larger than most infants +have--but its body was thin, elfish, and distorted, every joint and +limb being twisted in some way or other. You could not say that any +portion of the child was natural or perfect except the head and face. +Whether it had the power of motion or not seemed doubtful; at any rate, +it made no attempt to move, except feebly turning its head from side to +side. It lay, with its large eyes wide open, and at last opened its +poor little mouth also, and uttered a loud pathetic wail. + +"It greets, doctor, ye hear," said the nurse, eagerly; "'deed, an' it +greets fine, whiles." + +"A good sign," observed Dr. Hamilton. "Perhaps it may live after all, +though one scarcely knows whether to desire it." + +"I'll gar it live, doctor," cried Janet, as she rocked and patted it, +and at last managed to lay it to her motherly breast; "I'll gar it live, +ye'll see! That is God willing." + +"It could not live, it could never have lived at all, if He were not +willing," said the minister, reverently. And then, after a long pause, +during which he and the two other gentlemen stood watching, with sad +pitying looks, the unfortunate child, he added, so quietly and naturally +that, though they might have thought it odd, they could hardly have +thought it out of place or hypocritical, "Let us pray." + +It was a habit, long familiar to this good Presbyterian minister, who +went in and out among his parishioners as their pastor and teacher, +consoler and guide. Many a time, in many a cottage, had he knelt down, +just as he did here, in the midst of deep affliction, and said a few +simple words, as from children to a father--the Father of all men. +And the beginning and end of his prayer was, now as always, the +expression and experience of his own entire faith--"Thy will be +done." + +"But what ought we to do?" said the Edinburg writer, when, having +quitted, not unmoved, the melancholy nursery, he led the way to the +scarcely less dreary dining-room, where the two handsome, bright-looking +portraits of the late earl and countess still smiled down from the wall +--giving Mr. Cardross a start, and making him recall, as if the +intervening six weeks had been all a dream, the last day he and Mr. +Menteith dined together at that hospitable table. They stole a look at +one another, but, with true Scotch reticence, neither exchanged a word. +Yet perhaps each respected the other the more, both for the feeling and +for its instant repression. + +"Whatever we decide to do, ought to be decided now," said Dr. Hamilton, +"for I must be in Edinburg tomorrow. And, besides, it is a case in +which no medical skill is of much avail, if any; Nature must struggle +through--or yield, which I can not help thinking would be the best +ending. In Sparta, now, this poor child would have been exposed on +Mount--what was the place? to be saved by any opportune death from +the still greater misfortune of living." + +"But that would have been murder--sheer murder," earnestly replied +the minister. "And we are not Spartans, but Christians, to whom the +body is not every thing, and who believe that God can work out His +wonderful will, if He chooses, through the meanest means--through the +saddest tragedies and direst misfortunes. In one sense, Dr. Hamilton, +there is no such thing as evil--that is, there is no actual evil in +the world except sin." + +"There is plenty of that, alas!" said Mr. Menteith. "But as to the +child, I wished you to see it--both of you together--if only to +bear evidence as to its present condition. For the late earl, in his +will, executed, by a most providential chance, the last time I was here, +appointed me sole guardian and trustee to a possible widow or child. On +me, therefore, depends the charge of this poor infant--the sole bar +between those penniless, grasping, altogether discreditable Bruces, and +the large property of Cairnforth. You see my position, gentlemen?" + +It was not an easy one, and no wonder the honest man looked much +troubled. + +"I need not say that I never sought it--never thought it possible it +would really fall to my lot; but it has fallen, and I must discharge it +to the best of my ability. You see what the earl is--born alive, +anyhow--though we can hardly wish him to survive." + +The three gentlemen were silent. At length Mr. Cardross said, + +"There is one worse doubt which has occurred to me. Do you think, Dr. +Hamilton, that the mind is as imperfect as the body? In short, is it +not likely that the poor child may turn out to be an idiot?" + +"I do not know; and it will be almost impossible to judge for months +yet." + +"But, idiot or not," cried Mr. Menteith--a regular old Tory, who +clung with true conservative veneration to the noble race which he, his +father, and grandfather had served faithfully for a century and more +---"idiot or not, the boy is undoubtedly Earl of Cairnforth." + +"Poor child!" + +The gentlemen then sat down and thoroughly discussed the whole matter, +finally deciding that, until things appeared somewhat plainer, it was +advisable to keep the earl's condition as much as possible from the +world in general, and more especially from his own kindred. The Bruces, +who lived abroad, would, it was naturally to be concluded--or Mr. +Menteith, who had a lawyer's slender faith in human nature, believed so +--would pounce down, like eagles upon a wounded lamb, the instant they +heard what a slender thread of life hung between them and these great +possessions. + +Under such circumstances, for the infant to be left unprotected in the +solitudes of Loch Beg was very unadvisable; and, besides, it was the +guardian's duty to see that every aid which medical skill and surgical +science could procure was supplied to a child so afflicted, and upon +whose life so much depended. He therefore proposed and Dr. Hamilton +agreed, that immediately after the funeral the little earl should be +taken to Edinburg, and placed in the house of the latter, to remain +there a year or two, or so long as might be necessary. + +Janet Campbell was called in, and expressed herself willing to take her +share--no small one--in the responsibility of this plan, if the +minister would see to her "ain bairn;" that was, if the minister really +thought the scheme a wise one. + +"The minister's opinion seems to carry great weight here," said Dr. +Hamilton, smiling. + +And it was so; not merely because of his being a minister, but because, +with all his gentle, unassuming ways, he had an excellent judgment-- +the clear, sound, unbiased judgment which no man can ever attain to +except a man who thinks little of himself; to whom his own honor and +glory come ever second, and his Master's glory and service first. +Therefore, both as a man and a minister, Mr. Cardross was equally and +wholly reliable: charitable, because he felt his own infirmities; +placing himself at no higher level than his neighbor, he was always +calmly and scrupulously just. Though a learned, he was not exactly a +clever man: probably his sermons, preached every Sunday for the last ten +years in Cairnforth Kirk, were neither better nor worse than the +generality of country sermons; but that matters little. He was a wise +man and a good man, and all his parishioners, scattered over a parish of +fourteen Scotch miles, deeply and dearly loved him. + +"I think," said Mr. Cardross, "that this plan has many advantages, and +is, under the circumstances, the best that could have been devised. +True, I should like to have had the poor babe under my own eye and my +wife's, that we might try to requite in some degree the many kindnesses +we have received from his poor father and mother; but he will be better +off in Edinburg. Give him every possible chance of life and health, and +a sound mind, and then we must leave the rest to Him, who would not have +sent this poor little one into the world at all if He had not had some +purpose in so doing, though what that purpose is we can not see. I +suppose we shall see it, and many other dark things, some time." + +The minister lifted his grave, gentle eyes, and sat looking out upon the +familiar view--the sunshiny loch, the green shore, and the far-away +circle of mountains--while the other two gentlemen discussed a few +other business matters. Then he invited them both to return with him +and dine at the Manse, where he and his wife were accustomed to offer to +all comers, high and low, rich and poor, "hospitality without grudging." + +So the three walked through Cairnforth woods, now glowing with full +spring beauty, and wandered about the minister's garden till +dinner-time. It was a very simple meal--just the ordinary family +dinner, as it was spread day after day, all the year round: they could +afford hospitality, but show, with the minister's limited income was +impossible, and he was too honest to attempt it. Many a time the earl +himself had dined, merrily and heartily, at that simple table, with the +mistress--active, energetic, cheerful, and refined--sitting at the +head of it, and the children, a girl and boy, already admitted to take +their place there, quiet and well-behaved--brought up from the first +to be, like their parents, gentlemen and gentlewomen. The Manse table +was a perfect picture of family sunshine and family peace, and, as such, +the two Edinburg guests carried away the impression of it in their +memories for many a day. + +In another week a second stately funeral passed out of the Castle doors, +and then they were closed to all comers. By Mr. Menteith's orders, +great part of the rooms were shut up, and only two apartments kept for +his own use when he came down to look after the estates. It was now +fully known that he was the young earl's sole guardian; but so great was +the feudal fidelity of the neighborhood, and so entire the respect with +which, during an administration of many years, the factor had imbued the +Cairnforth tenantry, that not a word was said in objection either to him +or to his doings. There was great regret that the poor little earl-- +the representative of so long and honored a race--was taken away from +the admiration of the country-side before even a single soul in the +parish, except Mr. and Mrs. Cardross, had set eyes upon him; but still +the disappointed gossips submitted, considering that if the minister +were satisfied all must be right. + +After the departure of Mr. Mentieth, Mrs. Campbell, and her charge, a +few rumors got abroad that the little earl was "no a'richt"--if an +earl could be "no a' richt"--which the simple folk about Loch Beg and +Loch Mhor, accustomed for generations to view the Earls of Cairnforth +much as the Thibetians view their Dali Lama, thought hardly possible. +But what was wrong with him nobody precisely knew. The minister did, it +was conjectured; but Mr. Cardross was scrupulously silent on the +subject; and, with all his gentleness, he was the sort of man to whom +nobody ever could address intrusive or impertinent questions. + +So, after a while, when the Castle still remained shut up, curiosity +died out, or was only roused at intervals, especially at Mr. Menteith's +periodical visits. And to all questions, whether respectfully anxious +or merely inquisitive, he never gave but one answer--that the earl was +"doing pretty well," and would be back at Cairn forth "some o' these +days". + +However, that period was so long deferred that the neighbors at last +ceased to expect it, or to speculate concerning it. They went about +their own affairs, and soon the whole story about the sad death of the +late earl and countess, and the birth of the present nobleman, began to +be told simply as a story by the elder folk, and slipped out of the +younger ones' memories--as, if one only allows it time, every tale, +however sad, wicked, or strange, will very soon do. Had it not been for +the silent, shut-up castle, standing summer and winter on the loch-side, +with its flower-gardens blossoming for none to gather, and its woods-- +the pride of the whole country--budding and withering, with scarcely +a foot to cross, or an eye to notice their wonderful beauty, people +would ere long have forgotten the very existence of the last Earl of +Cairnforth. + + + + + +Chapter 2 + +It was on a June day--ten years after that bright June day when the +minister of Cairnforth had walked with such a sad heart up to Cairnforth +Castle, and seen for the first time its unconscious heir--the poor +little orphan baby, who in such apparent mockery was called "the Earl." +The woods, the hills, the loch, looked exactly the same--nature never +changes. As Mr. Cardross walked up to the Castle once more--the +first time for many months--in accordance with a request of Mr. +Menteith's, who had written to say the earl was coming home, he could +hardly believe it was ten years since that sad week when the baby-heir +was born, and the countess's funeral had passed out from that now +long-closed door. + +Mr. Cardross's step was heavier and his face sadder now than then. He +who had so often sympathized with others' sorrows had had to suffer +patiently his own. From the Manse gate as from that of the Castle, the +mother and mistress had been carried, never to return. A new Helen-- +only fifteen years old--was trying vainly to replace to father and +brothers her who was--as Mr. Cardross still touchingly put it-- +"away." But, though his grief was more than a year old, the minister +mourned still. His was one of those quiet natures which make no show, +and trouble no one, yet in which sorrow goes deep down, and grows into +the heart, as it were, becoming a part of existence, until existence +itself shall cease. + +It did not, however, hinder him from doing all his ordinary duties, +perhaps with even closer persistence, as he felt himself sinking into +that indifference to outside things which is the inevitable result of a +heavy loss upon any gentle nature. The fierce rebel against it; the +impetuous and impatient throw it off; but the feeble and tender souls +make no sign, only quietly pass into that state which the outer world +calls submission: and resignation, yet which is, in truth, mere +passiveness--the stolid calm of a creature that has suffered till it +can suffer no more. + +The first thing which roused Mr. Cardross out of this condition, or at +least the uneasy recognition that it was fast approaching, and must be +struggled against, conscientiously, to the utmost of his power, was Mr. +Menteith's letter, and the request therein concerning Lord Cairnforth. + +Without entering much into particulars--it was not the way of the +cautious lawyer--he had stated that, after ten years' residence in +Dr. Hamilton's house, and numerous consultations with every surgeon of +repute in Scotland, England--nay, Europe--it had been decided, and +especially at the earnest entreaty of the poor little earl himself, to +leave him to Nature; to take him back to his native air, and educate +him, so far as was possible, in Cairnforth Castle. + +A suitable establishment had accordingly been provided--more +servants, and a lady housekeeper or governante, who took all external +charge of the child, while the personal care of him was left, as before, +to his nurse, Mrs. Campbell, now wholly devoted to him, for at seven +years old her own boy had died. He had another attendant, to whom, with +a curious persistency, he had strongly attached himself ever since his +babyhood--young Malcolm Campbell, Neil Campbell's brother, who was +saved by clinging to the keel of the boat when the late Lord Cairnforth +was drowned. Beyond these, whose fond fidelity knew no bounds, there +was hardly need of any other person to take charge of the little earl, +except a tutor, and that office Mr. Menteith entreated Mr. Cardross to +accept. + +It was a doubtful point with the minister. He shrank from assuming any +new duty, his daily duties being now made only too heavy by the loss of +the wife who had shared and lightened them all. But he named the matter +to Helen, whom he had lately got into the habit of consulting--she +was such a wise little woman for her age--and Helen said anxiously, +"Papa, try." Besides, there were six boys to be brought up, and put +into the world somehow, and the Manse income was small, and the salary +offered by Mr. Manteith very considerable. So when, the second time, +Helen's great soft eyes implored silently, "Papa, please try," the +minister kissed her, went into his study and wrote to Edinburg his +acceptance of the office of tutor to Lord Cairnforth. + +What sort of office it would turn out--what kind of instruction he +was expected to give, or how much the young earl was capable of +receiving, he had not the least idea; but he resolved that, in any case, +he would do his duty, and neither man nor minister could be expected to +do more. + +In pursuance of this resolution, he roused himself that sunny June +morning, when he would far rather have sat over his study-fire and let +the world go on without him--as he felt it would, easily enough-- +and walked down to the Castle, where, for the first time these ten +years, windows were opened and doors unbarred, and the sweet light and +warm air of day let in upon those long-shut rooms, which seemed, in +their dumb, inanimate way, glad to be happy again--glad to be made of +use once more. Even the portraits of the late earl and countess--he +in his Highland dress, and she in her white satin and pearls--both so +young and bright, as they looked on the day they were married, seemed to +gaze back at each other from either side the long dining-room, as if to +say, rejoicing, "Our son is coming home." + +"Have you seen the earl?" said Mr. Cardross to one of the new servants +who attended him round the rooms, listening respectfully to all the +remarks and suggestions as to furniture and the like which Mr. Menteith +had requested him to make. The minister was always specially popular +with servants and inferiors of every sort, for he possessed, in a +remarkable degree, that best key to their hearts, the gentle dignity +which never needs to assert a superiority that is at once felt and +acknowledged. + +"The earl, sir? Na, na"--with a mysterious shake of the head-- +"naebody sees the earl. Some say--but I hae nae cause to think it +mysel'--that he's no a' there." + +The minister was sufficiently familiar with that queer, but very +expressive Scotch phrase, "not all there," to pursue no farther +inquiries. But he sighed, and wished he had delayed a little before +undertaking the tutorship. However, the matter was settled now, and Mr. +Cardross was not the man ever to draw back from an agreement or shrink +from a promise. + +"Whatever the poor child is--even if an idiot," thought he, "I will +do my best for him, for his father's and mother's sake." + +And he paused several minutes before those bright and smiling portraits, +pondering on the mysterious dealings of the great Ruler of the universe +--how some are taken and some are left: those removed who seem most +happy and most needed; those left behind whom it would have appeared, in +our dim and short-sighted judgment, a mercy, both to themselves and +others, quietly to have taken away. + +But one thing the minister did in consequence of these somewhat sad and +painful musings. On his return to the clachan--where, of course, the +news of the earl's coming home had long spread, and thrown the whole +country-side into a state of the greatest excitement--he gave orders, +or at least, advice--which was equivalent to orders, since everybody +obeyed him--that there should be no special rejoicings on the earl's +coming home; no bonfire on the hill-side, or triumphal arches across the +road, and at the ferry where the young earl would probably land-- +where, ten years before, the late Earl of Cairnforth had been not +landed, but carried, stone-cold, with his dripping, and his dead hands +still clutching the weeds of the loch. The minister vividly recalled +the sight, and shuddered at it still. + +"No, no," said he, in talking the matter over with some of his people, +whom he went among like a father among his children, true pastor of a +most loving flock, "no; we'll wait and see what the earl would like +before we make any show. That we are glad to see him he knows well +enough, or will very soon find out. And if he should arrive on such a +night as this"--looking round on the magnificent June sunset, +coloring the mountains at the head of the loch--"he will hardly need +a brighter welcome to a bonnier home." + +But the earl did not arrive on a gorgeous evening like this, such as +come sometimes to the shores of Loch Beg, and make it glow into a +perfect paradise: he arrived in "saft" weather--in fact, on a pouring +wet Saturday night, and all the clachan saw of him was the outside of +his carriage, driving, with closed blinds, down the hill-side. He had +taken a long round, and had not crossed the ferry; and he was carried as +fast as possible through the dripping wood, reaching, just as darkness +fell, the Castle door. + +Mr. Cardross, perhaps, should have been there to welcome the child-- +his conscience rather smote him that he was not--but it was the +minister's unbroken habit of years to spend Saturday evening alone in +his study. And it might be that, with a certain timidity, inherent in +his character, he shrank from this first meeting, and wished to put off +as long as possible what must inevitably be awkward, and might be very +painful. So, in darkness and rain, unwelcomed save by his own servants, +most of whom even had never yet seen him, the poor little earl came to +his ancestral door. + +But on Sunday morning all things were changed, with one of those sudden +changes which make this part of the country so wonderfully beautiful, +and so fascinating through its endless variety. + +A perfect June day, with the loch glittering in the sun, and the hills +beyond it softly outlined with the indistinctness that mountains usually +wear in summer, but with the soft summer coloring too, greenish-blue, +lilac, and silver-gray varying continually. In the woods behind, where +the leaves were already gloriously green, the wood-pigeons were cooing, +and the blackbirds and mavises singing, just as if it had not been +Sunday morning, or rather as if they knew it was Sunday, and were +straining their tiny throats to bless the Giver of sweet, peaceful, +cheerful Sabbath-days, and of all other good things, meant for man's +usage and delight. + +At the portico of Cairnforth Castle, for the first time since the hearse +had stood there, stood a carriage--one of those large, roomy, +splendid family carriages which were in use many years ago. Looking at +it, no passerby could have the slightest doubt that it was my lord's +coach, and that my lord sat therein in solemn state, exacting and +receiving an amount of respect little short of veneration, such as, for +generations, the whole country-side had always paid to the Earls of +Cairnforth. This coach, though it was the identical family coach, had +been newly furnished; its crimson satin glowed, and its silver harness +and ornaments flashed in the sun; the coachman sat in his place, and two +footmen stood up in their place behind. It was altogether a very +splendid affair, as became the equipage of a young nobleman who was +known to possess twenty thousand a year, and who, from his castle tower +--it had a tower, though nobody ever climbed there--might, if he +chose, look around upon miles and miles of moorland, loch, hill-side, +and cultivated land, and say to himself--or be said to by his nurse, +as in the old song-- + +"These hills and these vales, from this tower that ye see, + They all shall belong, my young chieftain, to thee." + +The horse pawed the ground for several minutes of delay, and then there +appeared Mr. Menteith, followed by Mrs. Campbell, who was quite a grand +lady now, in silks and satins, but with the same sweet, sad, gentle +face. The lawyer and she stood aside, and made way for a big, stalwart +young Highlander of about one-and-twenty or thereabouts, who carried in +his arms, very gently and carefully, wrapped in a plaid, even although +it was such a mild spring day, what looked like a baby, or a very young +child. + +"Stop a minute, Malcolm." + +At the sound of that voice, which was not an infant's, though it was +thin, and sharp, and unnatural rather for a boy, the big Highlander +paused immediately. + +"Hold me up higher; I want to look at the loch." + +"Yes, my lord." + +This, then--this poor little deformed figure, with every limb +shrunken and useless, and every joint distorted, the head just able to +sustain itself and turn feebly from one side to the other, and the thin +white hands piteously twisted and helpless-looking--this, then, was +the Earl of Cairnforth. + +"It's a bonnie loch, Malcolm." + +"It looks awful' bonnie the day, my lord." + +"And," almost in a whisper, "was it just there my father was drowned?" + +"Yes, my lord." + +No one spoke while the large, intelligent eyes, which seemed the +principal feature of the thin face, that rested against Malcolm's +shoulder, looked out intently upon the loch. + +Mrs. Campbell pulled her veil down and wept a little. People said Neil +Campbell had not been the best of husbands to her, but he was her +husband; and she had never been back in Cairnforth till now, for her son +had lived, died, and been buried away in Edinburg. + +At last Mr. Menteith suggested that the kirk bell was beginning to ring. + +"Very well; put me into the carriage." + +Malcolm placed him, helpless as an infant, in a corner of the +silken-padded coach, fitted with cushions especially suited for his +comfort. There he sat, in his black velvet coat and point-lace collar, +with silk stockings and dainty shoes upon the poor little feet that +never had walked, and never would walk, in this world. The one bit of +him that could be looked at without pain was his face, inherited from +his beautiful mother. It was wan, pale, and much older than his years, +but it was a sweet face--a lovely face; so patient, thoughtful-- +nay, strange to say, content. You could not look at it without a +certain sense of peace, as if God, in taking away so much had given +something--which not many people have--something which was the +divine answer to the minister's prayer over the two-days-old child-- +"Thy will be done." + +"Are you comfortable, my lord?" + +"Quite, thank you, Mr. Menteith. Stop--where are you going, +Malcolm?" + +"Just to the kirk, and I'll be there as soon as your lordship." + +"Very well," said the little earl, and watched with wistful eyes the +tall Highlander striding across brushwood and heather, leaping dikes and +clearing fences--the very embodiment of active vigorous youth. + +Wistful I said the eyes were, and yet they were not sad. Whatever +thoughts lay hidden in that boy's mind--he was only ten years old, +remember--they were certainly not thoughts of melancholy or despair. +"God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," and "the back is fitted to the +burden," are phrases so common that we almost smile to repeat them or +believe in them, and yet they are true. Any one whose enjoyments have +been narrowed down by long sickness may prove their truth by +recollecting how at last even the desire for impossible pleasures passes +away. And in this case the deprivation was not sudden; the child had +been born thus crippled, and had never been accustomed to any other sort +of existence than this. What thoughts, speculations, or regrets might +have passed through his mind, or whether he had as yet reflected upon +his own condition at all, those about him could not judge. He was +always a silent child, and latterly had grown more silent than ever. It +was this silence, causing a fear lest the too rapidly developing mind +might affect still more injuriously the imperfect and feeble body, which +induced his guardian, counseled by Dr. Hamilton, to try a total change +of life by sending him home to the shores of Loch Beg. + +One thing certainly Mr. Cardross need not have dreaded--the child was +no idiot. An intelligence, precocious to an almost painful extent, was +visible in that poor little face, which seemed thirstingly to take in +every thing, and to let nothing escape its observation. + +The carriage drove slowly through the woods and along the shore of the +loch, Mr. Menteith and Mrs. Campbell sitting opposite to the earl, not +noticing him much--even as a child he was sensitive of being watched +--but making occasional comments on the scenery and other things. + +"There is the kirk tower; I mind it weel," said Mrs. Campbell, who still +kept some accent of the clachan, though, like many Highlanders, she had +it more in tone than in pronunciation, and often spoke almost pure +English, which, indeed, she had taken pains to acquire, lest she might +be transferred from her charge for fear of teaching him to speak as a +young nobleman ought not to speak. But at sight of her native place +some touch of the old tongue returned. + +"That is the kirk, nurse, where my father and mother are buried?" + +"Yes, my lord." + +"Will there be many people there? You know I never went to church but +once before in all my life." + +"Would ye like not to go now? If so, I'll turn back with ye this +minute, my lamb--my lord, I mean." + +"No, thank you, nurse, I like to go. You know Mr Menteith promised me I +should go about every where as soon as I came to live at Cairnforth." + +"Every where you like that is not too much trouble to your lordship," +said Mr. Menteith, who was always tenaciously careful about the respect, +of word and act, that he paid, and insisted should be paid, to his poor +young ward. + +"Oh, it's no trouble to me; Malcolm takes care of that. And I like to +see the world. If you and Dr. Hamilton would have let me, I think I +would so have enjoyed going to school like other boys." + +"Would you, my lord?" answered Mr. Menteith, compassionately; but Mrs. +Campbell, who never could bear that pitying look and tone directed +toward her nursling, said, a little sharply, + +"It's better as it is--dinna ye ken? Far mair fitting for his +lordship's rank and position that he should get his learning all by +himsel' at his ain castle, and with his ain tutor, and that sic a +gentleman as Mr. Cardross--" + +"What is Mr. Cardross like?" + +"Ye'll hear him preach the day." + +"Will he teach me all by myself, as nurse says? Has he any children-- +any boys, like me?" + +"He has boys," said Mr. Menteith, avoiding more explicit information; +for with a natural, if mistaken precaution, he had always kept his own +sturdy, stalwart boys quite out of the way of the poor little earl, and +had especially cautioned the minister to do the same. + +"I do long to play with boys. May I?" + +"If you wish it, my lord." + +"And may I have a boat on that beautiful loch, and be rowed about just +where I please? Malcolm says it would not shake me nearly so much as +the carriage. May I go to the kirk every Sunday, and see every thing +and every body, and read as many books as ever I choose? Oh, How happy +I shall be!--as happy as a king!" + +"God help thee, my lamb!" muttered Mrs. Campbell to herself, while even +Mr. Menteith turned his face sedulously toward the loch and took snuff +violently. + +By this time, they had reached the church door, where the congregation +were already gathering and hanging about, as Scotch congregations do, +till service begins. But of this service and this Sunday, which was so +strangely momentous a day in more lives than one, the next chapter must +tell. + + + + + +Chapter 3 + +The carriage of the Earl of Cairnforth, with its familiar and yet long +unfamiliar liveries, produced a keen sensation among the simple folk who +formed the congregation of Cairnforth. But they had too much habitual +respect for the great house and great folk of the place, mingled with +their national shyness and independence, to stare very much. A few +moved aside to make way for the two grand Edinburg footmen who leaped +down from their perch in order to render customary assistance to the +occupants of the carriage. + +Mrs. Campbell and Mr. Menteith descended first, and then the two footmen +looked puzzled as to what they should do next. + +But Malcolm was before them--Malcolm, who never suffered mortal man +but himself to render the least assistance to his young master; who +watched and tended him; waited on and fed him in the day, and slept in +his room at night; who, in truth, had now, for a year past, slipped into +all the offices of a nurse as well as servant, and performed them with a +woman's tenderness, care, and skill. Lord Cairnforth's eyes brightened +when he saw him; and, carried in Malcolm's arms--a few stragglers of +the congregation standing aside to let them pass--the young earl was +brought to the door of the kirk where his family had worshiped for +generations. + +Two elders stood there beside the plate--white-headed farmers, who +remembered both the late lord and the one before him. + +"You's the earl," whispered they, and came forward respectfully; then, +startled by the unexpected and pitiful sight, they shrank back; but +either the boy did not notice this, or was so used to it that he showed +no surprise. + +"My purse, Malcolm," the small, soft voice was heard to say. + +"Ay, my lord. What will ye put into the plate?" + +"A guinea, I think, today, because I am so very happy." + +This answer, which the two elders overheard, was told by them next day +to every body, and remembered along the loch-side for years. + +Cairnforth Kirk, like most other Scotch churches of ancient date, is +very plain within and without, and the congregation then consisted +almost entirely of hillside farmers, shepherds, and the like, who +arrived in families--dogs, and all, for the dogs always came to +church, and behaved there as decorously as their masters. Many the +people walked eight, ten, and even twelve miles, from the extreme +boundary of the parish, and waited about in the kirk or kirk-yard on +fine Sundays, and in the Manse kitchen on wet ones--which were much +the most frequent--during the two hours' interval between sermons. + +In the whole congregation there was hardly a person above the laboring +class except in the minister's pew and that belonging to the Castle, +which had been newly lined and cushioned, and in a corner of which, +safely deposited by Malcolm, the little earl now sat--sat always, +even during the prayer, at which some of the congregation looked +reprovingly round, but only saw the little figure wrapped in a plaid, +and the sweet, wan, childish, and yet unchild-like face, with the curly +dark hair, and large dark eyes. + +Whatever in the earl was "no a'richt," it certainly could not be his +mind, for a brighter, more intelligent countenance was never seen. It +quite startled the minister with the intentness of its gaze from the +moment he ascended the pulpit; and though he tried not to look that way, +and was very nervous, he could not get over the impression it made. It +was to him almost like a face from the grave--this strange, eerie +child's face, so strongly resembling that of the dead countess, who, +despite the difference in rank, had, during the brief year she lived and +reigned at Cairnforth, been almost like an equal friend and companion to +his own dead wife. Their two faces--Lady Cairnforth's as she looked +the last time he saw her in her coffin, and his wife's as she lay in +hers--mingled together, and affected him powerfully. + +The good minister was not remarkable for the brilliance of his sermons, +which he wrote and "committed"--that is, learned by heart, to deliver +in pseudo-extempore fashion, as was the weary custom of most Scotch +ministers of his time. But this Sunday, all that he had committed +slipped clean out of his memory. He preached as he had never been known +to preach before, and never preached again--with originality, power, +eloquence; speaking from his deepest heart, as if the words thence +pouring out had been supernaturally put into it; which, with a +superstition that approached to sublimest faith, he afterward solemnly +believe they had been. + +The text was that verse about "all things working together for good to +them that love God;" but, whatever the original discourse had been, it +wandered off into a subject which all who knew the minister recognized +as one perpetually close to his heart--submission to the will of God, +whatever that will might be, and however incomprehensible it seemed to +mortal eyes. + +"Not, my friends," said he, after speaking for a long time on this head +--speaking rather than sermonizing, which, like many cultivated but +not very original minds, he was too prone to do--"not that I would +encourage or excuse that weak yielding to calamity which looks like +submission, but is, in fact, only cowardice; submitting to all things as +to a sort of fatality, without struggling against them, or trying to +distinguish how much of them is the will of God, and how much our own +weak will; daunted by the first shadow of misfortune, especially +misfortunes in our worldly affairs, wherein so much often happens for +which we have ourselves only to blame. Submission to man is one thing, +submission to God another. The latter is divine, the former is often +merely contemptible. But even to the Almighty Father we should yield +not a blind, crushed resignation, but an open-eyed obedience, like that +we would fain win from our own children, desiring to make of them +children, not slaves. + +"My children--for I speak to the very youngest of you here, and do +try to understand me if you can, or as much as you can--it is right +--it is God's will--that you should resist, to the very last, any +trial which is not inevitable. There are in this world countless +sorrows, which, so far appears, we actually bring on ourselves and +others by our own folly, wickedness, or weakness--which is often as +fatal as wickedness; and then we blame providence for it, and sink into +total despair. But when, as sometimes happens, His heavy hand is laid +upon us in a visible, inevitable misfortune which we can not struggle +against, and from which no human aid can save us, then we ought to learn +His hardest lesson--to submit. To submit--yet still, while saying +'Thy will be done,' to strive, so far as we can, to do it. If He have +taken from us all but one talent, even that, my children, let us not +bury in a napkin. Let us rather put it out a usury, leaving to Him to +determine how much we shall receive again; for it is according to our +use of what we have, and not of what we have not, that He will call us +'good and faithful servants,' and at last, when the long struggle of +living shall be over, will bid us 'enter into the joy of our Lord.'" + +When the minister sat down, he saw, as he had seen consciously or +unconsciously, all through the service, and above the entire +congregation, those two large intent eyes fixed upon him from the +Cairnforth pew. + +Children of ten years old do not usually listen much to sermons, but the +little earl had heard very few, for it was difficult to take him to +church without so many people staring at him. Nevertheless, he listened +to this sermon, so plain and clear, suited to the capacity of ignorant +shepherds and little children, and seemed as if he understood it all. +If he did not then, he did afterward. + +When service was over, he sat watching the congregation pass out, +especially noticing a family of boys who occupied the adjoining pew. +They had neither father nor mother with them, but an elder sister, as +she appeared to be--a tall girl of about fifteen. She marshaled them +out before her, not allowing them once to turn, as many of the other +people did, to look with curiosity at the poor little earl. But in +quitting the kirk she stopped at the vestry door, apparently to say a +word to the minister; after which Mr. Cardross came forward, his gown +over his arm, and spoke to Mr. Menteith-- + +"Where is Lord Cairnforth? I was so glad to see him here." + +"Thank you, Mr. Cardross," replied a weak but cheerful voice from +Malcolm's shoulder, which so startled the good minister that he found +not another word for a whole minute. At last he said, hesitating, + +"Helen has just been reminding me that the earl and countess used always +to come and rest at the Manse between sermons. Would Lord Cairnforth +like to do the same? It is a good way to the Castle--or perhaps he is +too fatigued for the afternoon service?" + +"Oh no, I should like it very much. And, nurse, I do so want to see Mr. +Cardross's children; and Helen--who is Helen?" + +"My daughter. Come here, Helen, and speak to the earl." + +She came forward--the tall girl who had sat at the end of the pew, in +charge of the six boys--came forward in her serious, gentle, motherly +way--alas! She was the only mother at the Manse now--and put out +her hand, but instinctively drew it back again; for oh! what poor, +helpless, unnatural-looking fingers were feebly advanced an inch or so +to meet hers! They actually shocked her--gave her a sick sense of +physical repulsion; but she conquered it. Then, by a sudden impulse of +conscience, quite forgetting the rank of the earl, and only thinking of +the poor, crippled, orphaned baby--for he seemed no more than a baby +--Helen did what her warm, loving heart was in the habit of doing, as +silent consolation for every thing, to her own tribe of "motherless +bairns"--she stooped forward and kissed him. + +The little earl was so astonished that he blushed up to the very brow. +But from that minute he loved Helen Cardross, and never ceased loving +her to the end of his days. + +She led the way to the Manse, which was so close behind the kirk that +the back windows of it looked on the grave-yard. But in front there was +a beautiful lawn and garden--the prettiest Manse garden that ever was +seen. Helen stepped through it with her light, quick step, a child +clinging to each hand, often turning round to speak to Malcolm or to the +earl. He followed her with his eyes and thought she was like a picture +he had once seen of a guardian angel leading two children along, though +there was not a bit of the angel about Helen Cardross--externally at +least, she being one of those large, rosy, round-face, flaxen-haired +Scotch girls who are far from pretty even in youth, and in middle age +sometimes grow quite coarse and plain. She would not do so, and did +not; for any body so good, so sweet, so bright, must always carry about +with her, even to old age, something which, if not beauty's self, is +beauty's atmosphere, and which often creates, even around unlovely +people, a light and glory as perfect as the atmosphere round the sun. + +She took her seat--her poor mother's that used to be--at the head +of the Manse table--which was a little quieter on Sundays than +week-days, and especially this Sunday, when the children were all awed +and shy before their new visitor. Helen had previously taken them all +aside, and explained to them that they were not to notice any thing in +the earl that was different from other people--that he was a poor +little crippled boy who had neither father, mother, brother, nor sister, +that they were to be very kind to him, but not to look at him much, and +to make no remarks upon him on any account whatever. + +And so, even though he was placed on baby's high chair, and fed by +Malcolm almost as if he were a baby--he who, though no bigger than a +baby, was in reality a boy of ten years old, whom papa talked to, and +who talked with papa almost as cleverly as Helen herself--still the +Manse children were so well behaved that nothing occurred to make any +body uncomfortable. + +For the little earl, he seemed to enjoy himself amazingly. He sat in +his high chair, and looked round the well-filled table with mingled +curiosity and amusement; inquired the children's names, and was greatly +interested in the dog, the cat, a rabbit, and two kittens, which after +dinner they successively brought to amuse him. And then he invited them +all to the Castle next day, and promised to take them over his garden +there. + +"But how can you take us?" said the youngest, in spite of Helen's frown. +"We can run about, but you--" + +"I can't run about, that is true; but I have a little carriage, and +Malcolm draws it, or Malcolm carries me, and then I can see such a deal. +I used to see nothing--only lie on a sofa all day, and have doctors +coming about me and hurting me," added the poor little earl, growing +confidential, as one by one the boys slipped away, leaving him alone +with Helen. + +"Did they hurt you very much:" asked she. + +"Oh, terribly; but I never told. You see, there was no use in telling; +it could not be helped, and it would only have made nurse cry--she +always cries over me. I think that is why I like Malcolm; he always +helps me, and he never cries. And I am getting a great boy now; I was +ten years old last week." + +Ten years old, though he seemed scarcely more than five, except by the +old look of his face. But Helen took no notice, only saying "that she +hoped the doctors did not hurt him now." + +"No, that is all over. Dr Hamilton says I am to be left to Nature, +whatever that is; I overheard him say it one day. And I begged of Mr. +Menteith not to shut me up any longer, or take me out only in my +carriage, but to let me go about as I like, Malcolm carrying me-- +isn't he a big, strong fellow? You can't think how nice it is to be +carried about, and see every thing--oh, it makes me so happy!" + +The tone in which he said "so happy" made the tears start to Helen's +eyes. She turned away to the window, where she saw her own big +brothers, homely-featured, and coarsely clad, but full of health, and +strength, and activity, and then looked at this poor boy, who had every +thing that fortune could give, and yet--nothing! She thought how +they grumbled and squabbled, those rough lads of hers; how she herself +often felt the burden of the large narrow household more than she could +bear, and lost heart and temper; then she thought of him--poor, +helpless soul!--you could hardly say body--who could neither move +hand nor foot--who was dependent as an infant on the kindness or +compassion of those about him. Yet he talked of being "so happy!" And +there entered into Helen Cardross's good heart toward the Earl of Cairn +forth a deep tenderness, which from that hour nothing ever altered or +estranged. + +It was not pity--something far deeper. Had he been fretful, +fractious, disagreeable, she would still have been very sorry for him +and very kind to him. But now, to see him as he was--cheerful, +patient; so ready with his interest in others, so utterly without +envying and complaining regarding himself--changed what would +otherwise have been mere compassion into actual reverence. As she sat +beside him in his little chair, not looking at him much, for she still +found it difficult to overcome the painful impression of the sight of +that crippled and deformed body, she felt a choking in her throat and a +dimness in her eyes--a longing to do any thing in the wide world that +would help or comfort the poor little earl. + +"Do you learn any lessons?" asked she, thinking he seemed to enjoy +talking with her. "I thought at dinner today that you seemed to know a +great many things." + +"Did I? That is very odd, for I fancied I knew nothing; and I want to +learn every thing--if Mr. Cardross will teach me. I should like to +sit and read all day long. I could do it by myself, now that I have +found out a way of holding the book and turning over the leaves without +nurse's helping me. Malcolm invented it--Malcolm is so clever and so +kind." + +"Is Malcolm always with you?" + +"Oh yes; how could I do without Malcolm? And you are quite sure your +father will teach me every thing I want to learn?" pursued the little +earl, very eagerly. + +Helen was quite sure. + +"And there is another thing. Mr. Menteith says I must try, if possible, +to learn to write--if only so as to be able to sign my name. In +eleven more years, when I am a man, he says I shall often be required to +sign my name. Do you think I could manage to learn?" + +Helen looked at the poor, twisted, powerless fingers, and doubted it +very much. Still she said cheerfully, "It would anyhow be a good thing +to try." + +"So it would--and I'll try. I'll begin tomorrow. Will you"--with +a pathetic entreaty in the soft eyes--"it might be too much trouble +for Mr. Cardross--but will you teach me?" + +"Yes, my dear!" said Helen, warmly, "that I will." + +"Thank you. And"--still hesitating--"please would you always call +me 'my dear' instead of 'my lord;' and might I call you Helen?" + +So they "made a paction 'twixt them twa"--the poor little helpless, +crippled boy, and the bright, active, energetic girl--the earl's son +and minister's daughter--one of those pactions which grow out of an +inner similitude which counteracts all outward dissimilarity; and they +never broke it while they lived. + +"Has my lamb enjoyed himself?" inquired Mrs. Campbell, anxiously and +affectionately, when she reappeared from the Manse kitchen. Then, with +a sudden resumption of dignity, "I beg your pardon, Miss Cardross, but +this is the first time his lordship has ever been out to dinner." + +"Oh, nurse, how I wish I might go out to dinner every Sunday! I am sure +this has been the happiest day of all my life." + + + + + +Chapter 4 + +If the "happiest day in all his life" had been the first day the earl +spent at Cairnforth Manse, which very likely it was, he took the first +possible opportunity of renewing his happiness. + +Early on Monday forenoon, while Helen's ever-active hands were still +busy clearing away the six empty porridge plates, and the one tea-cup +which had contained the beverage which the minister loved, but which was +too dear a luxury for any but the father of the family, Malcolm +Campbell's large shadow was seen darkening the window. + +"There's the earl!" cried Helen, whose quick eye had already caught +sight of the white little face muffled up in Malcolm's plaid, and the +soft black curls resting on his shoulder, damp with rain, and blown +about by the wind, for it was what they called at Loch Beg a "coarse" +day. + +"My lord was awful' set upon coming," said Malcolm apologetically; "and +when my lord taks a thing into his heid, he'll aye do't, ye ken." + +"We are very glad to see the earl," returned the minister, who +nevertheless looked a little perplexed; for, while finishing his +breakfast, he had been confiding to Helen how very nervous he felt about +this morning's duties at the Castle--how painful it would be to teach +a child so afflicted, and how he wished he had thought twice before he +undertook the charge. And Helen had been trying to encourage him by +telling him all that had passed between herself and the boy--how +intelligent he had seemed, and how eager to learn. Still, the very fact +that they had been discussing him made Mr. Cardross feel slightly +confused. Men shrink so much more than women from any physical +suffering or deformity; besides, except those few moments in the church, +this was really the first time he had beheld Lord Cairnforth; for on +Sundays it was the minister's habit to pass the whole time between +sermons in his study, and not join the family table until tea. + +"We are very glad to see the earl at all times," repeated he, but +hesitatingly, as if not sure that he was quite speaking the truth. + +"Yes, very glad," added Helen, hastily, fancying she could detect in the +prematurely acute and sensitive face a consciousness that he was not +altogether welcome. "My father was this minute preparing to start for +the Castle." + +"My Lord didna like to trouble the minister to be walking out this +coarse day," said Malcolm, with true Highland ingenuity of politeness. +"His lordship thocht that instead o' Mr. Cardross coming to him, he +would just come to Mr. Cardross." + +"No, Malcolm," interposed the little voice, "it was not exactly that. I +wished for my own sake to come to the Manse again, and to ask if I might +come every day and take my lessons here--it's so dreary in that big +library. I'll not be much trouble, indeed, sir," he added, +entreatingly; "Malcolm will carry me in and carry me out. I can sit on +almost any sort of chair now; and with this wee bit of stick in my hand +I can turn over the leaves of my books my very own self--I assure you +I can." + +The minister walked to the window. He literally could not speak for a +minute, he felt so deeply moved, and in his secret heart so very much +ashamed of himself. + +When he turned round Malcolm had placed the little figure in an +arm-chair by the fire, and was busy unswathing the voluminous folds of +the plaid in which it had been wrapped. Helen, after a glance or two, +pretended to be equally busy over her daily duty--the common duty of +Scotch housewives at that period--of washing up the delicate china +with her own neat hands, and putting it safe away in the parlor press; +for, as before said, Mr. Cardross's income was very small, and, like +that of most country ministers, very uncertain, his stipend altering +year by year, according to the price of corn. They kept one "lassie" to +help, but Helen herself had to do a great deal of the housework. She +went on doing it now, as probably she would in any case, being at once +too simple and too proud to be ashamed of it; still, she was glad to +seem busy, lest the earl might have fancied she was watching him. + +Her feminine instinct had been right. Now for the first time taken out +of his shut-up nursery life, where he himself had been the principal +object--where he had no playfellows and no companions save those he +had been used to from infancy--removed from this, and brought into +ordinary family life, the poor child felt--he could not but feel-- +the sad, sad difference between himself and all the rest of the world. +His color came and went--he looked anxiously, deprecatingly, at Mr. +Cardross. + +"I hope, sir, you are not displeased with me for coming to-day. I shall +not be very much trouble to you--at least I will try to be as little +trouble as I can." + +"My boy," said the minister, crossing over to him and laying his hand +upon his head, "You will not be the least trouble; and if you were ever +so much, I would undertake it for the sake of your father and mother, +and--" he added, more to himself than aloud--"for your own." + +That was true. Nature, which is never without her compensations, had +put into this child of ten years old a strange charm, and inexpressible +loveableness which springs from lovingness, though every loving nature +is not fortunate enough to possess it. But the earl's did; and as he +looked up into the minister's face, with that touchingly grateful +expression he had, the good man felt his heart melt and brim over at his +eyes. + +"You don't dislike me, then, because--because I am not like other +boys?" + +Mr. Cardross smiled, though his eyes were still dim, and his voice not +clear; and with that smile vanished forever the slight repulsion he had +felt to the poor child. He took him permanently into his good heart, +and from his manner the earl at once knew that it was so. + +He brightened up immediately. + +"Now, Malcolm, carry me in; I'm quite ready," said he, in a tone which +indicated that quality, discernible even at so early an age--a "will +of his own." To see the way he ordered Malcolm about--the big fellow +obeying him, with something beyond even the large limits of that feudal +respect which his forbears had paid to the earl's forbears for many a +generation, was a sight at once touching and hopeful. + +"There--put me into the child's chair I had at dinner yesterday. Now +fetch me a pillow--or rather roll up your plaid into one--don't +trouble Miss Cardross. That will make me quite comfortable. Pull out +my books from your pouch, Malcolm, and spread them out on the table, and +then go and have a crack with your old friends at the clachan; you can +come for me in two hours." + +It was strange to see the little figure giving its orders, and settling +itself with the preciseness of an old man at the study-table; but still +this removed somewhat of the painful shyness and uncomfortableness from +every body, and especially from Mr. Cardross. He sat himself down in +his familiar arm-chair, and looked across the table at his poor little +pupil, who seemed at once so helpless and so strong. + +Lessons begun. The child was exceedingly intelligent--precociously, +nay, preternaturally so, it appeared to Mr. Cardross, who, like many +another learned father, had been blessed with rather stupid boys, who +liked any thing better than study, and whom he had with great labor +dragged through a course of ordinary English, Latin, and even a fragment +of Greek. But this boy seemed all brains. His cheeks flushed, his eyes +glittered, he learned as if he actually enjoyed learning. True, as Mr. +Cardross soon discovered, his acquirements were not at all in the +regular routine of education; he was greatly at fault in many simple +things; but the amount of heterogeneous and out-of-the-way knowledge +which he had gathered up, from all available sources, was quite +marvelous. And, above all, to teach a boy unto whom learning seemed a +pleasure rather than a torment, a favor instead of a punishment, was +such an exceeding and novel delight to the good minister, that soon he +forgot the crippled figure--the helpless hands that sometimes with +fingers, sometimes even with teeth, painfully guided the ingeniously cut +forked stick, and the thin face that only too often turned white and +weary, but quickly looked up, as if struggling against weakness, and +concentrating all attention on the work that was to be done. + +At twelve o'clock Helen came in with her father's lunch--a foaming +glass of new milk, warm from the cow. The little earl looked at it with +eager eyes. + +"Will I bring you one too?" said Helen. + +"Oh--thank you; I am so thirsty. And, please, would you move me a +little--just a very little; I don't often sit so long in one +position. It won't trouble you very much, will it?" + +"Not at all, if you will only show me how," stammered Helen, turning hot +and red. But, shaking off her hesitation, she lifted up the poor child +tenderly and carefully, shook his pillows and "sorted" him according to +her own untranslatable Scotch word, then went quickly out of the room to +compose herself, for she had done it all, trembling exceedingly the +while. And yet, somehow, a feeling of great tenderness--tenderer +than even she had felt successively toward her own baby brothers, had +grown up in her heart toward him, taking away every possible feeling of +repulsion on account of his deformity. + +She brought back the glass of creamy milk and a bit of oatcake, and laid +them beside the earl. He regarded them wistfully. + +"How nice the milk looks! I am so tired--and so thirsty. Please-- +would you give me some? Just hold the glass, that's all, and I can +manage." + +Helen held it to his lips--the first time she ever did so, but not +the last by many. Years and years from then, when she herself was quite +an old woman, she remembered, giving him that drink of milk, and how, +afterward, two large soft eyes were turned upon hers so lovingly, so +gratefully, as if the poor cripple had drank in something besides milk +---the sweet draught of human affection, not dried up even to such +heavily afflicted ones as he. + +"Are the lessons all done for to-day, papa?" said she, noticing that, +eager as it was, the little face looked very wan and wearied, but also +noticing with delight that her father's expression was brighter and more +interested than it had been this long time. + +"Done, Helen? Well, if my pupil is tired, certainly." + +"But I'm not tired, sir." + +Helen shook her motherly head: "Quite enough for to-day. You may come +back again to-morrow." + +He did come back. Day after day, in fair weather or foul, big Malcolm +was to be seen stepping with his free Highland step--Malcolm was a +lissome, handsome young fellow--across the Manse garden, carrying +that small frail burden, which all the inhabitants of the clachan had +ceased to stare at, and to which they all raised their bonnets or +touched their shaggy forelocks. "It's the wee earl, ye ken," and one +and all treated with the utmost respect the tiny figure wrapped in a +plaid, so that nothing was visible except a small child's face, which +always smiled at sight of other children. + +It was surprising in how few days the clachan, and indeed the whole +neighborhood, grew accustomed to the appearance of the earl and his sad +story. Perhaps this was partly due to Helen and Mr. Cardross, who, +seeing no longer any occasion for mystery, indeed regretting a little +that any mystery had ever been made about the matter, took every +opportunity of telling every body who inquired the whole facts of the +case. + +These were few enough and simple enough, though very sad. The Earl-- +the last Earl of Cairnforth--was a hopeless cripple for life. All +the consultations of all the doctors had resulted in that conclusion. +It was very unlikely he would ever be better than he was now physically, +but mentally he was certainly "a' richt"--or "a' there," as the +country-folk express it. There was, as Mr. Cardross carefully explained +to every body, not the slightest ground for supposing him deficient in +intellect; on the contrary, his intellect seemed almost painfully acute. +The quickness with which he learned his lessons surpassed that of any +boy of his age the minister had ever known; and he noticed every thing +around him so closely, and made such intelligent remarks, that to talk +with him was like talking with a grown man. Before the first week was +over Mr. Cardross began actually to enjoy the child's company, and to +look forward to lesson hours as the pleasantest hours of his day; for, +since the Castle was close, the minister's lot had been the almost +inevitable lot of a country clergyman, whose parish contains many +excellent people, who look up to him with the utmost reverence, and for +whom he entertains the sincere respect that worth must always feel +toward worth, but with whom he had very few intellectual sympathies. In +truth, since Mrs. Cardross died the minister had shut himself up almost +entirely, and had scarcely had a single interest out of his own study +until the earl came home to Cairnforth. + +Now, after lessons, he would occasionally be persuaded to quit that +beloved study, and take a walk along the loch side, or across the moor, +to show his pupil the country of which he, poor little fellow! was owner +and lord. He did it at first out of pure kindness, to save the earl +from the well-meant intrusion of neighbors, but afterward from sheer +pleasure in seeing the boy so happy. To him, mounted in Malcolm's arms +and brought for the first time into contact with the outer world, every +thing was a novelty and delight. And his quick perception let nothing +escape him. He seemed to watch lovingly all nature, from the grand +lights and shadows which moved over the mountains, to the little +moorland flowers which he made Malcolm stop to gather. All living +things too, from the young rabbit that scudded across their path, to the +lark that rose singing up into the wide blue air--he saw and noticed +every thing. + +But he never once said, what Helen, who, as often as her house duties +allowed, delighted to accompany them on these expeditions, was always +expecting he would say, Why had God given these soulless creatures legs +to run and wings to fly, strength, health, and activity to enjoy +existence, and denied all these things to him? Denied them, not for a +week, a month, a year, but for his whole lifetime--a lifetime so +short at best;--"few of days, and full of trouble." Why could He not +have made it a little more happy? + +Thousands have asked themselves, in some form or other, the same +unanswered, unanswerable question. Helen had done so already, young as +she was; when her mother died, and her father seemed slowly breaking +down, and the whole world appeared to her full of darkness and woe. How +then must it have appeared to this poor boy? But, strange to say, that +bitter doubt, which so often came into Helen's heart, never fell from +child's lips at all. Either he was still a mere child, accepting life +just as he saw it, and seeking no solution of its mysteries, or else, +though so young, he was still strong enough to keep his doubts to +himself, to bear his own burden, and trouble no one. + +Or else--and when she watched his inexpressibly sweet face, which had +the look you sometimes see in blind faces, of absolutely untroubled +peace, Helen was forced to believe this--God, who had taken away from +him so much, had given him something still more--a spiritual insight +so deep and clear that he was happy in spite of his heavy misfortune. +She never looked at him but she thought involuntarily of the text, out +of the only book with which unlearned Helen was very familiar--that +"in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is +in heaven." + +After a fortnight's stay at the Castle Mr. Menteith felt convinced that +his experiment had succeeded, and that, onerous as the duty of guardian +was, he might be satisfied to leave his ward under the charge of Mr. +Cardross. + +"Only, it those Bruces should try to get at him, you must let me know at +once. Remember, I trust you." + +"Certainly, you may. Has any thing been heard of them lately?" + +"Nothing much, beyond the continual applications for advances of the +annual sum which the late earl gave them, and which I continue to pay, +just to keep them out of the way." + +"They are still abroad?" + +"I suppose so; but I hear very little about them. They were relations +on the countess's side, you know--it was she who brought the money. +Poor little fellow, what an accumulation it will be by the time he is of +age, and what small good it will do him!" + +And the honest man sighed as he looked from Mr. Cardross's dining-room +window across the Manse garden, where, under a shady tree, was placed +the earl's little wheel-chair, which was an occasional substitute for +Malcolm's arms. In it he sat, with a book on his lap, and with the +aspect of entire content which was so very touching. Helen sat beside +him on the grass, sewing--she was always sewing; and, indeed, she had +need, if her needle were to keep pace with its requirements in the large +family of boys. + +"That's a good girl of yours, and his lordship seems to have taken to +her amazingly. I am very glad, for he had no feminine company at all +except Mrs. Campbell, and, good as she is, she isn't quite the thing-- +not exactly a lady, you see. Eh, Mr. Cardross--what a lady his +mother was! We'll never again see the like of the poor countess, nor, +in all human probability, will we ever again see another Countess of +Cairnforth. + +"No." + +"Yet," continued Mr. Menteith, after a long pause, "Dr. Hamilton thinks +he may live many years. Strange to say, his constitution is healthy and +sound, and his sweet, placid nature--his mother's own nature (isn't +he very like her sometimes?)--gives him so much advantage in +struggling through every ailment. If he can be made happy, as you and +Helen will, I doubt not, be able to make him, and kept strictly to a +wholesome, natural country life here, it is not impossible he may live +to enter upon his property. And then--for the future, God knows!" + +"It is well for us," replied the minister, gravely, "That He does know +--every thing." + +"I suppose it is." + +And then for another hour the two good men--one living in the world +and the other out of it--both fathers of families, carrying their own +burden of cares, and having gone through their own personal sorrows each +in his day, talked over, the minutest degree, the present, and, so far +as they could divine it, the future of this poor boy, who, through so +strange a combination of circumstances, had been left entirely to their +charge. + +"It is a most responsible charge, Mr. Cardross, and I feel almost +selfish in shifting it so much from my own shoulders upon yours." + +"I am willing to undertake it. Perhaps it may do me good," returned the +minister, with a slight sigh. + +"And you will give him the best education you can--your own, in +short, which is more than sufficient for Lord Cairnforth; certainly more +than the last earl had, or his father either." + +"Possibly," said Mr. Cardross, who remembered both--stalwart, active, +courtly lords of the soil, great at field-sports and festivities, but +not over given to study. "No, the present earl does not take after his +progenitors in any way. You should just see him, Mr. Menteith, over his +Virgil; and I have promised to begin Homer with him tomorrow. It does +one's heart good to see a boy so fond of his books," added the minister, +warming up into an enthusiasm which delighted the other extremely. + +"Yes, I think my plan was right," said he, rubbing his hands. "It will +work well on both sides. There could not be found any where a better +tutor than yourself for the earl. He never can go much into the world; +he may not even live to be of age; still, as long as he does live, his +life ought to be made as pleasant--I mean, as little painful to him +as possible. And he ought to be fitted, in case he should live, for as +many years as he can fulfill of the duties of his position; its +enjoyments, alas! he will never know." + +"I am not so sure of that," replied Mr. Cardross. "He loves books; he +may turn out a thoroughly educated and accomplished student--perhaps +even a man of letters. To have a thirst for knowledge, and unlimited +means to gratify it, is not such a bad thing. Why," continued the +minister, glancing round on his own poorly-furnished shelves, where +every book was bought almost at the sacrifice of a meal, "he will be +rich enough to stock from end to end that wilderness of shelves in the +half-finished Castle library. How pleasant that must be!" + +Mr. Menteith smiled as if he did not quite comprehend this sort of +felicity. "But, in any case, Lord Cairnforth seems to have, what will +be quite as useful to him as brains, a very kindly heart. He does not +shut himself up in a morbid way, but takes an interest in all about him. +Look at him, now, how heartily he is laughing at something your daughter +has said. Really, those two seem quite happy." + +"Helen makes every body happy," fondly said Helen's father. + +"I believe so. I shall be sending down one of my big lads to look after +her some day. I've eight of them, Mr. Cardross, all to be educated, +settled, and wived. It's a 'sair fecht,' I assure you." + +"I know it; but still it has its compensations." + +"Ay, they're all strong, likely, braw fellows, who can push their own +way in the world and fend for themselves. Not like--" he glanced over +to the group on the grass, and stopped. Yet at that moment a hearty +trill of thoroughly childish laughter seemed to rebuke the regrets of +both fathers. + +"That child certainly has the sweetest nature--the most remarkable +faculty for enjoying other people's enjoyments, in which he himself can +never share." + +"Yes, it was always so, from the time he was a mere infant. Dr. +Hamilton often noticed it, and said it was a good omen." + +"I believe so," rejoined Mr. Cardross, earnestly. "I feel sure that if +Lord Cairnforth lives, he will neither have a useless nor an unhappy +life." + +"Let us hope not. And yet--poor little fellow!--to be the last +Earl of Cairnforth, and to be--such as he is!" + +"He is what God made him, what God willed him to be," said the minister, +solemnly. "We know not why it should be so; we only know that it is, +and we can not alter it. We can not remove from him his heavy cross, +but I think we can help him to bear it." + +"You are a good man, Mr. Cardross," replied the Edinburg writer, +huskily, as he rose from his seat, and declining another glass of the +claret, of which, under some shallow pretext, he had sent a supply into +the minister's empty cellar, he crossed the grass-plot, and spent the +rest of the evening beside his ward and Helen. + + + + + +Chapter 5 + +Days, months, and years slip smoothly by on the shores of Loch Beg. +Even now, though the cruelly advancing finger of Civilization has +touched it, dotted it with genteel villas on either side, plowed it with +smoky steam boats, and will shortly frighten the innocent fishes by +dropping a marine telegraph wire across the mouth of the loch, it is a +peaceful place still. But when the last Earl of Cairnforth was a child +it was all peace. In summertime a few stray tourists would wander past +it, wondering at its beauty; but in winter it had hardly any +communication with the outer world. The Manse, the Castle, and the +clachan, with a few outlying farm-houses, comprised the whole of the +Cairnforth; and the little peninsula, surrounded on three sides by +water, and on the fourth by hills, was sufficiently impregnable and +isolated to cause existence to flow on there very quietly, in what +townspeople call dullness, and country people repose. + +For, whatever repose there may be in country life--real country-- +there is certainly no monotony. The perpetual change of seasons, +varying the aspect of the outside world every month, every week--nay, +almost every day, is a continual interest to observant minds, and +especially so to intelligent children, who are as yet lying on the +breast of Mother Nature only, nor have begun to feel or understand the +darker and sadder interests of human passion and emotion. + +The little Earl of Cairnforth was one of these; and many a time, through +all the summers of his life; he recalled tenderly that first summer at +Cairnforth, when, no longer pent up between walls and roofs, or dragged +about in carriages, he learned, by Molcolm's aid and under Helen's +teaching, to chronicle time in different ways; first by the hyacinths +and primroses vanishing, and giving place to the wild roses--those +exquisite deep-red roses which belong especially to this country-side; +then by the woods--his own woods--growing fragrant with +innumerable honeysuckles; and lastly by the heather on the moorland-- +Scotland's own flower--which clothes entire hillsides as with a +garment of gorgeous purple, and fills the whole atmosphere with the +scent of a spice-garden; and when it faded into a soft brown, dying +delicately, beautiful to the last, there appeared the brambles, trailing +every where, with their pretty yellowing leaves and their delicious +berries. How blithe, even like a mere "callant," big Malcolm was, when, +leaving the earl on the sunny hill-side under Miss Cardross's charge, he +used to wander off, and come back with his hands all torn and scratched, +to feed his young master with blackberries! + +"He is not unhappy--I am sure the child is not unhappy," Helen often +said to her father, when--as was his way--Mr. Cardross would get +fits of uncertainty and downheartedness, and think he was killing his +pupil with study, or wearying him, and risking his health by letting him +do as much as his energetic mind, always dominant over the frail body, +prompted him to do. "Only let him love his life, and put as much in it +as he can, be it long or short, and then it will never be a sad life or +a life thrown away." + +"Helen, you're not clever, but you're a wise little woman, my dear," the +minister would say, patting the flaxen curls or the busy hands--large +and brown, yet with a certain grace about them, too--helpful hands, +made to hold children, or tend sick folk, or sustain the feeble steps of +old age. She was "no bonnie" Helen Cardross; it was just a round, rosy, +sonsie face, with no features in particular, but she was pleasant to +look upon, and inexpressibly pleasant to live with; for it was such a +wholesome nature, so entirely free from moods, or fancies, or crochets +of any kind--those sad vagaries of ill-health, ill-humor, and +ill-conditionedness of every sort, which are sometimes only a +misfortune, caused by an unhappy natural temperament, but oftener arise +from pure egotism, of which there was not an atom in Helen Cardross. +Her life was like the life of a flower--as natural, unconscious, +fresh, and sweet: she took in every influence about her, and gave out +freely all she had to give; desired no better things than she possessed, +and where she was planted there she grew. + +It was not wonderful that the little earl loved her, and that under her +sunshiny soul his life too blossomed out as it might never otherwise +have done, but have drooped and faded, and gone back into the darkness, +imperfect and unfulfilled; for, though each human life is, in a sense, +complete to itself, and must work itself out independently, clinging to +no other, still there is a great and beautiful mystery in the way one +life seems to influence an other, sometimes for ill, but far, far +oftener for good. + +Lord Cairnforth was not much with the Cardross boys. He liked them, and +evidently craved after their company, but they were very shy of him. +Sometimes they let Malcolm bring him into their boat, and condescended +to row him up and down the loch, a mode of locomotion in which he +greatly delighted, for, at best, the shaking of the great lumbering +coach was not easy to him, and he always begged to be carried in +Malcolm's arms till he found how pleasantly he could lie in the stern of +the Manse boat, and float about on the smooth water, watching the +mountains and the shores. + +True, he could not stir an inch from where he was laid down, but he lay +there so contentedly, enjoying everything, and really looked, what he +often said he was, "as happy as a king." + +And by degrees, with a little home persuasion from Helen, the boys got +reconciled to his company--found, indeed, that he was not such bad +company after all; for often, when they were tired of pulling, and let +the boat drift into some quiet little bay, or rock lazily in the middle +of the loch, the little earl would begin talking--telling stories, +which soon caught the attention of the minister's boys. These were +either fragments out of the books he had read, which seemed countless to +the young Cardrosses, or, what they liked still better, tales "out of +his own head;" and these tales were always the last that they would have +expected from one like him--wild exploits; wanderings over South +American prairies, or shipwrecks on desert islands; astonishing feats of +riding, or fighting, or traveling by land and sea--every thing, in +short, belonging to that sort of active, energetic, adventurous life, of +which the relator could never have had the least experience, and never +would have in this world. Perhaps for that very reason his fancy +delighted therein the more. + +And his stories were enjoyed by others as much as by himself, which no +doubt added to the charm of them. When winter came, and all the boating +days were done, many a night, round the fire of the Manse parlor, or in +the "awful eerie" library at the Castle, the earl used to have a whole +circle of young people, and some elder ones too, gathered round his +wheel-chair, listening to his wonderful tales of adventure by flood and +field. + +"Why don't you write them out properly?" the boys would ask sometimes, +forgetting--what Helen would never have forgotten. But he only +looked down on his poor helpless fingers and smiled. + +However, he had, with great difficulty and pains, managed to learn to +write--that is, to sign his name, or indite any short letter to Mr. +Menteith or others, which, as he grew older, sometimes became necessary. +But writing was always a great trouble to him; and, fortunately, people +were not expected to write much in those days. Had he been born a +little later in his century, the Earl of Cairnforth might have +brightened his sad life by putting his imagination forth in print, and +becoming a great literary character; as it was, he merely told his tales +for his own delight and that of those about him, which possibly was a +better thing than fame. + +Then he made jokes, too. Sometimes, in his quiet, dry way, he said such +droll things that the Cardross boys fell into shouts of laughter. He +had the rare quality of seeing the comical side of things, without a +particle of ill-nature being mixed up with his fun. His wit danced +about as brilliantly and harmlessly as the Northern lights that flashed +and flamed of winter nights over the mountains at the head of the loch; +and the solid, somewhat heavy Manse boys, gradually growing up to men, +often wondered why it was that, miserable as the earl's life was, or +seemed to them, they always felt merrier instead of sadder when they +were in his company. + +But sometimes when with Helen alone, and more especially as he grew to +be a youth in his teens, and yet no bigger, no stronger, and scarcely +less helpless than a child, the young earl would let fall a word or two +which showed that he was fully and painfully aware of his own condition, +and all that it entailed. It was evident that he had thought much and +deeply of the future which lay before him. If, as now appeared +probable, he should live to man's estate, his life must, at best, be one +long endurance, rendered all the sharper and harder to bear because +within that helpless body dwelt a soul, which was, more than that of +most men, alive to every thing beautiful, noble, active, and good. + +However, though he occasionally betrayed these workings of his mind, it +was only to Helen, and not to her very much, for he was exceedingly +self-contained from his childhood. He seemed to feel by instinct that +to him had been allotted a special solitude of existence, into which, +try as tenderly as they would, none could ever fully penetrate, and with +which none could wholly sympathize. It was inevitable in the nature of +things. + +He apparently accepted the fact as such, and did not attempt to break +through it. He took the strongest interest in other people, and in +every thing around him, but he did not seem to expect to have the like +returned in any great degree. Perhaps it was one of those merciful +compensations that what he could not have he was made strong enough to +do without. + +So things went on, without any other variety than an occasional visit +from Mr. Menteith or Dr. Hamilton, for seven years, during which the +minister's pupil had acquired every possible learning that his teacher +could give, and was fast becoming less a scholar than an equal companion +and friend--so familiar and dear, that Mr. Cardross, like all who +knew him, had long since almost forgotten that the earl was--what he +was. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should sit +there in his little chair, doing nothing; absolutely passive to all +physical things; but interested in every thing and every body, and, +whether at the Manse or the Castle, as completely one of the circle as +if he took the most active part therein. Consulted by one, appealed to +by another, joked by a third--he was ever ready with a joke--it +was only when strangers happened to see him, and were startled by the +sight, that his own immediate friends recognized how different he was +from other people. + +It was one day when he was about nineteen that Helen, coming in to see +him with a message from her father, who wanted to speak to him about +some parish matters, found Lord Cairnforth deeply meditating over a +letter. He slipped it aside, however, and it was not until the whole +parish question had been discussed and settled, as somehow he and Helen +very often did settle the whole affairs of the parish between them, that +he brought it out again, fidgeting it out of his pocket with his poor +fingers, which seemed a little more helpless than usual. + +"Helen, I wish you would read that, and tell me what you think about +it"? + +It was a letter somewhat painful to read, with the earl sitting by and +watching her, but Helen had long learned never to shrink from these sort +of things. He felt them far less if every body else faced them as +boldly as he had himself always done. + +The letter was from Dr. Hamilton, written after his return from a three +days' visit at Cairnforth Castle. It explained, after a long apologetic +preamble, the burden of which was that the earl was now old enough and +thoughtful enough to be the best person to speak to on such a difficult +subject, that there had been a certain skillful mechanician lately in +Edinburg who declared he would invent some support by which Lord +Cairnforth could be made, not indeed to walk--that was impossible-- +but to be by many degrees more active than now. But it would be +necessary for him to go to London, and there submit to a great amount of +trouble and inconvenience--possibly some pain. + +"I tell you this last, my dear lord," continued the good doctor, +"because I ought not to deceive you; and because, so far as I have seen, +you are a courageous boy--nay, almost a man--or will be soon. I +must forewarn you also that the experiment, is only an experiment-- +that it may fail; but even in that case you would be only where you were +before--no better, no worse, except for the temporary annoyance and +suffering." + +"And if it succeeded?" said Helen, almost in a whisper, as she returned +the letter. + +The earl smiled--a bright, vague, but hopeful smile--"I might be a +little more able to do things--to live my life with a little less +trouble to myself, and possibly to other people. Well, Helen? You +don't speak, but I think your eyes say 'Try!'" + +"Yes, my dear." She sometimes, though not often now, lest it might vex +him by making him still so much a child, called him "my dear." + +This ended the conversation, which Helen did not communicate to any +body, nor referred to again with Lord Cairnforth, though she pondered +over it and him continually. + +A week after this, Mr. Menteith unexpectedly appeared at the Castle, and +after a long consultation with Mr. Cardross, it was agreed that what +seemed the evident wish of the earl should be accomplished if possible; +that he, Malcolm, Mrs. Campbell, and Mr. Menteith should start for +London immediately. + +Such a journey was then a very different thing from what it is now, and +to so helpless a traveler as Lord Cairnforth its difficulties were +doubled. He had to post the whole distance in his own carriage, which +was fitted up so as to be as easy as possible in locomotion, besides +being so arranged that he could sleep in it if absolutely necessary, for +ordinary beds and ordinary chairs were sometimes very painful to him. +Had he been poor, in all probability he would long ago have died--of +sheer suffering. + +Fortunately, it was summer time. He staid at Cairnforth till after his +birthday, "for I may never see another," said he, with that gentle smile +which seemed to imply that he would be neither glad nor sorry, and then +he started. He was quite cheerful himself, but Mr. Menteith and Mrs. +Campbell looked very anxious. Malcolm was full of superstitious +forebodings, and Helen Cardross and her father, when they bade him +good-by and watched the carriage drive slowly from the Castle doors, +felt as sad as if they were parting from him, not for London, but for +the other world. + +Not until he was gone did they recognize how much they missed him: in +the Manse parlor where "the earl's chair" took its regular place--in +the pretty Manse garden, where its wheels had made in the gravel walks +deep marks which Helen could not bear to have erased--in his pew at +the kirk, where the minister had learned to look Sunday after Sunday for +that earnest, listening face. Mr. Cardross, too, found it dull no +longer to have his walk up to the Castle, and his hour or two's rest in +the yet unfinished library, which he and Lord Cairnforth had already +begun to consult about, and where the earl was always to be found, +sitting at his little table with his books about him, and Malcolm +lurking within call, or else placed contentedly by the French window, +looking out upon that blaze of beauty into which the countess's +flower-garden had grown. How little they had thought--the young +father and mother, cut off in the midst of their plans, that their poor +child would one day so keenly enjoy them all, and have such sore need +for these or any other simple and innocent enjoyments. + +"Papa, how we do miss him!" said Helen one day as she walked with her +father through the Cairnforth woods. "Who would have thought it when he +first came here only a few years ago?" + +"Who would indeed?" said the minister, remembering a certain walk he had +taken through these very paths nineteen years before, when he had +wondered why providence had sent the poor babe into the world at all, +and thought how far, far happier it would have been lying dead on its +dead mother's bosom--that beautiful young mother, whose placid face +upon the white satin pillows of her coffin Mr. Cardross yet vividly +recalled; for he saw it often reflected in the living face of the son, +whom, happily, she had died without beholding. + +"That was a wise saying of King David's, 'Let me fall into the hands of +the Lord, and not into the hands of men,'" mused Mr. Cardross, who had +just been hearing from Mr. Mentieth a long story of his perplexities +with "those Bruces," and had also had lately a few domestic dissensions +in his own parish, which did quarrel among itself occasionally, and +always brought its quarrels to be settled by the minister. "It is a +strange thing, Helen, my dear, what wonderful peace there often is in +great misfortunes. They are quite different from the petty miseries +which people make for themselves." + +"I suppose so. But do you think, papa, that any good will come out of +the London journey?" + +"I can not tell; still, it was right to try. You yourself said it was +right to try." + +"Yes;" and then, seeing it was done now, the practical, brave Helen +stilled her uncertainties and let the matter rest. + +No one was surprised that weeks elapsed before there came any tidings of +the travelers. Then Mr. Menteith wrote, announcing their safe arrival +in London, which diffused great joy throughout the parish, for of course +every body knew whither Lord Cairnforth had gone, and many knew why. +Scarcely a week passed that some of the far-distant tenantry even, who +lived on the other side of the peninsula, did not cross the hills, +walking many miles for no reason but to ask at the Manse what was the +latest news of "our earl." + +But after the first letter there came no farther tidings, and indeed +none were expected. Mr. Menteith had probably returned to Edinburg, and +in those days there was no penny post, and nobody indulged in +unnecessary correspondence. Still, sometimes Helen thought, with a sore +uneasiness, "If the earl had had good news to tell, he would have surely +told it. He was always so glad to make any body happy." + +The long summer twilights were ended, and one or two equinoctial gales +had whipped the waters of Loch Beg into wild "white horses," yet still +Lord Cairnforth did not return. At last, one Monday night, when Helen +and her father were returning from a three days' absence at the +"preachings'--that is, the half-yearly sacrament--in a neighboring +parish, they saw, when they came to the ferry, the glimmer of lights +from the Castle windows on the opposite shore of the loch. + +"I do believe Lord Cairnforth is come home!" + +"Ou ay, Miss Helen," said Duncan, the ferryman, "his lordship crossed +wi' me the day; an' I'm thinking, minister," added the old man +confidentially, "that ye suld just gang up to the Castle an' see him; +for it's ma opinion that the earl's come back as he gaed awa, nae better +and nae waur." + +"What makes you thinks so? Did he say any thing?" + +"Ne'er a word but just 'How are ye the day, Duncan?' and he sat and +glowered at the hills and the loch, and twa big draps rolled down his +puir bit facie--it's grown sae white and sae sma', ye ken--and I +said, 'My lord, it's grand to see your lordship back. Ye'll no be gaun +to London again, I hope?' 'Na, na,' says he; 'na, Duncan, I'm best at +hame--best at hame!' And when Malcolm lifted him, he gied a bit +skreigh, as if he'd hurted himself--Minister, I wish I'd thae London +doctors here by our loch side," muttered Duncan between his teeth, and +pulling away fiercely at his oar; but the minister said nothing. + +He and Helen went silently home, and finding no message, walked on as +silently up to the Castle together. + + + + + +Chapter 6 + +Old Duncan's penetration had been correct--the difficult and painful +London journey was all in vain. Lord Cairnforth had returned home +neither better nor worse than he was before; the experiment had failed. + +Helen and her father guessed this from their first sight of him, though +they had found him sitting as usual in his arm-chair at his favorite +corner, and when they entered the library he had looked up with a smile +--the same old smile, as natural as though he had never been away. + +"Is that you, Mr. Cardross? Helen too? How kind of you to come and see +me so soon!" + +But, in spite of his cheerful greeting, they detected at once the +expression of suffering in the poor face--"sae white and sae sma'," +as Duncan had said; pale beyond its ordinary pallor, and shrunken and +withered like an old man's; the more so, perhaps, as the masculine down +had grown upon cheek and chin, and there was a matured manliness of +expression in the whole countenance, which formed a strange contrast to +the still puny and childish frame--alas! Not a whit less helpless or +less distorted than before. Yes, the experiment had failed. + +They were so sure of this, Mr. Cardross and his daughter, that neither +put to him a single question on the subject, but instinctively passed it +over, and kept the conversation to all sorts of commonplace topics: the +journey--the wonders of London--and the small events which had +happened in quiet Cairnforth during the three months that the earl had +been away. + +Lord Cairnforth was the first to end their difficulty and hesitation by +openly referring to that which neither of his friends could bear to +speak of. + +"Yes," he said, at last, with a faint, sad smile, "I agree with old +Duncan--I never mean to go to London any more. I shall stay for the +rest of my days among my own people." + +"So much the better for them," observed the minister, warmly. + +"Do you think that? Well, we shall see. I must try and make it so, as +well as I can. I am but where I was before, as Dr. Hamilton said. Poor +Dr. Hamilton! He is so sorry." + +Mr. Cardross did not ask about what, but turned to the table and began +cutting open the leaves of a book. For Helen, she drew nearer to Lord +Cairnforth's chair, and laid over the poor, weak, wasted fingers her +soft, warm hand. + +The tears sprang to the young earl's eyes. "Don't speak to me," he +whispered; "it is all over now; but it was very hard for a time." + +"I know it." + +"Yes--at least as much as you can know." + +Helen was silent. She recognized, as she had never recognized before, +the awful individuality of suffering which it had pleased God to lay +upon this one human being--suffering at which even the friends who +loved him best could only stand aloof and gaze, without the possibility +of alleviation. + +"Ay," he said, at last, "it is all over: I need try no more experiments. +I shall just sit still and be content." + +What was the minute history of the experiments he had tried, how much +bodily pain they had cost him, and through how much mental pain he had +struggled before he attained that "content," he did not explain even to +Helen. He turned the conversation to the books which Mr. Cardross was +cutting, and many other books, of which he had bought a whole cart-load +for the minister's library. Neither then, nor at any other time, did he +ever refer, except in the most cursory way, to his journey to London. + +But Helen noticed that for a long while--weeks, nay, months, he +seemed to avoid more than ever any conversation about himself. He was +slightly irritable and uncertain of mood, and disposed to shut himself +up in the Castle, reading, or seeming to read, from morning till night. +It was not till a passing illness of the minister's in some degree +forced him that he reappeared at the Manse, and fell into his old ways +of coming and going, resuming his studies with Mr. Cardross, and his +walks with Helen--or rather drives, for he had ceased to be carried +in Malcolm's arms. + +"I am a man, now, or ought to be," he said once, as a reason for this, +after which no one made any remarks on the subject. Malcolm still +retained his place as the earl's close attendant--as faithful as his +shadow, almost as silent. + +But the next year or so made a considerable alteration in Lord +Cairnforth. Not in growth--the little figure never grew any bigger +than that of a boy of ten or twelve; but the childish softness passed +from the face; it sharpened, and hardened, and became that of a young +man. The features developed; and a short black beard, soft and curly, +for it had never known the razor, added character to what, in ordinary +men, would have been considered a very handsome face. It had none of +the painful expression so often seen in deformed persons, but more +resembled those sweet Italian heads of youthful saints--Saint +Sebastian's, for instance--which the old masters were so fond of +painting; and though there was a certain melancholy about it when in +repose, during conversation it brightened up, and was the cheerfullest, +most sunshiny face imaginable. + +That is, it ultimately became so; but for a long time after the journey +to London a shadow hung over it, which rarely quite passed away except +in Helen's company. Nobody could be dreary for long beside Helen +Cardross; and either through her companionship, or his own inherent +strength of will, or both combined, the earl gradually recovered from +the bitterness of lost hopes, whatsoever they had been, and became once +more his own natural self, perhaps even more cheerful, since it was now +not so much the gayety of a boy as the composed, equable serenity of a +thoughtful man. + +His education might be considered complete: it had advanced to the +utmost limit to which Mr. Cardross could carry it; but the pupil +insisted on retaining, nominally and pecuniarily, his position at the +Manse. + +Or else the two would spend hours--nay, days, shut up together in the +Castle Library, the beautiful octagon room, with its painted ceiling, +and its eight walls lined from floor to roof with empty shelves, to plan +the filling of which was the delight of the minister's life, since, but +for his poor parish and his large family, Mr. Cardross would have been a +thorough bibliomaniac. Now, in a vicarious manner, the hobby of his +youth reappeared, and at every cargo of books that arrived at the Castle +his old eyes brightened--for he was growing to look really an old man +now--and he would plunge among them with an ardor that sometimes made +both the earl and Helen smile. But Helen's eyes were dim too, for she +saw through all the tender cunning, and often watched Lord Cairnforth as +he sat contentedly in his little chair, in the midst of a pile of books, +examining, directing, and sympathizing, though doing nothing. Alas! +nothing could he do. But it was one of the secrets which made these +three lives so peaceful, that each could throw itself out of itself into +that of another, and take thence, secondarily, the sunshine that was +denied to its own. + +Beyond the family at the Manse the earl had no acquaintance whatsoever, +and seemed to desire none. His rank lifted him above the small +proprietors who lived within visitable distance of the Castle: they +never attempted to associate with him. Sometimes a stray caller +appeared, prompted by curiosity, which Mrs. Campbell generally found +ingenious reasons for leaving ungratified, and Lord Cairnforth's +excessive shyness and dislike to appear before strangers did the rest. +It is astonishing how little the world cares to cultivate those out of +whom it can get nothing; and the small establishment at Cairnforth +Castle, with its almost invisible head, soon ceased to be an object of +interest to any body--at least to any body in that sphere of life +where the earl would otherwise have moved. + +Among his own tenantry, the small farmers along the shores of the two +lochs which bounded the peninsula, his long minority and mysterious +affliction made him personally almost unknown. They used to come twice +a year, at WhitSunday and Martinmas, to pay their rents to Mr. Menteith; +to inquire for my lord's health, and to drink in abundance of whisky; +but the earl himself they never saw, and their feelings toward him were +a mixture of reverence and awe. + +It was different with the earl's immediate neighbors, the humble +inhabitants of the clachan. These, during the last nine years, had +gradually grown familiar, first with the little childish form, carried +about tenderly in Malcolm's arms, and then with the muffled figure, +scarcely less of a child to look at, which Malcolm, and sometimes Miss +Cardross, drove about in a pony-chaise. At the kirk especially, though +he was always carefully conveyed in first, and borne out last of all the +congregation, his face--his sweet, kind, beautiful face was known to +them all, and the children were always taught to doff their bonnets or +pull their forelocks to the earl. + +Beyond that, nobody knew any thing about him. His large property, +accumulating every year, was entirely under the management of Mr. +Menteith; he himself took no interest in it; and the way by which the +former heirs of Cairnforth had used to make themselves popular from +boyhood, by going among the tenantry, hunting, shooting, fishing, and +boating, was impossible to this earl. His distant dependents hardly +remembered his existence, and he took no heed of theirs, until a few +months before he came of age, when one of these slight chances which +often determine so much changed the current of affairs. + +If was just before the "term." Mr. Menteith had been expected all day, +but had not arrived, and the earl had taken a long drive with Helen and +her father through the Cairnforth woods, where the wild daffodils were +beginning to succeed the fading snowdrops, and the mavises had been +heard to sing those few rich notes which belong especially to the +twilights of early spring, and earnest of all the richness, and glory, +and delight of the year. The little party seemed to feel it--that +soft, dreamy sense of dawning spring, which stirs all the soul, +especially in youth, with a vague looking forward to some pleasantness +which never comes. They sat, silent and talking by turns, beside the +not unwelcome fire, in a corner of the large library. + +"We shall miss Alick a good deal this spring," said Helen, recurring to +a subject of which the family heart was full, the departure of the +eldest son to "begin the world" in Mr. Menteith's office in Edinburg. +He was not a very clever lad, but he was sensible and steady, and +blessed with that practical mother-wit which is often better than +brains. The minister, though he had been bemoaning his boy's "little +Latin and less Greek," and comparing Alick's learning very +disadvantageously with that of the earl, to whom Mr. Cardross confided +all his troubles, nevertheless seemed both proud and hopeful of his +eldest son, the heir to his honest name, which Alick would now carry out +into a far wider world than that of the poor minister of Cairnforth, +and doubtless, in good time, transmit honorably to a third generation. + +"Yes," added the father, when innumerable castles in the air had been +built and rebuilt for Alick's future, "I'll not deny that my lad is a +good lad. He is the hope of the house, and he knows it. It's little of +worldly gear that he'll get for many a day, and he tells me he will have +to work from morning till night; but he rather enjoys the prospect than +not." + +"No wonder. Work must be a happy thing," said, with a sigh, the young +Earl of Cairnforth. + +Helen's heart smote her for having let the conversation drift into this +direction, as it did occasionally when, from their long familiarity with +him, they forgot how he must feel about many things, natural enough to +them, but to him, unto whom the outer world, with all its duties, +energies, enjoyments, could never be any thing but a name, full of +sharpest pain. She said, after a few minutes watching of the grave, +still face--not exactly sad, but only very still, very grave-- + +"Just look at papa, how happy he is among those books you sent for! +Your plan of his arranging the library is the delight of his life." + +"Is it? I am so glad," said the earl, brightening up at once. 'What a +good thing I thought of it!" + +"You always do think of every thing that is good and kind," said Helen, +softly. + +"Thank you," and the shadow passed away, as any trifling pleasure always +had power to make it pass. Sometimes Helen speculated vaguely on what a +grand sort of man the earl would have been had he been like other people +--how cheerful, how active, how energetic and wise. But then one +never knows how far circumstances create and unfold character. We often +learn as much by what is withheld as by what is enjoyed. + +"Helen," he said, moving his chair a little nearer her--he had +brought one good thing from London, a self-acting chair, in which he +could wheel himself about easily, and liked doing it--"I wonder +whether your father would have taken as much pleasure in his books +thirty years ago. Do you think one could fill up one's whole life with +reading and study?" + +"I can not say; I'm not clever myself, you know." + +"Oh, but you are--with a sort of practical cleverness. And so is +Alick, in his own way. How happy Alick must be, going out into the +world, with plenty to do all day long! How bright he looked this +morning!" + +"He sees only the sunny side of things, he is still no more than a boy." + +"Not exactly; he is a year older than I am." + +Helen hardly knew what to reply. She guessed so well the current of the +earl's thoughts, which were often her own too, as she watched his absent +or weary looks, though he tried hard to keep his attention to what Mr. +Cardross was reading or discussing. But the distance between twenty and +sixty--the life beginning and the life advancing toward its close-- +was frequently apparent; also between an active, original mind, +requiring humanity for its study, and one whose whole bent was among the +dry bones of ancient learning--the difference, in short, between +learning and knowledge--the mere student and the man who only uses +study as a means to the perfecting of his whole nature, his complete +existence as a human being. + +All this Helen felt with her quick, feminine instinct, but she did not +clearly understand it, and she could not reason about it at all. She +only answered in a troubled sort of way that she thought every body, +somehow or other, might in time find enough to do--to be happy in +doing--and she was trying to put her meaning into more connected and +intelligible form, when, greatly to her relief, Malcom entered the +library. + +Malcolm, being so necessary and close a personal attendant on the earl, +always came and went about his master without any body's noticing him; +but now Helen fancied he was making signals to her or to some one. Lord +Cairnforth detected them. + +"Is any thing wrong, Malcolm? Speak out; don't hide things from me. I +am not a child now." + +There was just the slightest touch of sharpness in the gentle voice, and +Malcolm did speak out. + +"I wadna be troubling ye, my lord, but it's just an auld man, Dougal Mc +Dougal, frae the head o' Loch Mhor--a puir doited body, wha says he +maun hae a bit word wi' your lordship. But I tellt him ye coulna be +fashed wi' the like o' him." + +"That was not civil or right, Malcolm--an old man, too. Where is +he?" + +"Just by the door--eh--and he's coming ben--the ill-mannered +loon!" cried Malcolm, angrily, as he interrupted the intruder--a +tall, gaunt figure wrapped in a shepherd's plaid, with the bonnet set +upon the grizzled head in that sturdy independence--nay, more than +independence--rudeness, rough and thorny as his own thistle, which is +the characteristic of the Scotch peasant externally, till you get below +the surface to the warm, kindly heart. + +"I'm no ill-mannered, and I'll just gang through the hale house till I +find my lord," said the old man, shaking off Malcolm with a strength +that his seventy odd years seemed scarcely to have diminished. "I'm +wushing ane harm to ony o' ye, but I maun get speech o' my lord. He's +no bairn; he'll be ane-and-twenty the thirtieth o' June: I mind the day +weel, for the wife was brought to bed o' her last wean the same day as +the countess, and our Dougal's a braw callant the noo, ye ken. Gin the +earl has ony wits ava, whilk folk thocht was aye doubtful', he'll hae +gotten them by this time. I maun speak wi' himself', unless, as they +said, he's no a' there." + +"Haud your tongue, ye fule!" cried Malcolm, stopping him with a fierce +whisper. "Yon's my lord!" + +The old shepherd started back, for at this moment a sudden blaze-up of +the fire showed him, sitting in the corner, the diminutive figure, +attired carefully after the then fashion of gentlemen's dress, every +thing rich and complete, even to the black silk stockings and shoes on +the small, useless feet, and the white ruffles half hiding the twisted +wrists and deformed hands. + +"Yes, I am the Earl of Cairnforth. What did you want to say to me?" + +He was so bewildered, the rough shepherd, who had spent all his life on +the hill-sides, and never seen or imagined so sad a sight as this, that +at first he could not find a word. Then he said, hanging back and +speaking confusedly and humbly, "I ask your pardon, my lord--I dina +ken--I'll no trouble ye the day." + +"But you do not trouble me at all. Mr. Menteith is not here yet, and I +know nothing about business; still, if you wished to speak to me, do so; +I am Lord Cairnforth." + +"Are ye?" said the shepherd, evidently bewildered still, so that he +forgot his natural awe for his feudal superior. "Are ye the countess's +bairn, that's just the age o' our Dougal? Dougal's ane o' the +gamekeepers, ye ken--sic a braw fellow--sax feet three. Ye'll hae +seen him, Maybe?" + +"No, but I should like to see him. And yourself--are you a tenant of +mine, and what did you want with me?" + +Encouraged by the kindly voice, and his own self-interest becoming +prominent once more, old Dougal told his tale--not an uncommon one +--of sheep lost on the hill-side, and one misfortune following +another, until a large family, children and orphan grandchildren, were +driven at last to want the "sup o' parritch" for daily food, sinking to +such depths of poverty as the earl in secluded life had never even heard +of. And yet the proud old fellow asked nothing except the remission of +one year's rent, after having paid rent honestly for half a lifetime. +That stolid, silent endurance, which makes a Scotch beggar of any sort +about the last thing you ever meet with in Scotland, supported him to +the very end. + +The earl was deeply touched. As a matter of course, he promised all +that was desired of him, and sent the old shepherd away happy; but long +after Dougal's departure he sat thoughtful and grave. + +"Can such things be, Helen, and I never heard of them? Are some of my +people--they are my people, since the land belongs to me--as +terribly poor as that man?" + +"Ay, very many, though papa looks after them as much as he can. Dougal +is out of his parish, or he would have know him. Papa knows every body, +and takes care of every body, as far as possible." + +"So ought I--or I must do it when I am older," said the earl, +thoughtfully. + +"There will be no difficulty about that when you come of age and enter +on your property." + +"Is it a very large property? For I never heard or inquired." + +"Very large." + +"Show me its boundary; there is the map." + +Helen took it down and drew with a pencil the limits of the Cairnforth +estates. They extended along the whole peninsula, and far up into the +main land. + +"There, Lord Cairnforth, every bit of this is yours." + +"To do exactly what I like with?" + +"Certainly." + +"Helen, it is an awfully serious thing." + +Helen was silent. + +"How strange!" He continued, after a pause. "And this was really all +mine from the very hour of my birth?" + +"Yes." + +"And when I come of age I shall have to take my property into my own +hands, and manage it just as I choose, or as I can?" + +"Of course you will; and I think you can do it, if you try." + +For it was not the first time that Helen had pondered over these things, +since, being neither learned nor poetical, worldly-minded nor selfish, +in her silent hours her mind generally wandered to the practical +concerns of other people, and especially of those she loved. + +"'Try' ought to be the motto of the Cardross arms--of yours certainly," +said Lord Cairnforth, smiling. "I should like to assume it on mine, +instead of my own 'Virtute et fide,' which is of little use to me. +How can I--I--be brave or faithful?" + +"You can be both--and you will," said Helen, softly. Years from that +day she remembered what she had said, and how true it was. + +A little while afterward, while the minister still remained buried in +his beloved books, Lord Carinforth recurred again to Dougal Mac Dougal. + +"The old fellow was right. If I am ever to have 'ony wits ava,' I ought +to have them by this time. I am nearly twenty-one. Any other young +man would have been a man long ago. And I will be a man--why should +I not? True manliness is not solely outside. I dare say you could find +many a fool and a coward six feet high." + +"Yes," answered Helen, all she could find to say. + +"And if I have nothing else, I have brains--quite as good brains, I +think, as my neighbors. They can not say of me now that I'm 'no a' +there.' Nay, Helen, don't look so fierce; they meant me no ill; it was +but natural. Yes, God has left me something to be thankful for." + +The earl lifted his head--the only part of his frame which he could +move freely, and his eyes flashed under his broad brows. Thoroughly +manly brows they were, wherein any acute observer might trace that clear +sound sense, active energy, and indomitable perseverance which make the +real man, and lacking which the "brawest" young follow alive is a mere +body--and animal wanting the soul. + +"I wonder how I should set about managing my property. The duty will +not be as easy for me as for most people, you know," added he, sadly; +"still, if I had a secretary--a thorough man of business, to teach me +all about business, and to be constantly at my side, perhaps I might be +able to accomplish it. And I might drive about the country--driving +is less painful to me now--and get acquainted with my people; see +what they wanted, and how I could best help them. They would get used +to me, too. I might turn out to be a very respectable laird, and become +interested in the improvement of my estates." + +"There is great opportunity for that, I know," replied Helen. And then +she told him of a conversation she had heard between her father and Mr. +Menteith, when the latter had spoken of great changes impending over +quiet Cairnforth: how a steamer was to begin plying up and down the loch +--how there were continual applications for land to be feued--and +how all these improvements would of necessity require the owner of the +soil to take many a step unknown to and undreamed of by his forefathers +--to make roads, reclaim hill and moorland, build new farms, churches, +and school-houses. + +"In short, as Mr. Menteith said, the world is changing so fast that the +present Earl of Cairnforth will have any thing but the easy life of his +father and grandfather. + +"Did Mr. Menteith say that?" cried the earl, eagerly. + +"He did, indeed; I heard him." + +"And did he seem to think that I should be able for it?" + +"I can not tell," answered truthful Helen. "He said not a word one way +or the other about your being capable of doing the work; he only said +the work was to done." + +"Then I will try and do it." + +The earl said this quietly enough, but his eyes gleamed and his lips +quivered. + +Helen laid her hand upon his, much move. "I said you were brave-- +always; still, you must think twice about it, for it will be a very +responsible duty--enough, Mr. Menteith told papa, to require a man's +whole energies for the next twenty years." + +"I wonder if I shall live so long. Well, I am glad, Helen. It will be +something worth living for." + + + + + +Chapter 7 + +Malcolm's saying that "if my lord taks a thing into his heid he'll do't, +ye ken," was as true now as when the earl was a little boy. + +Mr. Mentieth hardly knew how the thing was accomplished--indeed, he +had rather opposed it, believing the mere physical impediments to his +ward's overlooking his own affairs were insurmountable; but Lord +Cairnforth contrived in the course of a day or two to initiate himself +very fairly in all the business attendant upon the "term;" to find out +the exact extent and divisions of his property, and to whom it was +feued. And on term-day he proposed, though with an evident effort which +touched the old lawyer deeply, to sit beside Mr. Menteith while the +tenants were paying their rents, so as to become personally known to +each of them. + +Many of these, like Dougal Mac Dougal, were over come with surprise, +nay, something more painful than surprise, at the sight of the small +figure which was the last descendant of the noble Earls of Cairnforth, +and with whom the stalwart father and the fair young mother looking down +from the pictured walls, contrasted so piteously; but after the first +shock was over they carried away only the remembrance of his sweet, +grave face, and his intelligent and pertinent observations, indicating a +shrewdness for which even Mr. Menteith was unprepared. When he owned +this, after business was done, the young earl smiled, evidently much +gratified. + +"Yes, I don't think they can say of me that I'm 'no a' there!" Also he +that evening confessed to Helen that he found "business" nearly as +interesting as Greek and Latin, perhaps even more so, for there was +something human in it, something which drew one closer to one's +fellow-creatures, and benefited other people besides one's own self. "I +think," he added, "I should rather enjoy being what is called 'a good +man of business.'" + +He pleaded so hard for farther instruction in all pertaining to his +estate that Mr. Menteith consented to spare two whole weeks out of his +busy Edinburg life, during which Lord Cairnforth and he were shut up +together for a great part of every day, investigating matters connected +with the property, and other things which hitherto in the young man's +education had been entirely neglected. + +"For," said his guardian, sadly, "I own, I never thought of him as a +young man--or as a man at all; nevertheless, he is one, and will +always be. That clear, cool head of his, just for brains, pure brains, +is worth both his father's and grandfather's put together." + +And when Helen repeated this saying to Lord Cairnforth, he smiled his +exceedingly bright smile, and was more cheerful, joyous, for days after. + +On Mr. Menteith's return home, he sent back to the Castle one of his old +clerks, who had been acquainted with the Cairnforth affairs for nearly +half a century; he also was astonished at the capacity which the young +earl showed. Of course, physically, he was entirely helpless; the +little forked stick was still in continual requisition; nor could he +write except with much difficulty; but he had the faculty of arrangement +and order, and the rare power--rarer than is supposed--of guiding +and governing, so that what he could not do himself he could direct +others how to do, and thus attain his end so perfectly, that even those +who knew him best were oftentimes actually amazed at the result he +effected. + +Then he enjoyed his work; took such an interest in the plans for feuing +land along the loch-side, and the sort of houses that was to be built +upon each feu, the roads he would have to make, and especially in the +grand wooden pier which, by Mr. Menteith's advice, was shortly to be +erected in lieu of the little quay of stones at the ferry, which had +hitherto served as Cairnforth's chief link with the outside world. + +If Mr. Cardross and Helen grieved a little over this advancing tide of +civilization, which might soon sweep away many things old and dear from +the shores of beautiful Loch Beg, they grew reconciled when they saw the +light in the earl's eyes, and heard him talk with an interest and +enthusiasm quite new to him of what he meant to do when he came of age. +Only in all his projects was one peculiarity rather uncommon in young +heirs--the entire absence of any schemes for personal pleasure. +Conforts he had, of course; his faithful friends and servants took care +that his condition should have every alleviation that wealth could +furnish; but of enjoyments, after the fashion of youth, he planned +nothing; for, indeed, what of them was left him to enjoy? + +And so, faster than was usual, being so well filled with occupations, +the weeks and months slipped by, until the important thirtieth of June, +when Mr. Menteith's term of guardianship would end, and a man's free +life and independent duties, so far as he could perform them, would +legally begin for the Earl of Cairnforth. + +There had been great consultations on this topic all along the two +lochs, and beyond them, for Dougal Mac Dougal had carried his story of +the earl and his goodness to the extreme verge of the Cairnforth +territory. Throughout June the Manse was weekly haunted by tenants +arriving from all quarters to consult the minister, the universal +referee, as to how best they could celebrate the event, which, whenever +it occurred, had for generations been kept gloriously in the little +peninsula, though no case was known of any earl's attaining his majority +as being already Earl of Cairnforth. The Montgomeries were usually a +long-lived race, and their heirs rarely came to their titles till +middle-aged fathers of families. + +"But we maun hae grand doings this time, ye ken," said an old farmer to +the minister, "for I doubt there'll ne'er be anither Earl o' +Cairnforth." + +Which fact every one seemed sorrowfully to recognize. It was not only +probable, but right, that in this Lord Cairnforth--so terribly +afflicted--the long line should end. + +As the day of the earl's majority approached, the minister's feelings +were of such a mingled kind that he shrank from these demonstrations of +joy, and rather repressed the warm loyalty which was springing up every +where toward the young man. But after taking counsel with Helen, who +saw into things a little deeper than he did, Mr. Cardross decided that +it was better all should be done exactly as if the present lord were not +different from his forefathers, and that he should be helped both to act +and to feel as like other people as possible. + +Therefore, on a bright June morning, as bright as that of his sad +birth-day and his mother's death-day, twenty-one years before, the earl +awoke to the sound of music playing--if the national pipes of the +peninsula could be called music--underneath his window, and heard his +good neighbors from the clachan, young and old, men, women, and bairns, +uniting their voices in one hearty shout, wishing "A lang life and a +merry ane" to the Earl of Cairnforth. + +Whether or not the young man's heart echoed the wish, who could tell? +It was among the solemn secrets which every human soul has to keep and +ever must keep between itself and its Maker. + +Very soon the earl appeared out of doors, wheeling himself along the +terrace in his little chair, answering smilingly the congratulations of +every body, and evidently enjoying the pleasant morning, the sunshine, +and the scent of the flowers in what was still called "The countess's +garden." People notice afterward how very like he looked that day to +his beautiful mother; and many a mother out of the clachan, who +remembered the lady's face still, and how, during her few brief months +of married happiness and hope, she used to stop her pretty pony-carriage +to notice every poor woman's baby she chanced to pass--many of these +now regarded pitifully and tenderly her only son, the last heir of the +last Countess of Cairnfoth. + +Yet he certainly enjoyed himself, there could be no doubt of it; and +when, later in the day, he discovered a conspiracy between the Castle, +the Manse, and the clachan, which resulted in a grand feast on the lawn, +he was highly delighted. + +"All this for me!" he cried, almost childish in his pleasure. "How good +every body is to me!" + +And he insisted on mixing with the little crowd, and seeing them sit +down to their banquet, which they ate as if they had never eaten in +their lives before, and drank--as Highlanders can drink, and +Highlanders alone. But, before the whisky began to grow dangerous, the +oldest man among the tenantry, who declared that he could remember three +Earls of Cairnfoth, proposed the health of this earl, which was received +with acclamations long and loud, the pipers playing the family tune of +"Montgomerie's Reel," which was chiefly notable for having neither +beginning, middle, nor ending. + +Lord Cairnforth bowed his head in acknowledgment. + +"Ought not somebody to make a little speech of thanks to them?" +whispered he to Helen, who stood close behind his chair. + +"You should; and I think you could," was her answer. + +"Very well; I will try." + +And in his poor feeble voice, which trembled much, yet was distinct and +clear, he said a few words, very short and simple, to the people near +him. He thanked them for all this merry-making in his honor, and said, +"he was exceedingly happy that day." He told them he meant always to +reside at Cairnforth, and to carry out all sorts of plans for the +improvement of his estates, both for his tenants' benefits and his own. +That he hoped to be both a just and kind landlord, working with and for +his tenantry to the utmost of his power. + +"That is," he added, with a slight fall of the voice, "to the utmost of +those few powers which it has pleased Heaven to give me." + +After this speech there was a full minute's silence, tender, touching +silence, and the arose a cheer, long and loud, such had rarely echoed +through the little peninsula on the coming of age of any Lord +Cairnforth. + +When the tenantry had gone away to light bonfires on the hill-side, and +perform many other feats of jubilation, a little dinner-party assembled +in the large dining-room, which had been so long disused, for the earl +always preferred the library, which was on a level with his bedroom, +whence he could wheel himself in and out as he pleased. To-day the +family table was outspread, and the family plate glittered, and the +family portraits stared down from the wall as the last Earl of +Cairnforth moved--or rather was moved--slowly down the long room. +Malcolm was wheeling him to a side seat well sheltered and comfortable, +when he said, + +"Stop! Remember I am twenty-one to-day. I think I ought to take my +seat at the head of my own table." + +Malcolm obeyed. And thus, for the first time since the late earl's +death, the place--the master's place--was filled. + +"Mr. Cardross, will you say grace?" + +The minister tried once--twice--thrice; but his voice failed him. +His tender heart, which had lived through so many losses, and this day +saw all the past brought before him vivid as yesterday, entirely broke +down. Thereupon the earl, from his seat at the head of his own table, +repeated simply and naturally the few words which every head of a +household--as priest in his own family--may well say, "For these +and all other mercies, Lord, make us thankful." + +After that, Mr. Menteith took snuff vehemently, and Mr. Cardross openly +wiped his eyes. But Helen's, if not quite dry, were very bright. Her +woman's heart, which looked beyond the pain of suffering into the beauty +of suffering nobly endured, even as faith looks through "the grave and +gate of death" into the glories of immortality--Helen's heart was +scarcely sad, but very glad and proud. + +The day after Lord Cairnforth's coming of age Mr. Menteith formally +resigned his trust. He had managed the property so successfully during +the long minority that even he himself was surprised at the amount of +money, both capital and income, which the earl was now master of, +without restriction or reservation, and free from the control of any +human being. + +"Yes, my lord," said he, when the young man seemed subdued and almost +overcome by the extent of his own wealth, "it is really all your own. +You may make ducks and drakes of it, as the saying goes, as soon as ever +you please. You are accountable for it to no one--except One," added +the good, honest, religious man, now growing an old man, and a little +gentler, grave, as well as a little more demonstrative than he had been +twenty years before. + +"Except One. I know that; I hope I shall never forget it," replied the +Earl of Cairnforth. + +And then they proceeded to wind up their business affairs. + +"How strange it is," observed the earl, when they had nearly concluded, +"how very strange that I should be here in the world, an isolated human +being, with not a single blood relation, not a soul who has any real +claim upon me!" + +"Certainly not--no claim whatsoever; and yet you are not quite +without blood relations." + +Lord Cairnforth looked surprised. "I always understood that I had no +near kindred." + +'Of near kindred you have none. But there are certain far-away cousins, +of whom, for many reasons, I never told you, and begged Mr. Cardross not +to tell you either." + +"I think I ought to have been told." + +Mr. Menteith explained his strong reasons for silence, such as the late +lord's unpleasant experience--and his own--of the Bruce family, +and the necessity he saw for keeping his ward quite out of their +association and their influence till his character was matured, and he +was of age to judge for himself, and act for himself, concerning them. +All the more, because remote as their kinship was, and difficult to be +proved, still, if proved, they would be undoubtedly his next heirs. + +"My next heirs," repeated the earl--"of course. I must have an heir. +I wonder I never thought of that. If I died, there must be somebody to +succeed me in the title and estates." + +"Not in the title," said Mr. Menteith, hesitating, for he saw it was +opening a subject most difficult and painful, yet which must be opened +sometime or other, and the old was too hones to shrink from so doing, if +necessary. + +"Why not the title?" + +"It is entailed, and can be inherited in the direct male line only." + +"That is, it descends from father to son?" + +"Exactly so." + +"I see," said the young man, after a long pause. + +"Then I am the last Earl of Cairnforth." + +There was no answer. Mr. Menteith could not for his life have given +one; besides, none seemed required. The earl said it as if merely +stating a fact beyond which there is no appeal, and neither expecting +nor desiring any refutation or contradiction. + +"Now," Lord Cairnforth continued, suddenly changing the conversation, +"let us speak once more of the Bruces, who, you say, might any day +succeed to my fortune, and would probably make a very bad use of it." + +"I believe so; upon my conscience I do!" said Mr. Menteith, earnestly, +"else I never should have felt justified in keeping them out of your way +as I have done." + +"Who are they? I mean, of what does the family consist?" + +"An old man--Colonel Bruce he calls himself, and is known as such in +every disreputable gambling town on the Continent; a long tribe of +girls, and one son, eldest or youngest, I forget which, who was sent to +India through some influence I used for your father's sake, but who may +be dead by now for aught I know. Indeed, the utmost I have had to do +with the family of late years has been paying the annuity granted them +by the late earl, which I continued, not legally, but through charity, +on trust that the present earl would never call me to account for the +same." + +"Most certainly I never shall." + +"Then you will take my advice, and forgive my intruding upon you a +little more of it?" + +"Forgive? I am thankful, my good old friend, for every wise word you +say to me." + +Again the good lawyer hesitated: "There is a subject, one exceedingly +difficult to speak of, but it should be named, since you might not think +of it yourself. Lord Cairnforth, the only way in which you can secure +your property against these Bruces is by at once making your will." + +"Making my will!" replied the earl, looking as if the new +responsibilities opening upon him were almost bewildering. + +"Every man who has any thing to leave ought to make a will as soon as +ever he comes of age. Vainly I urged this upon your father." + +"My poor father! That he should die--so young and strong--and I +should live--how strange it seems! You think, then--perhaps Dr. +Hamilton also thinks--that my life is precarious?" + +"I can not tell; my dear lord, how could any man possibly tell?" + +"Well, it will not make me die one day sooner or later to have made my +will: as you say, every man ought to do it; I ought especially, for my +life is more doubtful than most people's, and it is a solemn charge to +posses so large a fortune as mine." + +"Yes. The good--or harm--that might be done with it is +incalculable." + +"I feel that--at least I am beginning to feel it." + +And for a time the earl sat silent and thoughtful; the old lawyer +fussing about, putting papers and debris of all sorts into their right +places, but feeling it awkward to resume the conversation. + +"Mr. Menteith, are you at liberty now? For I have quite made up my +mind. This matter of the will shall be settled at once. It can be +done?" + +"Certainly." + +"Sit down, then, and I will dictate it. But first you must promise not +to interfere with any disposition I may see fit to make of my property." + +"I should not have the slightest right to do so, Lord Cairnforth." + +"My good old friend! Well, now, how shall we begin?" + +"I should recommend your first stating any legacies you may wish to +leave to dependents--for instance, Mrs. Campbell, or Malcolm, and +then bequeathing the whole bulk of your estates to some one person-- +some young person likely to outlive you, and upon whom you can depend to +carry out all your plans and intentions, and make as good a use of your +fortune as you would have done yourself. That is my principle as to +choice of an heir. There are many instances in which blood is not +thicker than water, and a friend by election is often worthier and +dearer, besides being closer than any relative." + +"You are right." + +"Still, consanguinity must be considered a little. You might leave a +certain sum to these Bruces--or if, on inquiry, you found among them +any child whom you approved, you could adopt him as your heir, and he +could take the name Montgomerie." + +"No," replied the ear, decisively, "that name is ended. All I have to +consider is my own people here--my tenants and servants. Whoever +succeeds me ought to know them all, and be to them exactly what I have +been, or rather what I hope to be." + +"Mr. Cardross, for instance. Were you thinking of him as your heir?" + +"No, not exactly," replied Lord Cairnforth, slightly coloring. "He is a +little too old. Besides, he is not quite the sort of person I should +wish--too gentle and self-absorbed--too little practical." + +"One of his sons, perhaps?" + +"No, nor one of yours either; to whom, by the way you will please to set +down a thousand pounds apiece. Nay, don't look so horrified; it will +not harm them. But personally I do not know them, nor they me. And my +heir should be some one whom I thoroughly do know, thoroughly respect, +thoroughly love. There is but one person in the world--one young +person--who answers to all those requisites." + +"Who is that?" + +"Helen Cardross." + +Mr. Menteith was a good deal surprised. Though he had a warm corner in +his heart for Helen, still, the idea of her as heiress to so large an +estate was novel and startling. He did not consider himself justified +in criticizing the earl's choice; still, he thought it odd. True, Helen +was a brave, sensible, self-dependent woman--not a girl any longer +--and accustomed from the age of fifteen to guide a household, to be +her father's right hand, and her brothers' help and counselor--one of +those rare characters who, without being exactly masculine, are yet not +too feebly feminine--in whom strength is never exaggerated to +boldness, nor gentleness deteriorated into weakness. She was firm, too; +could form her own opinion and carry it out; though not accomplished, +was fairly well educated, possessed plenty of sound practical knowledge +of men and things, and, above all, had habits of extreme order and +regularity. People said, sometimes, that Miss Cardross ruled not only +the Manse, but the whole parish; however, if so, she did it in so sweet +a way that nobody ever objected to her government. + +All these things Mr. Menteith ran over in his acute mind within the next +few minutes, during which he did not commit himself to any remarks at +all. At last he said, + +"I think, my lord, you are right. Helen's no bonnie, but she is a rare +creature, with the head of a man and the heart of a woman. She is worth +all her brothers put together, and, under the circumstances, I believe +you could not do better than make her your heiress." + +"I am glad you think so," was the brief answer. Though, by the +expression of the earl's face, Mr. Menteith clearly saw that, whether he +had thought it or not, the result would have been just the same. He +smiled a little to himself, but he did not dispute the matter. He knew +that one of the best qualities the earl possessed--most blessed and +useful to him, as it is to every human being--was the power of making +up his own mind, and acting upon it with that quiet resolution which is +quite distinct from obstinacy--obstinacy, usually the last +strong-hold of cowards, and the blustering self-defense of fools. + +"There is but one objection to your plan, Lord Cairnforth. Miss +Cardross is young--twenty-six, I think." + +"Twenty-five and a half." + +"She may not remain always Miss Cardross. She may marry; and we can not +tell what sort of man her husband may be, or how fit to be trusted with +so large a property." + +"So good a woman is not likely to choose a man unworthy of her," said +Lord Cairnforth, after a pause. "Still, could not my fortune be settled +upon herself as a life-rent, to descend intact to her heirs--that is, +her children?" + +"My dear lord, how you must have thought over every thing!" + +"You forget, my friend, I have nothing to do but to sit thinking." + +There was a sad intonation in the voice which affected Mr. Menteith +deeply. He made no remark, but busied himself in drawing up the will, +which Lord Cairnforth seemed nervously anxious should be completed that +very day. + +"For, suppose any thing should happen--if I died this night, for +instance! No, let what is done be done as soon as possible, and as +privately." + +"You wish, then, the matter to be kept private?" asked Mr. Menteith. + +"Yes." + +So in the course of the next few hours the will was drawn up. It was +somewhat voluminous with sundry small legacies, no one being forgotten +whom the earl desired to benefit or thought needed his help; but the +bulk of his fortune he left unreservedly to Helen Cardross. Malcolm and +another servant were called in as witnesses, and the earl saying to them +with a cheerful smile "that he was making his will, but did not mean to +die a day the sooner," signed it with that feeble, uncertain signature +which yet had cost him years of pains to acquire, and never might have +been acquired at all but for his own perseverance and the unwearied +patience of Helen Cardross. + +"She taught me to write, you know," said he to Mr. Menteith, as--the +witnesses being gone--he, with a half-amused look, regarded his own +autograph. + +"You have used the results of her teaching well on her behalf today. It +is no trifle--a clear income of ten thousand a year; but she will +make a good use of it." + +"I am sure of that. So, now, all is safe and right, and I may die as +soon as God pleases." + +He leaned his head back wearily, and his face was overspread by that +melancholy shadow which it wore at times, showing how, at best, life was +a heavy burden, as it could not but be--to him. + +"Come, now," said the earl, rousing himself, "we have still a good many +things to talk over, which I want to consult you about before you go," +whereupon the young man opened up such a number of schemes, chiefly for +the benefit of his tenantry and the neighborhood, that Mr. Menteith was +quite overwhelmed. + +"Why, my lord, you are the most energetic Earl of Cairnforth that ever +came to the title. It would take three lifetimes, instead of a single +one, even if that reached threescore and ten, to carry out all you want +to do." + +"Would it? Then let us hope it was not for nothing that those good folk +yesterday made themselves hoarse with wishing me 'a lang life and a +merry ane.' And when I die--but we'll not enter upon that subject. +My dear old friend, I hope for many and many a thirtieth of June I shall +make you welcome to Cairnforth. And now let us take a quiet drive +together, and fetch all the Manse people up to dinner at the Castle." + + + + + +Chapter 8 + +The same evening the earl and his guests were sitting in the June +twilight--the long, late northern twilight, which is nowhere more +lovely than on the shores of Loch Beg. Malcolm had just come in with +candles, as a gentle hint that it was time for his master, over whose +personal welfare he was sometimes a little too solicitous, to retire, +when there happened what for the time being startled every body present. + +Malcolm, going to the window, sprang suddenly back with a shout and a +scream. + +"I kent it weel. It was sure to be! Oh, my lord, my lord!" + +"What is the matter?" said Mr. Menteith, sharply. "You're gone daft, +man;" for the big Highlander was trembling like a child. + +"Whisht! Dinna speak o't. It was my lord's wraith, ye ken. It just +keekit in and slippit awa." + +"Folly! I saw nothing." + +"But I think I did," said Lord Cairnforth. + +"Hear him! Ay, he saw't his ain sel. Then it maun be true. Oh my dear +lord!" + +Poor Malcolm fell on his knees by the earl's little chair in such +agitation that Mr. Cardross looked up from his book, and Helen from her +peaceful needle-work, which was rarely out of her active hands. + +"He thinks he has seen his master's wraith; and because the earl signed +his will this morning, he is sure to die, especially as Lord Cairnforth +saw the same thing himself. Will you say, my lord, what you did see?" + +"Mr. Menteith, I believe I saw a man peering in at that window." + +"It wasna a man--it was a speerit," moaned Malcolm. "My lord's +wraith, for sure." + +"I don't think so, Malcolm; for it was a tall, thin figure that moved +about lightly and airily--was come and gone in a moment. Not very +like my wraith, unless wraith of myself as I might have been." + +The little party were silent till Helen said, + +"What do you think it was, then?" + +"Certainly a man, made of honest flesh and blood, though not much of +either, for he was excessively thin and sickly-looking. He just +'keerkit in,' as Malcolm says, and disappeared." + +"What an odd circumstance!" said Mr. Menteith. + +"Not a robber, I trust. I am much more afraid of robbers than of +ghosts." + +"We never rob at Cairnforth; we are very honest people here. No, I +think it is far likelier to be one of those stray tourists who are +brought here by the steamers. They sometimes take great liberties, +wandering into the Castle grounds, and perhaps one of them thought he +might as well come and stare in at my windows." + +"I hope he was English; I should not like a Scotsman to do such a rude +thing," cried Helen, indignantly. + +Lord Cairnforth laughed at her impulsiveness. There was much of the +child nature mingled in Helen's gravity and wisdom, and she sometimes +did both speak and act from impulse--especially generous and kindly +impulse--as hastily and unthinkingly as a child. + +"Well, Malcolm, the only way to settle this difficulty is to search the +house and grounds. Take a good thick stick and a lantern, and whatever +you find--be it tourist or burglar, man or spirit--bring him at +once to me." + +And then the little group waited, laughing among themselves, but still +not quite at ease. Lord Cairnforth would not allow Mr. Cardross and +Helen to walk home; the carriage was ordered to be made ready. + +Presently, Malcolm appeared, somewhat crestfallen. + +"It is a man, my lord, and no speerit. But he wadna come ben. He says +he'll wait your lordship's will, and that's his name," laying a card +before the earl, who looked at it and started with surprise. + +"Mr. Menteith, just see--'Captain Ernest Henry Bruce.' What an odd +coincidence!" + +"Coincidence, indeed!" repeated the lawyer, skeptically. "Let me see +the card." + +"Earnest Henry! was that the name of the young man whom you sent out to +India?" + +"How should I remember? It was ten or fifteen years ago. Very +annoying! However, since he is a Bruce, or says he is, I suppose your +lordship must just see him." + +"Certainly," replied, in his quiet, determined tone, the Earl of +Cairnforth. + +Helen, who looked exceedingly surprised, offered to retire, but the earl +would not hear of it. + +"No, no; you are a wise woman, and an acute one too. I would like you +to see and judge of this cousin of mine--a faraway cousin, who would +like well enough, Mr. Menteith guesses, to be my heir. But we will not +judge him harshly, and especially we will not prejudge him. His father +was nothing to boast of, but this may be a very honest man for all we +know. Sit by me, Helen and take a good look at him." + +And, with a certain amused pleasure, the earl watched Helen's puzzled +air at being made of so much importance, till the stranger appeared. + +He was a man of about thirty, though at first sight he seemed older, +from his exceedingly worn and sickly appearance. His lank black hair +fell about his thin, sallow face; he wore what we now call the Byron +collar and Byron tie--for it was in the Byron era, when +sentimentalism and misery-making were all the fashion. Certainly the +poor captain looked miserable enough, without any pretense of it; for, +besides his thin and unhealthy aspect, his attire was in the lowest +depth of genteel shabbiness. Nevertheless, he looked gentlemanly, and +clever too; nor was it an unpleasant face, though the lower half of it +indicated weakness and indecision; and the eyes--large, dark, and +hollow--were a little too closely set together, a peculiarity which +always gives an uncandid, and often a rather sinister expression to any +face. Still there was something about the unexpected visitor decidedly +interesting. + +Even Helen looked up from her work once--twice--with no small +curiosity; she saw so few strangers, and of men, and young men, almost +none, from year's end to year's end. Yet it was a look as frank, as +unconscious, as maidenly as might have been Miranda's first glance at +Ferdinand. + +Captain Bruce did not return her glance at all. His whole attention was +engrossed by Lord Cairnforth. + +"My lord, I am so sorry--so very sorry--if I startled you by my +rudeness. The group inside was so cheering a sight, and I was a poor +weary wayfarer." + +"Do not apologize, Captain Bruce. I am happy to make your +acquaintance." + +"It has been the wish of my life, Lord Cairnforth, to make yours." + +Lord Cairnforth turned upon him eyes sharp enough to make a less acute +person than the captain feel that honesty, rather than flattery, was the +safest tack to go upon. He took the hint. + +"That is, I have wished, ever since I came home from India, to thank you +and Mr. Menteith--this is Mr. Menteith, I presume?--for my +cadetship, which I got through you. And though my ill health has +blighted my prospects, and after some service--for I exchanged from +the Company's civil into the military service--I have returned to +England an invalided and disappointed man, still my gratitude is exactly +the same, and I was anxious to see and thank you, as my benefactor and +my cousin." + +Lord Cairnforth merely bent his head in answer to this long speech, +which a little perplexed him. He, like Helen, was both unused and +indifferent to strangers. + +But Captain Bruce seemed determined not to be made a stranger. After +the brief ceremony of introduction to the little party, he sat down +close to Lord Cairnforth, displacing Helen, who quietly retired, and +began to unfold all his circumstances, giving as credentials of identity +a medal received for some Indian battle; a letter from his father, the +colonel, whose handwriting Mr. Menteith immediately recognized, and +other data, which sufficiently proved that he really was the person he +assumed to be. + +"For," said he, with that exceedingly frank manner he had, the sort of +manner particularly taking with reserved people, because it saves them +so much trouble--"for otherwise how should you know that I am not an +impostor--a swindler--instead of your cousin, which I hope you +believe I really am, Lord Cairnforth?" + +"Certainly," said the earl, smiling, and looking both amused an +interested by this little adventure, so novel in his monotonous life. + +Also, his kindly heart was touched by the sickly and feeble aspect of +the young man, by his appearance of poverty, and by something in his air +which the earl fancied implied that brave struggle against misfortune, +more pathetic than misfortune itself. With undisguised pleasure, the +young host sat and watched his guest doing full justice to the very best +supper that the Castle could furnish. + +"You are truly a good Samaritan," said Captain Bruce, pouring out freely +the claret which was then the universal drink of even the middle classes +in Scotland. "I had fallen among thieves (literally, for my small +baggage was stolen from me yesterday, and I have no worldly goods beyond +the clothes I stand in); you meet me, my good cousin, with oil and wine, +and set me on your own beast, which I fear I shall have to ask you to +do, for I am not strong enough to walk any distance. How far is it to +the nearest inn?" + +"About twenty miles. But we will discuss that question presently. In +the mean time, eat and drink; you need it." + +"Ah! Yes. You have never known hunger--I hope you never may; but it +is not a pleasant thing, I assure you, actually to want food." + +Helen looked up sympathetically. As Captain Bruce took not the +slightest notice of her, she had ample opportunity to observe him. Pity +for his worn face made her lenient. Lord Cairnforth read her favorable +judgment in her eyes, and it inclined him also to judge kindly of the +stranger. Mr. Menteith alone, more familiar with the world, and goaded +by it into that sharp suspiciousness which is the last hardening of a +kindly and generous heart--Mr. Menteith held aloof for some time, +till at last even he succumbed to the charm of the captain's +conversation. Mr. Cardross had already fallen a willing victim, for he +had latterly been deep in the subject of Warren Hastings, and to meet +with any one who came direct from that wondrous land of India, then as +mysterious and far-away a region as the next world, to people in +England, and especially in the wilds of Scotland, was to the good +minister a delight indescribable. + +Captain Bruce, who had at first paid little attention to any body but +his cousin, soon exercised his faculty of being "all things to all men," +gave out his stores of information, bent all his varied powers to +gratify Lord Cairnforth's friends, and succeeded. + +The clock had struck twelve, and still the little party were gathered +round the supper-table. Captain Bruce rose. + +"I am ashamed to have detained you from your natural rest, Lord +Cairnforth. I am but a poor sleeper myself; my cough often disturbs me +much. Perhaps, as there is no inn, one of your servants could direct me +to some cottage near, where I could get a night's lodging, and go on my +way to-morrow. Any humble place will do; I am accustomed to rough it; +besides, it suits my finances: half-pay to a sickly invalid is hard +enough--you understand?" + +"I do." + +"Still, if I could only get health! I have been told that this part of +the country is very favorable to people with delicate lungs. Perhaps I +might meet with some farm-house lodging?" + +"I could not possibly allow that," said Lord Cairnforth, unable, in +spite of all Mr. Menteith's grave warning looks, to shut up his warm +heart any longer. "The Castle is your home, Captain Bruce, for as long +as you may find it pleasant to remain here." + +The invitation, given so unexpectedly and cordially, seemed to surprise, +nay, to touch the young man exceedingly. + +"Thank you, my cousin. You are very kind to me, which is more than I +can say of the world in general. I will thankfully stay with you for a +little. It might give me a chance of health." + +"I trust so." + +Still, to make all clear between host and guest, let me name some end to +my visit. This is the first day of July; may I accept your hospitality +for a fortnight--say till the 15th?" + +"Till whenever you please," replied the earl, courteously and warmly; +for he was pleased to find his cousin, even though a Bruce, so very +agreeable; glad, too, that he had it in his power to do him a kindness, +which, perhaps, had too long been neglected. Besides, Lord Cairnforth +had few friends, and youth so longs for companionship. This was +actually the first time he had had a chance of forming an intimacy with +a young man of his own age, education, and position, and he caught at it +with avidity, the more so because Captain Bruce seemed likely to supply +all the things which he had not and never could have--knowledge of +the world outside; "hair-breadth 'scapes" and adventurous experiences, +told with a point and cleverness that added to their charm. + +Besides, the captain was decidedly "interesting." Young ladies would +have thought him so, with his pale face and pensive air, which, seeing +that the Byron fever had not yet attacked the youths of Cairnforth, +appeared to his simple audience a melancholy quite natural and not +assumed. And his delicacy of health was a fact only too patent. There +was a hectic brilliant color on his cheek, and his cough interrupted him +continually. His whole appearance implied that, in any case, a long +life was scarcely probable, and this alone was enough to soften any +tender heart toward him. + +"What does Helen think of my new cousin?" whispered Lord Cairnforth, +looking up to her with his affectionate eyes, as she bent over his chair +to bid him goodnight. + +"I like him," was the frank answer. "He is very agreeable, and then he +looks so ill." + +"Was I right in asking him to stay here?" + +"Yes, I think so. He is your nearest relation, and, as the proverb +says, 'Bluid is thicker than water.'" + +"Not always." + +"But now you will soon be able to judge how you like him, I hope you +will be very kind to him." + +"Do you, Helen? Then I certainly will." + +The earl kept his word. Many weeks went by; the 15th of July was long +past, and still Captain Bruce remained a guest at the Castle--quite +domesticated, for he soon made himself as much at home as if he had +dwelt there all his days. He fluctuated a little between the Castle and +the Manse, but soon decided that the latter was "rather a dull house" +--the boys rough--the minister too much of a student--and Miss +Cardross "a very good sort of girl, but certainly no beauty," which +dictum delivered in an oracular manner, as from one well accustomed to +criticize the sex, always amused the earl exceedingly. + +To Lord Cairnforth, his new-found cousin devoted himself in the most +cousinly way. Tender, respectful, unobtrusive, bestowing on him enough, +and not too much of his society; never interfering, and yet always at +hand with any assistance required: he was exactly the companion which +the earl needed, and liked constantly beside him. For, of course, +Malcolm, fond and faithful as he was, was only a servant; a friend, who +was also a gentleman, yet who did not seem to feel or dislike the many +small cares and attentions which were necessities to Lord Cairnforth, +was quite a different thing. It was a touching contrast to see the two +together; the active, elegant young man--for, now he was +well-dressed, Captain Bruce looked remarkably elegant and gentlemanly, +and the little motionless figure, as impassive and helpless almost as an +image carved in stone, but yet who was undoubtedly the Earl of +Cairnforth, and sole master of Cairnforth Castle. + +Perhaps the wisest bit of the captain's proceedings was the tact with +which he always recognized this fact, and paid his cousin that respect +and deference, and that tacit acknowledgment of his rights of manhood +and government which could not but be soothing and pleasant to one so +afflicted. Or perhaps--let us give the kindest interpretation +possible to all things--the earl's helplessness and loveableness +touched a chord long silent, or never stirred before in the heart of the +man of the world. Possibly--who can say?--he really began to like +him. + +At any rate, he seemed as if he did, and Lord Cairnforth gave back to +him in double measure all that he bestowed. + +As a matter of course, all the captain's pecuniary needs were at once +supplied. His threadbare clothes became mysteriously changed into a +wardrobe supplied with every thing that a gentleman could desire, and a +rather luxurious gentleman too; which, owing to his Indian habits and +his delicate health, the young captain turned out to be. At first he +resisted all this kindness; but all remonstrances being soon overcome, +he took his luxuries quite naturally, and evidently enjoyed them, though +scarcely so much as the earl himself. + +To that warm heart, which had never had half enough of its ties whereon +to expend itself and its wealth of generosity, it was perfectly +delicious to see the sick soldier daily gaining health by riding the +Cairnforth horses, shooting over the moors, or fishing in the lochs. +Never had the earl so keenly enjoyed his own wealth, and the blessings +it enabled him to lavish abroad; never in his lifetime had he looked so +thoroughly contented. + +"Helen," he said one day, when she had come up for an hour or two to the +Castle, and then as usual, Captain Bruce had taken the opportunity of +riding out--he owned he found Miss Cardross's company and +conversation "slow"--"Helen, that young man looks stronger and better +every day. What a bright-looking fellow he is! It does one good to see +him." And the earl followed with his eyes the graceful steed and +equally graceful rider, caracoling in front of the Castle window. + +Helen said nothing. + +"I think," he continued, "that the next best thing to being happy one's +self is to be able to make other people so. Perhaps that may be the +sort of happiness they have in the next world. I often speculate about +it, and wonder what sort of creature I shall find myself there. But." +added he, abruptly, "now to business. You will be my secretary this +morning instead of Bruce?" + +"Willingly;" for, though she too, like Malcolm, had been a little +displaced by this charming cousin, there was not an atom of jealousy in +her nature. Hers was that pure and unselfish affection which could bear +to stand by and see those she loved made happy, even though it was by +another than herself. + +She fell to work in her old way, and the earl employed as much as he +required her ready handwriting, her clear head, and her full +acquaintance with every body and every thing in the district; for Helen +was a real minister's daughter--as popular and as necessary in the +parish as the minister himself; and she was equally important at the +Castle, where she was consulted, as this morning, on every thing Lord +Cairnforth was about to do, and on the wisest way of expending--he +did not wish to save--the large yearly income which he now seemed +really beginning to enjoy. + +Helen, too, after a long morning's work, drew her breath with a sigh of +pleasure. + +"What a grand thing it is to be as rich as you are!" + +"Why so?" + +"One can do such a deal of good with plenty of money." + +"Yes. Should you like to be very rich, Helen?" watching her with an +amused look. + +Helen shook her head and laughed. "Oh, it's no use asking me the +question, for I shall never have the chance of being rich." + +"You can not say; you might marry, for instance." + +"That is not likely. Papa could never do without me; besides, as the +folk say, I'm 'no bonnie, ye ken.' But," speaking more seriously, +"indeed, I never think of marrying. If it is to be it will be; if not, +I am quite happy as I am. And for money, can I not always come to you +whenever I want it? You supply me endlessly for my poor people. And, +as Captain Bruce was saying to papa the other night, you are a perfect +mine of gold--and of generosity." + +"Helen," Lord Cairnforth said, after he had sat thinking a while, "I +wanted to consult you about Captain Bruce. How do you like him? That +is, do you still continue to like him, for I know you did at first?" + +"And I do still. I feel so very sorry for him." + +"Only, my dear"--Lord Cairnforth sometimes called her "my dear," and +spoke to her with a tender, superior wisdom--"one's link to one's +friends ought to be a little stronger than being sorry for them; one +ought to respect them. One must respect them before one can trust them +very much--with one's property, for instance." + +"Do you mean," said straightforward Helen, "that you have any thoughts +of making Captain Bruce your heir?" + +"No, certainly not; but I have grave doubts whether I ought not to +remember him in my will, only I wished to see his health re-established +first, since, had he continued as delicate as when he came, he might not +even have outlived me." + +"How calmly you talk of all this," said Helen, with a little shiver. +She, full of life and health, could hardly realize the feeling of one +who stood always on the brink of another world, and looking to that +world only for real health--real life. + +"I think of it calmly, and therefore speak calmly. But, dear Helen, I +will not grieve you to-day. There is plenty of time, and all is safe, +whatever happens. I can trust my successor to do rightly. As for my +cousin, I will try him a little longer, lest he prove + + "'A little more than kin, and less than kind.'" + +"There seems no likelihood of that. He always speaks in the warmest +manner of you whenever he comes to the Manse; that is what makes me like +him, I fancy; and also, because I would always believe the best of +people until I found out to the contrary. Life would not be worth +having if we were continually suspecting every body--believing every +body bad till we had found them out to be good. If so, with many, I +fear we should never find the good out at all. That is--I can't put +it cleverly, like you, but I know what I mean." + +Lord Cairnforth smiled. "So do I, Helen, which is quite enough for us +two. We will talk this over some other time; and meanwhile"--he +looked at her earnestly and spoke with meaning--"if ever you have an +opportunity of being kind to Captain Bruce, remember he is my next of +kin, and I wish it." + +"Certainly," answered Helen. "But I am never likely to have the chance +of doing any kindness to such a very fine gentleman." + +Lord Cairnforth smiled to himself once more, and let the conversation +end; afterward--long afterward, he recalled it, and thought with a +strange comfort that then, at least, there was nothing to conceal; +nothing but sincerity in the sweet, honest face--not pretty, but so +perfectly candid and true--with the sun shining on the lint-white +hair, and the bright blue eyes meeting his, guileless as a child's. Ay, +and however they were dimmed with care and washed with tears--oceans +of bitterness--that innocent, childlike look never, even when she was +an old woman, quite faded out of Helen's eyes. + +"Ay," Lord Cairnforth said to himself, when she had gone away, and he +was left alone in that helpless solitude which, being the inevitable +necessity, had grown into the familiar habit of his life, "ay, it is all +right. No harm could come--there would be nothing neglected--even +were I to die to-morrow." + +That "dying to-morrow," which might happen to any one of us, how few +really recognize it and prepare for it! Not in the ordinary religious +sense of "preparation for death"--often a most irreligious thing +--a frantic attempt of sinning and terror-stricken humanity to strike +a balance-sheet with heaven, just leaving a sufficient portion on the +credit side--but preparation in the ordinary worldly meaning-- +keeping one's affairs straight and clear, that no one may be perplexed +therewith afterward; forgiving and asking forgiveness of offenses; +removing evil done, and delaying not for a day any good that it is +possible to do. + +It was a strange thing; but, as after his death it was discovered, the +true secret of the wonderful calmness and sweetness which, year by year, +deepened more and more in Lord Cairnforth's character, ripening it to a +perfectness in which those who only saw the outside of his could hardly +believe, consisted in this ever-abiding thought--that he might die +to-morrow. Existence was to him such a mere twilight, dim, imperfect, +and sad, that he never rested in it, but lived every day, as it were, in +prospect of the eternal dawn. + + + + + +Chapter 9 + +This summer, which, as it glided away, Lord Cairnforth often declared to +be the happiest of his life, ended by bringing him the first heavy +affliction--external affliction--which his life had ever known. + +Suddenly, in the midst of the late-earned rest of a very toilsome +career, died Mr. Menteith, the earl's long-faithful friend, who had been +almost as good to him as a father. He felt it sorely; the more so, +because, though his own frail life seemed always under the imminent +shadow of death, death had never touched him before as regarded other +people. He had lived, as we all unconsciously do, till the great enemy +smites us, feeling as if, whatever might be the case with himself, those +whom he loved could never die. This grief was something quite new to +him, and it struck him hard. + +The tidings came on a gloomy day in late October, the season when +Cairnforth is least beautiful; for the thick woods about it make the +always damp atmosphere heavy with "the moist, rich smell of the rotting +leaves," and the roads lying deep in mud, and the low shore hung with +constant mists, give a general impression of dreariness. The far-away +hills vanish entirely for days together, and the loch itself takes a +leaden hue, as if it never could be blue again. You can hardly believe +that the sun will ever again shine out upon it; the white waves rise, +the mountains reappear, and the whole scene grows clear and lovely, as +life does sometimes if we have only patience to endure through the weary +winter until spring. + +But for the good man, John Menteith, his springs and winter were alike +ended; he was gathered to his fathers, and his late ward mourned him +bitterly. + +Mr. Cardross and Helen, coming up to the Castle as soon as the news +reached them, found Lord Cairnforth in a state of depression such as +they had never before witnessed in him. One of the things which seemed +to affect him most painfully, as small things sometimes do in the midst +of deepest grief, was that he could not attend Mr. Menteith's funeral. + +"Every other man," said he, sadly, "every other man can follow his dear +friends and kindred to the grave, can give them respect in death as he +has given them love and help during life--I can do neither. I can +help no one--be of use to no one. I am a mere cumberer of the +ground. It would be better if I were away." + +"Hush! Do not dare to say that," answered Mr. Cardross. And he sent +the rest away, even Helen, and sat down beside his old pupil, not merely +as a friend, but as a minister--in the deepest meaning of the word, +even as it was first used of Him who "came not to be ministered unto, +but to minister." + +Helen's father was not a demonstrative man under ordinary circumstances; +he was too much absorbed in his books, and in a sort of languid +indifference to worldly matters, which had long hung over him, more or +less, ever since his wife's death; but, when occasion arose, he could +rise equal to it; and he was one of those comforters who knew the way +through the valley of affliction by the marks which their own feet have +trod. + +He and the earl spent a whole hour alone together. Afterward, when +sorrow, compared to which the present grief was calm and sacred, fell +upon them both, they remembered this day, and were not afraid to open +their wounded hearts to one another. + +At last Mr. Cardross came out of the library, and told Helen that Lord +Cairnforth wanted to speak to her. + +"He wishes to have your opinion, as well as my own, about a journey he +is projecting to Edinburg, and some business matters which he desires to +arrange there. I think he would have like to see Captain Bruce too. +Where is he?" + +The captain had found this atmosphere of sorrow a little too +overpowering, and had disappeared for a long ride; so Miss Cardross had +been sitting alone all the time. + +"Your father has been persuading me, Helen," said the earl, when she +came in, "that I am not quite so useless in the world as I imagined. He +says he has reason to believe, from things Mr. Menteith let fall, that +my dear old friend's widow is not very well provided for, and she and +her children will have a hard battle even now. Mr. Cardross thinks I +can help her very materially, in one way especially. You know I have +made my will?" + +"Yes," replied unconscious Helen, "you told me so." + +"Mr. Menteith drew it up the last time he was here. How little we +thought it would be really the last time! Ah! Helen, if we could only +look forward!" + +"It is best not," said Helen, earnestly. + +"Well, my will is made. And though in it I left nothing to Mr. Menteith +himself, seeing that such a return of his kindness would be very +unwelcome, I insisted doing what was equivalent--bequeathing a +thousand pounds to each of his children. Was I right in that? You do +not object"? + +"Most assuredly not," answered Helen, though a little surprised at the +question. Still, she was so long accustomed to be consulted by the +earl, and to give her opinion frankly and freely on all points, that the +surprise was only momentary. + +"And, by the way, I mean to leave the same sum--one thousand pounds +--to my cousin, Captain Bruce. Remember that, Helen; remember it +particularly, will you? In case any thing should happen before I have +time to add this to my will. But to the Menteiths. Your father thinks, +and I agree with him, that the money I design for them will be far +better spent now, or some portion of it, in helping these fatherless +children on in the world, than in keeping them waiting for my death, +which may not happen for years. What do you think?" + +Helen agreed heartily. It would cause a certain diminution of yearly +income, but then the earl had far more than enough for his own wants, +and if not spent thus, the sum would certainly have been expended by him +some other form of benevolence. She said as much. + +"Possibly it might. What else should I do with it?" was Lord +Cairnforth's answer. "But, in order to get at the money, and alter my +will, so that in no case should this sum be paid twice over, to the +injury of my heir--I must take care of my heir," and he slightly +smiled, "I ought to go at once to Edinburg. Shall I?" + +Helen hesitated. The earl's last journey had been so unpropitious-- +he had taken so long a time to recover from it--that she had +earnestly hoped he would never attempt another. She expressed this as +delicately as she could. + +"No, I never would have attempted it for myself. Change is only pain +and weariness to me. I have no wish to leave dear, familiar Cairnforth +till I leave it for--the place where my good old friend is now. And +sometimes, Helen, I fancy the hills of Paradise will not be very unlike +the hills about our loch. You would think of me far away, when you were +looking at them sometimes?" + +Helen fixed her tender eyes upon him--"It is quite as likely that you +may have to think of me thus, for I may go first; I am the elder of us +two. But all that is in God's hands alone. About Edinburg now. When +should you start?" + +"At once, I think; though, with my slow traveling, I should not be in +time for the funeral; and even if I were, I could not attend it without +giving much trouble to other people. But, as your father has shown me, +the funeral does not signify. The great matter is to be of use to Mrs. +Menteith and the children in the way I explained. Have I your consent, +my dear!" + +For an answer, Helen pointed to a few lines in a Bible which lay open on +the library table: no doubt her father had been reading out of it, for +it was open at that portion which seems to have plumbed the depth of all +human anguish--the Book of Job. She repeated the verses: + +"'When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, +it gave witness to me; + +"'Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him +that had none to help him: + +"'The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I +caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.' + +"That is what will be said of you one day, Lord Cairnforth. Is not this +something worth living for?" + +"Ay, it is!" replied the earl, deeply moved; and Helen was scarcely less +so. + +They discussed no more the journey to Edinburg; but Lord Cairnforth, in +his decided way, gave orders immediately to prepare for it, taking with +him, as usual, Malcolm and Mrs. Campbell. By the time Captain Bruce +returned from his ride, the guest was startled by the news that his host +meant to quit Cairnforth at daylight the next morning, which appeared to +disconcert the captain exceedingly. + +"I would volunteer to accompany you, cousin," said he, after expressing +his extreme surprise and regret, "but the winds of Edinburg are ruin to +my weak lungs, which the air here suits so well. So I must prepare to +quit pleasant Cairnforth, where I have received so much kindness, and +which I have grown to regard almost like home--the nearest approach +to home that in my sad, wandering life I ever knew." + +There was an unmistakable regret in the young man's tone which, in spite +of his own trouble, went to the earl's good heart. + +"Why should you leave at all?" said he. "Why not remain here and await +my return, which can not be long delayed--two months at most--even +counting my slow traveling? I will give you something to do meanwhile: +I will make you viceroy of Cairnforth during my absence--that is, +under Miss Cardross, who alone knows all the parish affairs--and +mine. Will you accept the office?" + +"Under Miss Cardross?" Captain Bruce laughed, but did not seem quite to +relish it. However, he expressed much gratitude at having been thought +worthy of the earl's confidence. + +"Don't be humble, my good cousin and friend. If I did not trust you, +and like you, I should never think of asking you to stay. Mr. Cardross +--Helen--what do you say to my plan"? + +Both gave a cordial assent, as was indeed certain. Nothing ill was +known of Captain Bruce, and nothing noticed in him unlikeable, or +unworthy of liking. And even as to his family, who wrote to him +constantly, and whose letters he often showed, there had appeared +sufficient evidence in their favor to counterbalance much of the +suspicions against them, so that the earl was glad he had leaned to the +charitable side in making his cousin welcome to Cairnforth; glad, too, +that he could atone by warm confidence and extra kindness for what now +seemed too long a neglect of those who were really his nearest kith and +kin. + +Mr. Cardross also; any prejudices he had from his knowledge of the late +earl's troubles with the Bruces were long ago dispersed. And Helen was +too innocent herself ever to have had a prejudice at all. She said, +when appealed to pointedly by the earl, as he now often appealed to her +in many things, that she thought the scheme both pleasant and advisable. + +"And now, papa," added she, for her watchful eye detected Lord +Cairnforth's pale face and wearied air, "let us say good-night--and +good-by." + +Long after, they remembered, all of them, what an exceedingly quiet and +ordinary good-by it was, none having the slightest feeling that it was +more than a temporary parting. The whole thing had been so sudden, and +the day's events appeared quite shadowy, and as if every body would wake +up to-morrow morning to find them nothing but a dream. + +Besides, there was a little hurrying and confusion consequent on the +earl's insisting on sending the Cardrosses home, for the dull, calm day +had changed into the wildest of nights--one of those sudden +equinoctial storms, that in an hour or two alter the whole aspect of +things this region. + +"You must take the carriage, Helen--you and your father; it is the +last thing I can do for you--and I would do every thing in the world +for you if I could; but I shall, one day. Good-by. Take care of +yourself, my dear." + +These were the earl's farewell words to her. She was so accustomed to +his goodness and kindness that she never thought much about them till +long afterward, when kindness was gone, and goodness seemed the merest +delusion and dream. + +When his friends had departed, Lord Cairnforth sat silent and +melancholy. His cousin good-naturedly tried to rouse him into the usual +contest at chess with which they had begun to while away the long winter +evenings, and which just suited Lord Cairnforth's acute, accurate, and +introspective brain, accustomed to plan and to order, so that he +delighted in the game, and was soon as good a player as his teacher. +But now his mind was disturbed and restless; he sat by the fireside, +listening to the fierce wind that went howling round and round the +Castle, as the wind can howl along the sometimes placid shores of Loch +Beg. + +"I hope they have reached the Manse in safety. Let me know, Malcolm, +when the carriage returns. I will go to bed then. I wish they would +have remained here; but the minister never will stay; he dislikes +sleeping a single night from under his own roof. Is he not a good man, +cousin--one of a thousand?" + +"I have not the slightest doubt of it." + +"And his daughter--have you in any way modified your opinion of her, +which at first was not very favorable?" + +"Not as to her beauty, certainly," was the careless reply. "She's 'no +bonnie,' as you say in these parts--terribly Scotch; but she is very +good. Only don't you think good people are just a little wearisome +sometimes?" + +The earl smiled. He was accustomed to, and often rather amused by his +cousin's honest worldliness and outspoken skepticisms--that candid +confession of badness which always inclines a kindly heart to believe +the very best of the penitent. + +"Nevertheless, though Miss Cardross may be 'no bonnie,' and too good to +please your taste, I hope you will go often to the Manse in my absence, +and write me word how they are, otherwise I shall hear little--the +minister's letters are too voluminous to be frequent--and Miss +Cardross is not given to much correspondence." + +Captain Bruce promised, and again the two young men sat silent, +listening to the eerie howling of the wind. It inclined both of them to +graver talk than was their habit when together. + +"I wonder," said the earl, "whether this blast, according to popular +superstition, is come to carry many souls away with it 'on the wings of +the wind!' Where will they fly to the instant they leave the body? How +free and happy they must feel!" + +"What an odd fancy! And not a particularly pleasant one," replied the +captain, with a shiver. + +"Not unpleasant, to my mind. I like to think of these things. If I +were out of the body, I should, if I could fly back to Cairnforth." + +"Pray don't imagine such dreadful things. May you live a hundred +years!" + +"Not quite, I hope. A hundred years--of my life! No. the most +loving friend I have would not wish it for me." Then, suddenly, as with +an impulse created by the sad events of the day--the stormy night-- +and the disturbed state of his own mental condition, inclining him to +any sort of companionship, "Cousin, I am going to trust you, specially, +in a matter of business which I wish named to the Cardrosses. I should +have done so before they left to-night. May I confide to you the +message?" + +"Willingly. What is it about?" and the captain's keen black eyes +assumed an expression which, if the earl had noticed, he might have +repented of his trust. But no, he never would have noticed it. His +upright, honest nature, though capable of great reserve, was utterly +incapable of false pretense, deceit, or self-interested diplomacy. And +what was impossible in himself he never suspected in other people. He +thought his cousin shallow sometimes, but good-natured; a little +worldly, perhaps, but always well-meaning. That Captain Bruce could +have come to Cairnforth for any other purpose than mere curiosity, and +remained there for any motive except idleness and the pursuit of health, +did not occur to Lord Cairnforth. + +"It is on the subject that you so much dislike my talking about--my +own death; a probability which I have to consider, as being rather +nearer to me than it is to most people. Should I die, will you remember +that my will lies at the office of Menteith and Ross, Edinburg?" + +"So you have made your will?" said the captain, rather eagerly; then +added, "What a courageous man you are! I never durst make mine. But +then, to be sure, I have nothing to leave--except my sword, which I +hereby make over to you, well-beloved cousin." + +"Thank you, though I should have very little use it. And that reminds +me to explain something. The day I made my will was, by an odd chance, +the day you arrived here. Had I know you then, I should have named you +in it, leaving you--I may as well tell you the sum--a thousand +pounds, in token of cousinly regard." + +"You are exceedingly kind, but I am no fortune-hunter." + +"I know that. Still, the legacy may not be useless. I shall make it +legally secure as soon as I get to Edinburg. In any case you are quite +safe, for I have mentioned you to my heir." + +"Your heir! Who do you mean?" interrupted Captain Bruce, thrown off his +guard by excessive surprise. + +The earl said, with a little dignity of manner, "It is scarcely needful +to answer your question. The title, you are aware, will be extinct; I +meant the successor to my landed property." + +"Do I know the gentleman?" + +"I named no gentleman." + +"Not surely a lady? Not--" a light suddenly breaking in upon him, so +startling that it overthrew all his self-control, and even his good +breeding. "It can not possibly be Miss Helen Cardross?" + +"Captain Bruce," said the earl, the angry color flashing all over his +pale face, "I was simply communicating a message to you; there was no +need for any farther questioning." + +"I beg your pardon, Lord Cairnforth," returned the other, perceiving how +great a mistake he had made. "I have no right whatever to question, or +even to speculate concerning your heir, who is doubtless the fittest +person you could have selected." + +"Most certainly," replied the earl, in a manner which put a final stop +to the conversation. + +It was not resumed on any other topics; and shortly afterward, Malcolm +having come in with the announcement that the carriage had returned +from the Manse (at which Captain Bruce's sharp eyes were bent +scrutinizing on the earl's face, but learned nothing thence), the +cousins separated. + +The captain had faithfully promised to be up at dawn to see the +travelers off, but an apology came from him to the effect that the +morning air was too damp for his lungs, and that he had spent a +sleepless night owning to his cough. + +"An' nae wonder," remarked Malcolm, cynically, as he delivered the +message, "for I heard him a' through the wee hours walkin' and walkin' +up and doun, for a' the world like a wolf in a cage. And eh, but he's +dour the day!" + +"A sickly man finds it difficult not to be dour at times," said the Earl +of Cairnforth. + + + + + +Chapter 10 + +The earl reached Edinburg in the beginning of winter, and in those days +an Edinburg winter was a very gay season. That brilliant society, which +has now become a matter of tradition, was then in its zenith. Those +renowned support-parties, where great wits, learned philosophers, and +clever and beautiful women met together, a most enjoyable company, were +going on almost every night, and drawing into their various small +circles every thing that was most attractive in the larger circle +outside. + +Lord Cairnforth was a long time before he suffered himself to be drawn +in likewise; but the business which detained him in Edinburg grew more +and more tedious; he found difficulties arise on every hand, and yet he +was determined not to leave until he had done all he wanted to do. Not +only in money, but by personal influence, which, now that he tried to +use it, he found was considerable, he furthered, in many ways, the +interests of Mr. Menteith's sons. The widow, too, a gentle, helpless +woman, soon discovered where to come to, on all occasions, for counsel +and aid. Never had the earl led such a busy life--one more active, +as far as his capabilities allowed. + +Still, now and then time hung on his hands, and he felt a great lack of +companionship, until, by degrees, his name and a good deal of his +history got noised abroad, and he was perfectly inundated with +acquaintances. Of course, he had it at his own option how much or how +little he went out into the world. Every advantage that rank or fortune +could give was his already; but he had another possession still--his +own as much here as in the solitudes of Cairnforth, the art of making +himself "weel likit." The mob of "good society," which is not better +than any other mob, will run after money, position, talent, beauty, for +a time; but it requires a quality higher and deeper than these, and +distinct from them all, to produce lasting popularity. + +This the earl had. In spite of his infirmities, he possessed the rare +power of winning love, of making people love him for his own sake. At +first, of course, his society was sought from mere curiosity, or even +through meaner motives; but gradually, like the good clergyman with whom + + "Fools who came to scoff remained to pray," + +Those who visited him to stare at, or pity a fellow-creature so +afflicted, remained, attached by his gentleness, his patience, his +wonderful unselfishness. And some few, of noble mind, saw in him the +grandest and most religious spectacle that men can look upon--a +human soul which has not suffered itself to be conquered by adversity. + +Very soon the earl gathered round him, besides acquaintances, a knot of +real friends, affectionate and true, who, in the charm of his cultivated +mind, and the simplicity of his good heart, found ample amends for every +thing that nature had denied him, the loss of which he bore so +cheerfully and uncomplainingly. + +By-and-by, induced by these, the excellent people whom, as by mesmeric +attraction, goodness soon draws to itself, he began to go out a little +into society. It could be done, with some personal difficulty and pain, +and some slight trouble to his friends, which last was for a long time +his chief objection; for a merciful familiarity with his own affliction +had been brought about by time, and by the fact that he had never known +any other sort of existence, and only, as a blind person guesses at +colors, could speculate upon how it must feel to move about freely, to +walk and run. He had also lost much of his early shyness, and ceased to +feel any actual dread of being looked at. His chief difficulty was the +practical one of locomotion, and this for him was solved much easier +than if he had been a man of limited means. By some expenditure of +money, and by a good deal of ingenious contrivance, he managed to be +taken about as easily in Edinburg as at Cairnforth; was present at +church and law-court, theatre and concert-room, and at many a pleasant +reunion of pleasant people every where. + +For in his heart Lord Cairnforth rather liked society. To him, whose +external resources were so limited, who could in truth do nothing for +his own amusement but read, social enjoyments were very valuable. He +took pleasure in watching the encounter of keen wits, the talk of clever +conversationalists. His own talent in that line was not small, though +he seldom used it in large circles; but with two or three only about +him, the treasures of his well-stored mind came out often very +brilliantly. Then he was so alive to all that was passing in the world +outside, and took as keen an interest in politics, social ethics, and +schemes of philanthropy as if he himself had been like other men, +instead of being condemned (or exalted--which shall we say? Dis +aliter visum!) to a destiny of such solemn and awful isolation. + +Yet he never put forward his affliction so as to make it painful to +those around him. Many, in the generation now nearly passed away, long +and tenderly remembered the little figure, placed motionless in the +centre of a brilliant circle--all clever men and charming women-- +yet of whose notice the cleverest and most charming were always proud. +Not because he was an earl--nobility was plentiful enough at Edinburg +then--but because he was himself. It was a pleasure just to sit +beside him, and to meet his pleasantness with cheerful chat, gay banter, +or affectionate earnestness. + +For every body loved him. Women, of course, did; they could not help +it; but men were drawn to him likewise, with the sort of reverential +tenderness that they would feel toward a suffering child or woman-- +and something more--intense respect. His high sense of honor, his +true manliness, attracted the best of all the notabilities then +constituting that brilliant set; and there was not one of them worth +having for a friend at all who was not, in greater or less degree, the +friend of the Earl of Cairnforth. + +But there was another side of his Edinburg life which did not appear +till long after he had quitted Modern Athens forever--nor even then +fully; not until he had passed quite away from the comments of this +mortal world. Then, many a struggling author, or worn-out professional +man, to whom life was all up-hill, or to whom sudden misfortune had made +the handful of "siller" (i.e. "silver") a matter of absolute salvation +to both body and soul--scores of such as these afterward recalled +hours or half hours spent in the cozy study in Charlotte Square, beside +the little figure in its chair--outwardly capable of so little, yet +endowed with both the power and will to do so much. Doing it so +generously, too, and withal so delicately, that the most sensitive went +away with their pride unwounded, and the most hardened and irreligious +were softened by it into thankfulness to One higher than their earthly +benefactor, who was only the medium through whom the blessings came. + +These were accidental offices, intermingled with the principal duty +which the earl had undertaken, and which he carried out with unremitting +diligence--the care of his old friend's children. He placed some at +school, and others at college; those who were already afloat in the +world he aided with money and influence--an earl's name was so very +influential, as, with an amused smile, he occasionally discovered. + +But, busy as his new life was, he never forgot his old life and his old +friends. He turned a deaf ear to all persuasions to take up his +permanent abode, according as his rank and fortune warranted, in +Edinburg. He was not unhappy there--he had plenty to do and to +enjoy; but his heart was in quiet Cairnforth. Several times, +troublesome, and even painful as the act of penmanship was to him, he +sent a few lines to the Manse. But it happened to be a very severe +winter, which made postal communication difficult. Besides, in those +days people neither wrote nor expected letters very often. During the +three months that Lord Cairnforth remained in Edinburg he only received +two epistles from Mr. Cardross, and those were in prolix and Johnsonian +style, on literary topics, and concerning the great and learned, with +whom the poor learned country minister had all his life longed to mix, +and had never been able. + +Helen, who had scarcely penned a dozen letters in her life, wrote to him +once only, in reply to one of his, telling him she was doing every +thing as she thought he would best like; that Captain Bruce had assisted +her and her father in many ways, so far as his health allowed, but he +was very delicate still, and talked of going abroad, to the south of +France probably, as soon as possible. The captain himself never wrote +one single line. + +At first the earl was a little surprised at this: however, it was not +his habit easily to take offense at his friends. He was quite without +that morbid self-esteem which is always imagining affronts or injuries. +If people liked him, he was glad; if they showed it, he believed them, +and rested in their affection with the simple faith of a child. But if +they seemed to neglect him, he still was ready to conclude the slight +was accidental, and he rarely grieved over it. Mere acquaintances had +not the power to touch his heart. And this gentle heart which, liking +many, loved but few, none whom he loved ever could really offend. He + + "Grappled them to his soul with hooks of steel," + +And believed in them to the last extremity of faith that was possible. + +So, whether Captain Bruce came under the latter category or the former, +his conduct was passed over, waiting for future explanation when Lord +Cairnforth returned home, as now, every day, he was wearying to do. + +"But I will be back again in pleasant Edinburg next winter," said he to +one of his new friends, who had helped to make his stay pleasant, and +was sorely regretting his departure. "And I shall bring with me some +very old friends of mine, who will enjoy it as much as I shall myself." + +And he planned, and even made preliminary arrangements for a house to be +taken, and an establishment formed, where the minister, Helen, and, +indeed, all the Cardross family, if they chose, might find a hospitable +home for the ensuing winter season. + +"And how they will like it!" said he, in talking it over with Malcolm +one day. "How the minister will bury himself in old libraries, and Miss +Cardross will admire the grand shops and the beautiful views. And how +the boys will go skating on Dunsappi Loch, and golfing over Bruntsfield +Links. Oh, we'll make them all so happy!" added he, with pleasure +shining in those contented eyes, which drew half their light from the +joy that they saw, and caused to shine in the eyes around him. + +It was after many days of fatiguing travel that Lord Cairnforth reached +the ferry opposite Cairnforth. + +There the Castle stood, just as he had left it, its white front gleaming +against the black woods, then yellow and brown with autumn, but now only +black, or with a faint amber shadow running through them, preparatory to +the green of spring. Between lay the beautiful loch, looking ten times +more beautiful than ever to eyes which had not seen it for many long +months. How it danced and dimpled, as it had done before the squall in +which the earl's father was drowned, and as it would do many a time +again, after the fashion of these lovely, deceitful lochs, and of many +other things in this world. + +"Oh, Malcolm, it's good to be at home!" said the earl, as he gazed +fondly at his white castle walls, at the ivy-covered kirk, and the gable +end of the Manse. He had been happy in Edinburg, but it was far sweeter +to come to the dear old friends that loved him. He seemed as if he had +never before felt how dear they were, and how indispensable to his +happiness. + +"You are quite sure, Malcolm, that nobody knows we are coming? I wished +to go down at once to the Manse, and surprise them all." + +'Ye'll easy do that, my lord, for there's naebody in sight but Sandy the +ferryman, wha little kens it's the earl himsel he's kepit waiting sae +lang." + +"And how's a' wi' ye, Sandy?" said Lord Cairnforth, cheerily, when the +old man was rowing him across. "All well at home--at the Castle, the +Manse, and the clachan"? + +"Ou ay, my lord. Except maybe the minister. He's no weel. He's +missing Miss Helen sair." + +"Missing Miss Helen!" echoed the earl, turning pale. + +"Ay, my lord. She gaed awa--it's just twa days sin syne. She was +sair vexed to leave Cairnforth and the minister." + +"Leave her father?" + +"A man maun leave father and mither, and cleave unto his wife--the +scripture says it. And a woman maun just do the like for her man, ye +ken. Miss Helen's awa to France, or some sic place, wi' her husband, +Captain Bruce." + +The earl was sitting in the stern of the ferry-boat alone, no one being +near him but Sandy, and Malcolm, who had taken the second oar. To old +Sandy's communication he replied not a word--asked not a single +question more--and was lifted out at the end of the five-minutes' +passage just as usual. But the two men, though they also said nothing, +remembered the expression of his face to their dying day. + +"Take me home, Malcolm; I will go to the Manse another time. Carry me +in your arms--the quickest way." + +Malcolm lifted his master, and carried him, just as in the days when the +earl was a child, through the pleasant woods of Cairnforth, up to the +Castle door. + +Nobody had expected them, and there was nothing ready. + +"It's no matter--no matter," feebly said the earl, and allowed +himself to be placed in an arm-chair by the fire in the housekeeper's +room. There he sat passive. + +"Will I bring the minister?" whispered Malcolm, respectfully. "Maybe +ye wad like to see him, my lord." + +"No, no." + +"His lordship's no weel please," said the housekeeper to Mrs. Campbell, +when the earl leant his head back, and seemed to be sleeping. "Is it +about the captain's marriage: Did he no ken?" + +"Ne'er a word o't" + +"That was great lack o'respect on the part o' Captain Bruce, and he sic +a pleasant young man; and Helen, too. Miss Helen tauld me her ain sel +that the earl was greatly set upon her marriage, for the captain gaed to +Edinburg just to tell him o't. And he wrote her word that his lordship +wished him no to bide a single day, but to marry Miss Helen and tak her +awa'. She'd never hae done it, in my opinion, but for that. For the +captain was at her ilka day an a' day lang, looking like a ghaist, and +telling' her he couldna live without her--she's a tender heart, Miss +Helen--and she was sae awfu' vexed for him, ye ken. For, sure, +Malcolm, the captain did seem almost like deein'." + +"Deein'!" cried Malcolm, contemptuously, and then stopped. For while +they were talking the earl's eyes had open wide, and fixed with a +strange, sad, terrified look upon vacancy. + +He remembered it all now--the last night he had spent at Cairnforth +with his cousin--the conversation which passed between them--the +questions asked, which, from his not answering, might have enabled the +captain to guess at the probable disposal of his property. He could +come to no other conclusion than that Captain Bruce had married Helen +with the same motive which must have induced his appearance at the +castle, and his eager and successful efforts to ingratiate himself there +--namely, money; that the fortune which he had himself missed might +accrue to him through his union with Lord Cairnforth's heiress. + +How had he possibly accomplished this? How had he succeeded in making +good, innocent, simple Helen love him? For that she would never have +married without love the earl well knew. By what persuasions, +entreaties, or lies--the housekeeper's story involved some evident +lies--he had attained his end, remained, and must ever remain, among +the mysteries of the many mysterious marriages which take place every +day. + +And it was all over. She was married, and gone away. Doubtless the +captain had taken his precautions to prevent any possible hinderance. +That it was a safe marriage legally, even though so little was known of +the bridegroom's antecedent life, seemed more than probable--certain, +seeing that the chief object he would have in this marriage was its +legality, to assure himself thereby of the property which should fall to +Helen in the event of the earl's decease. That he loved Helen for +herself, or was capable of loving her or any woman in the one noble, +true way, the largest limit of charitable interpretation could hardly +suppose possible. + +Still, she had loved him--she must have done so--with that strange, +sudden idealization of love which sometimes seizes upon a woman who has +reached--more than reached--mature womanhood, and never +experienced the passion. And she had married him, and gone away with +him--left, for his sake, father, brothers, friends--her one +special friend, who was now nothing to her--nothing! + +Whatever emotions the earl felt--and it would be almost sacrilegious +to intrude upon them, or to venture on any idle speculation concerning +them--one thing was clear; in losing Helen, the light of his eyes, +the delight of his life was gone. + +He sat in his chair quite still, as indeed he always was, but now it was +a deathlike quietness, without the least sign of the wonderful mobility +of feature and cheerfulness of voice and manner which made people so +soon grow used to his infirmity--sat until his room was prepared. +Then he suffered himself to be carried to his bed, which, for the first +time in his life, he refused to leave for several days. + +Not that he was ill--he declined any medical help, and declared that +he was only "weary, weary"--at which, after his long journey, no one +was surprised. He refused to see any body, even Mr. Cardross, and would +suffer no one beside him but his old nurse, Mrs. Campbell, whom he +seemed to cling to as when he was a little child. For hours she sat by +his bed, watching him, but scarcely speaking a word; and for hours he +lay, his eyes wide open, but with that blank expression in them which +Mrs. Campbell had first noticed when he sat by the housekeeper's fire. + +"My bairn! My bairn!" was all she said--for she loved him. And, +somehow, her love comforted him. "Ye maun live, ye maun live. Maybe +they'll need ye yet," sobbed she, without explaining--perhaps without +knowing--who "they" meant. But she knew enough of her "bairn" to +know that if any thing would rouse him it was the thought of other folk. + +"Do you think so, nurse? Do you think I can be of any good to any +creature in this world?" + +"Ay, ye can, ye can, my lord--ye'd be awfully missed gin ye were to +dee." + +"Then I'll no dee"--faintly smiling, and using the familiar speech of +his childhood. "Call Malcolm. I'll try to rise. And, nurse, if you +would have the carriage ordered--the pony carriage--I will drive +down to the Manse and see how Mr. Cardross is. He must be rather dull +without his daughter." + +The earl did not--and it was long before he did--call her by name. +But after that day he always spoke of her as usual to every body; and +from that hour he rose from his bed, and went about his customary work +in his customary manner, taking up all his duties as if he had never +left them, and as if nothing had ever happened to disturb the even tenor +of his life--the strange, peaceful, and yet busy life led by the +solitary master of Cairnforth. + + + + + +Chapter 11 + +It happened that, both this day and the day following, Mr. Cardross was +absent on one of his customary house-to-house visitings in remote +corners of his parish. So the earl, before meeting Helen's father, had +time to hear from other sources all particulars about her marriage-- +at least all that were known to the little world of Cairnforth. + +The minister himself had scarcely more to communicate, except the fact, +of which he seemed perfectly certain, that her absence would not exceed +six months, when Captain Bruce had faithfully promised to come back and +live upon his half pay in the little peninsula. Otherwise Mr. Cardross +was confident his "dear lassie" would never have left her father for any +man alive. + +It was a marriage, externally, both natural and suitable; the young +couple being of equal age and circumstances, and withal tolerably well +acquainted with one another, for it appeared the captain had begun daily +visits to the Manse from the very day of Lord Cairnforth's departure. + +"And he always spoke so warmly of you, expressed such gratitude toward +you, such admiration of you--I think it was that which won Helen's +heart. And when he did ask her to marry him, she would not accept him +for a good while, not till after he had seen you in Edinburg." + +"Seen me in Edinburg!" repeated the earl, amazed, and then suddenly +stopped himself. It was necessary for Helen's sake, for every body's +sake, to be cautious over every word he said; to arrive at full +confirmation of his suspicions before he put into the poor father's +heart one doubt that Helen's marriage was not as happy or as honorable +as the minister evidently believed it to be. + +"He told us you seemed so well," continued Mr. Cardross; "that you were +in the very whirl of Edinburg society, and delighted in it; that you +had said to him that nothing could be more to your mind than this +marriage, and that if it could be carried out without waiting for your +return, which was so very uncertain, you would be all the happier. Was +that not true?" + +"No," said the earl. + +"You wish she had waited till your return?" + +"Yes." + +The minister looked sorry; but still he evidently had not the slightest +suspicion that aught was amiss. + +"You must forgive my girl," said he. "She meant no disrespect to her +dear old friend; but messages are so easily misconstrued. And then, you +see, a lover's impatience must be considered. We must excuse Captain +Bruce, I think. No wonder he was eager to get our Helen." + +And the old man smiled rather sadly, and looked wistfully round the +Manse parlor, whence the familiar presence had gone, and yet seemed +lingering still--in her flower-stand, her little table, her +work-basket; for Mr. Cardross would not have a single article moved. +"She will like to see them all when she comes back again," said he. + +"And you--were you quite satisfied with the marriage?" asked the +earl, making his question and the tone of it as commonplace and cautious +as he could. + +"Why not? Helen loved him, and I loved Helen. Besides, my own married +life was so happy; God forbid I should grudge any happiness to my +children. I knew nothing but good of the lad; and you liked him too; +Helen told me you had specially charged her, if ever she had an +opportunity, to be kind to him." + +Lord Cairnforth almost groaned. + +"Captain Bruce declared you must have said it because you knew of his +attachment, which he had not had courage to express before, but had +rather appeared to slight her, to hide his real feelings, until he was +assured of your consent." + +The earl listened, utterly struck dumb. The lies were so plausible, so +systematic, so ingeniously fitted together, that he could almost have +deluded himself into supposing them truth. No wonder, then, that they +had deluded simple Helen, and her even simpler and more unworldly +father. + +And now the cruel question presented itself, how far the father was to +be undeceived? + +The earl was, both by nature and circumstances, a reserved character; +that is, he did not believe in the duty of every body to tell out every +thing. Helen often argued with him, and even laughed at him, for this; +but he only smiled silently, and held to his own opinion, taught by +experience. He knew well that her life--her free open, happy life, +was not like his life, and never could be. She had yet to learn that +bitter but salutary self-restraint, which, if it has to suffer, often +for others' sake as well as for its own, prefers to suffer alone. + +But Lord Cairnforth had learned this to the full. Otherwise, as he sat +in the Manse parlor, listening patiently to Helen's father, and in the +newness and suddenness of her loss, and the strong delusion of his own +fond fancy, imagining every minute he heard her step on the stair and +her voice in the hall, he must have utterly broken down. + +He did not do so. He maintained his righteous concealment, his noble +deceit--to the very last; spending the whole evening with Mr. +Cardross, and quitting him without having betrayed a word of what he +dreaded--what he was almost sure of. + +Though the marriage might be, and no doubt was, a perfectly legal and +creditable marriage in the eye of the world, still, in the eyes of +honest men, it would be deemed altogether unworthy and unfortunate, and +he knew the minister would think it so. How could he tell the poor old +father, who had so generously given up his only daughter for the one +simple reason--sufficient reason for any righteous marriage-- +"Helen loved him," that his new son-in-law was proved by proof +irresistible to be a deliberate liar, a selfish, scheming, mercenary +knave? + +So, under this heavy responsibility, Lord Cairnforth decided to do what, +in minor matters, he had often noticed Helen do toward her gentle and +easily-wounded father--to lay upon him no burdens greater than he +could bear, but to bear them herself for him. And in this instance the +earl's only means of so doing, for the present at least, was by taking +refuge in that last haven of wounded love and cruel suffering-- +silence. + +The earl determined to maintain a silence unbroken as the grave +regarding all the past, and his own relations with Captain Bruce-- +that is, until he saw the necessity for doing otherwise. + +One thing, however, smote his heart with a sore pang, which, after a +week or so, he could not entirely conceal from Mr. Cardross. Had Helen +left him--him, her friend from childhood--no message, no letter? +Had her happy love so completely blotted out old ties that she could go +away without one word of farewell to him? + +The minister thought not. He was sure she had written; she had said she +should, the night before her marriage, and he had heard her moving about +in her room, and even sobbing, he fancied, long after the house was gone +to rest. Nay, he felt sure he had seen her on her wedding morning give +a letter to Captain Bruce, saying "it was to be posted to Edinburg." + +"Where, you know, we believed you then were, and would remain for some +time. Otherwise I am sure my child would have waited, that you might +have been present at her marriage. And to think you should have come +back the very next day! She will be so sorry!" + +"Do you think so?" said the earl, sadly, and said no more. + +But, on his return to the Castle, he saw lying on his study-table a +letter, in the round, firm, rather boyish hand, familiar to him as that +of his faithful amanuensis of many years. + +"It's surely frae Miss Helen--Mrs. Bruce, that is," said Malcolm, +lifting it. "But folk in love are less mindfu' than ordinar. She's +directed it to Charlotte Square, Edinburg, and then carried it up to +London wi' hersel', and some other body, the captain, I think, has +redirected it to Cairnforth Castle." + +"No remarks, Malcolm," interrupted the earl, with unwonted sharpness. +"Break the seal and lay the letter so that I can read it. Then you may +go." + +Bur, when his servant had gone, he closed his eyes in utter hopelessness +of dejection, for he saw how completely Helen had been deceived. + +Her letter ran thus--her poor, innocent letter--dated ever so long +ago--indeed, the time when she had told her father she should write +--the night before her marriage-day: + +"MY DEAR FRIEND,--I am very busy, but have striven hard to find an +hour in which to write to you, for I do not think people forget their +friends because they have gotten other people to be mindful of too. I +think a good and happy love only makes other loves feel closer and +dearer. I am sure I have been greeting (Old English: weeping) like a +bairn, twenty times a day, ever since I knew I was to be married, +whenever I called to mind you and my dear father. You will be very good +to him while I am away? But I need not ask you that. Six months, he +says--I mean Captain Bruce--will, according to the Edinburg +doctor's advice, set up his health entirely, if he travels about in a +warm climate; and, therefore, by June, your birthday, we are sure to be +back in dear old Cairnforth, to live there for the rest of our days, for +he declares he likes no other place half so well. + +"I am right to go with him for these six months--am I not? But I +need not ask; you sent me word so yourself. He had nobody to take care +of him--nobody in the world but me. His sisters are gay, lively +girls, he says, and he has been so long abroad that they are almost +strangers. He tells me I might as well send him away to die at once, +unless I went with him as his wife. So I go. + +"I hope he will come home quite strong and well, and able to begin +building our cottage on that wee bit of ground on the hill-side above +Cairnforth which you have promised to give to him. I am inexpressibly +happy about it. We shall all live so cheerily together--and meet +every day--the Castle, the Manse, and the Cottage. When I think of +that, and of my coming back, I am almost comforted for this sad going +away--leaving my dear father, and the boys, and you. + +"Papa has been so good to me, you do not know. I shall never forget it +--nor will Ernest. Ernest thought he would stand in the way of our +marriage, but he did not. He said I must choose for myself, as he had +done when he married my dearest mother; that I had been a good girl to +him, and a good daughter would make a good wife; also that a good wife +would not cease to be a good daughter because she was married-- +especially living close at hand, as we shall always live: Ernest has +promised it. + +"Thus, you see, nobody I love will lose me at all, nor shall I forget +them: I should hate myself if it were possible. I shall be none the +less a daughter to my father--none the less a friend to you. I will +never, never forget you, my dear!" (here the writing became blurred, as +if large drops had fallen on the paper while she wrote.) "It is twelve +o'clock, and I must bid you good-night--and God bless you ever and +ever! The last time I sign my dear old name (except once) is thus to +you. + +"Your faithful and loving friend, + +"Helen Cardross." + +Thus she had written, and thus he sat and read--these two, who had +been and were so dear to one another. Perhaps the good angels, who +watch over human lives and human destinies, might have looked with pity +upon both. + +As for Helen's father, and Helen herself too, if (as some severe judges +may say) they erred in suffering themselves to be thus easily deceived +--in believing a man upon little more than his own testimony, and in +loving him as bad men are sometimes loved, under a strong delusion, by +even good women, surely the errors of unworldliness, unselfishness, and +that large charity which "thinketh no evil" are not so common in this +world as to be quite unpardonable. Better, tenfold, to be sinned +against than sinning. + + "Better trust all, and be deceived, + And weep that trust and that deceiving, + Than doubt one heart which, if believed, + Had bless'd one's life with true believing." + +Lord Cairnforth did not think this at the time, but he learned to do so +afterward. He learned, when time brought round its divine amende, +neither to reproach himself so bitterly, nor to blame others; and he +knew it was better to accept any sad earthly lot, any cruelty, deceit, +or wrong inflicted by others, than to have hardened his heart against +any living soul by acts of causeless suspicion or deliberate injustice. + +Meanwhile, the marriage was accomplished. All that Helen's fondest +friend could do was to sit and watch the event of things, as the earl +determined to watch--silently, but with a vigilance that never slept. +Not passively neither. He took immediate steps, by means which his +large fortune and now wide connection easily enable him to employ, to +find out exactly the position of Helen's husband, both his present +circumstances, and, so far as was possible, his antecedents, at home or +abroad. For after the discovery of so many atrocious, deliberate lies, +every fact that Captain Bruce had stated concerning himself remained +open to doubt. + +However, the lies were apparently that sort of falsehood which springs +from a brilliant imagination, a lax conscience, and a ready tongue-- +prone to say whatever comes easiest and upper most. Also, because +probably following the not uncommon Jesuitical doctrine that the end +justifies the means, he had, for whatever reason he best knew, +determined to marry Helen Cardross, and took his own measures +accordingly. + +The main facts of his self-told history turned out to be correct. He +was certainly the identical Ernest Henry Bruce, only surviving son of +Colonel Bruce, and had undoubtedly been in India, a captain in the +Company's service. His medals were veritable--won by creditable +bravery. No absolute moral turpitude could be discovered concerning him +--only a careless, reckless life; and utter indifference to debt; and +a convenient readiness to live upon other people's money rather than his +own--qualities not so rare, or so sharply judged in the world at +large, as they were likely to be by the little world of innocent, honest +Cairnforth. + +And yet he was young--he had married a good wife--he might mend. +At present, plain and indisputable, his character stood-- +good-natured, kindly--perhaps not even unlovable--but destitute of +the very foundations of all that constitutes worth in a man--or woman +either--truthfulness, independence, honor, honesty. And he was +Helen's husband--Helen, the true and the good; the poor minister's +daughter, who had been brought up to think that it was better to starve +upon porridge and salt than to owe any one a halfpenny! What sort of a +marriage could it possibly turn out to be? + +To this question, which Lord Cairnforth asked himself continually, in an +agony of doubt, no answer came--no clue whatsoever, though, from even +the first week, Helen's letters reached the Manse as regularly as clock +work. But they were merely outside letters--very sweet and loving +--telling her father every thing that could interest him about foreign +places, persons, and things; only of herself and her own feelings saying +almost nothing. It was unlikely she should: the earl laid this comfort +to his soul twenty times a day. She was married now; she could not be +expected to be frank as in her girlhood; still, this total silence, so +unnatural to her candid disposition, alarmed him. + +But there was no resource--no help. Into that secret chamber which +her own hand thus barred, no other hand could presume to break. No one +could say--ought to say to a wife, "Your husband is a scoundrel." + +And besides, (to this hope Lord Cairnforth clung with a desperation +heroic as bitter), Captain Bruce might not be an irredeemable scoundrel; +and he might--there was still a chance--have married Helen not +altogether from interested motives. She was so lovable that he might +have loved her, or have grown to love her, even though he had slighted +her at first. + +"He must have loved her--he could not help it," groaned the earl, +inwardly, when the minister and others stabbed him from time to time +with little episodes of the courting days--the captain's devotedness +to Helen, and Helen's surprised, fond delight at being so much "made of" +by the first lover who had ever wooed her, and a lover whom externally +any girl would have been proud of. And then the agonized cry of another +faithful heart went up to heaven--"God grant he may love her; that +she may be happy--anyhow--any where!" + +But all this while, with the almost morbid prevision of his character, +Lord Cairnforth took every precaution that Helen should be guarded, as +much as was possible, in case there should befall her that terrible +calamity, the worst that can happen to a woman--of being compelled to +treat the husband and father, the natural protector, helper, and guide +of herself and her children, as not only her own, but their natural +enemy. + +The earl did not cancel Helen's name from his will; he let every thing +stand as before her marriage; but he took the most sedulous care to +secure her fortune unalienably to herself and her offspring. This, +because, if Captain Bruce were honest, such precaution could not affect +him in the least: man and wife are one flesh--settlements were a mere +form, which love would only smile at, and at which any honorable man +must be rather glad of than otherwise. But if her husband were +dishonorable, Helen was made safe, so far as worldly matters went-- +safe, except for the grief from which, alas! no human friend can protect +another--a broken heart! + +Was her heart broken or breaking? + +The earl could not tell nor even guess. She left them at home not a +loophole whereby to form a conjecture. Her letters came regularly, from +January until May, dated from all sorts of German towns, chiefly +gambling towns; but the innocent dwellers at Cairnforth (save the earl) +did not know this fact. They were sweet, fond letters as ever-- +mindful, with a pathetic minuteness, of every body and every thing at +the dear old home; but not a complaint was breathed--not a murmur of +regret concerning her marriage. She wrote very little of her husband; +gradually, Lord Cairnforth fancied, less and less. They had not been to +the south of France, as was ordered by the physicians, and intended. He +preferred, she said, these German town, where he met his own family-- +his father and sisters. Of these, as even the minister himself at +length noticed with surprise, Helen gave no description, favorable or +otherwise; indeed, did not say of her husband's kindred, beyond the bare +fact that she was living with them, one single word. + +Eagerly the earl scanned her letters--those long letters, which Mr. +Cardross brought up immediately to the Castle and then circulated their +contents round the whole parish with the utmost glee and pride; for the +whole parish was in its turn dying to hear news of "Miss Helen." Still, +nothing could be discovered of her real life and feelings. And at last +her friend's fever of uneasiness calmed down a little; he contented +himself with still keeping a constant watch over all her movements-- +speaking to no one, trusting no one, except so far as he was obliged to +trust the old clerk who was once sent down by Mr. Menteith, and who had +now come to end his days at Cairnforth, in the position of the earl's +private secretary--as faithful and fond as a dog, and as safely +silent. + +So wore the time away, as it wears on with all of us, through joy and +sorrow, absence or presence, with cheerful fullness or aching emptiness +of heart. It brought spring back, and summer--the sunshine to the +hills, and the leaves, and flowers, and birds to the woods; it brought +the earl's birthday--kept festively as ever by his people, who loved +him better every year; but it did not bring Helen home to Cairnforth. + + + + + +Chapter 12 + +Life, when we calmly analyze it, is made up to us all alike of three +simple elements--joy, sorrow, and work. Some of us get tolerably +equal proportions of each of these; some unequal--or we fancy so; but +in reality, as the ancient sage says truly, "the same things come alike +to all." + +The Earl of Cairnforth, in his imperfect fragment of a life, had had +little enough of enjoyment; but he knew how to endure better than most +people. He had, however, still to learn that existence is not wholly +endurance; that a complete human life must have in it not only +submission but resistance; the fighting against evil and in defense of +good; the struggle with divine help to overcome evil with good; and +finally the determination not to sit down tamely to misery but to strive +after happiness--lawful happiness, both for ourselves and others. In +short, not only passively to accept joy or grief, but to take means to +secure the one and escape the other; to "work out our own salvation" for +each day, as we are told to do it for an eternity, though with the same +divine limitation--humbling to all pride, and yet encouraging to +ceaseless effort--"for it is God that worketh in us both to will and +to do of His good pleasure." + +That self-absorption of loss, which follows all great anguish; that +shrinking up unto one's self, which is the first and most natural +instinct of a creature smitten with a sorrow not unmingled with cruel +wrong, is, with most high natures, only temporary. By-and-by comes the +merciful touch which says to the lame, "Arise and walk;" to the sick, +"Take up thy bed and go into thine house." And the whisper of peace is, +almost invariably, a whisper of labor and effort: there is not only +something to be suffered, but something to be done. + +With the earl this state was longer in coming, because the prior +collapse did not come to him at once. The excitement of perpetual +expectation--the preparing for some catastrophe, which he felt sure +was to follow, and the incessant labor entailed by his wide enquiries, +in which he had no confidant but Mr. Mearns, the clerk, and him he +trusted as little as possible, lest any suspicion or disgrace should +fall upon Helen's husband--all this kept him in a state of unnatural +activity and strength. + +But when the need for action died away; when Helen's letters betrayed +nothing; and when, though she did not return, and while expressing most +bitter regret, yet gave sufficiently valid reasons for not returning in +her husband's still delicate health--after June, Lord Cairnforth fell +into a condition, less of physical than mental sickness, which lasted a +long time, and was very painful to himself, as well as to those that +loved him. He was not ill, but his usual amount of strength--so +small always--became much reduced; neither was he exactly irritable +--his sweet temper never could sink into irritability; but he was, as +Malcolm expressed it, "dour," difficult to please; easily fretted about +trifles; inclined to take sad and cynical views of things. + + + + +This might have been increased by certain discoveries, which, during the +summer, when he came to look into his affairs, Lord Cairnforth made. He +found that money which he had entrusted to Captain Bruce for various +purposes had been appropriated, or misappropriated, in different ways +--conduct scarcely exposing the young man to legal investigation, and +capable of being explained away as "carelessness"--"unpunctuality in +money matters"--and so on, but conduct of which no strictly upright, +honorable person would ever have been guilty. This fact accounted for +another--the captain's having expressed ardent gratitude for a sum +which he said the earl had given him for his journey and marriage +expenses, which, though Mr. Cardross's independent spirit rather +revolted from the gift, at least satisfied him about Helen's comfort +during her temporary absence. And once more, for Helen's sake, the earl +kept silence. But he felt as if every good and tender impulse of his +nature were hardening into stone. + +Hardened at the core Lord Cairnforth could never be; no man can whose +heart has once admitted into its deepest sanctuary the love of One who, +when all human loves fail, still whispers, "We will come in unto him, +and make our abode with him"--ay, be it the forlornest bodily +tabernacle in which immortal soul ever dwelt. But there came an outer +crust of hardness over his nature which was years before it quite melted +away. Common observers might not perceive it--Mr. Cardross even did +not; still it was there. + +The thing was inevitable. Right or wrong, deservedly or undeservedly, +most of us have at different crises of our lives known this feeling-- +the bitter sense of being wronged; of having opened one's heart to the +sunshine, and had it all blighted and blackened with frost; of having +laid one's self down in a passion of devotedness for beloved feet to +walk upon, and been trampled upon, and beaten down to the dust. And as +months slipped by, and there came no Helen, this feeling, even against +his will and his conscience, grew very much upon Lord Cairnforth. In +time it might have changed him to a bitter, suspicious, disappointed +cynic, had there not also come to him, with strong conviction, one truth +--a truth preached on the shores of Galilee eighteen hundred years ago +--the only truth that can save the wronged heart from breaking-- +that he who gives away only a cup of cold water shall in no wise lose +his reward. Still, the reward is not temporal, and is rarely rewarded +in kind. He--and He alone--to whom the debt is due, repays it; +not in our, but in his own way. One only consolation remains to the +sufferers from ingratitude, but that one is all-sufficing: "Inasmuch as +ye have done it unto the least of these little ones, ye have done it +unto Me." + +All autumn, winter, and during another spring and summer, Helen's +letters--most fond, regular, and (to her father) satisfactory-- +contained incessant and eager hopes of return, which were never +fulfilled. And gradually she ceased to give any reason for their +non-fulfillment, simply saying, with a sad brevity of silence, which +one, at least, of her friends knew how to comprehend and appreciate, +that her coming home at present was "impossible." + +"It's very true," said the good minister, disappointed as he was: "a man +must cleave to his wife, and a woman to her husband. I suppose the +captain finds himself better in warm countries--he always said so. +My bairn will come back when she can--I know she will. And the boys +are very good--specially Duncan." + +For Mr. Cardross had now, he thought, discovered germs of ability in his +youngest boy, and was concentrating all his powers in educating him for +college and the ministry. This, and his growing absorption in his +books, reconciled him more than might have been expected to his +daughter's absence; or else the inevitable necessity of things, which, +as we advance in years, becomes so strange and consoling an influence +over us, was working slowly upon the good old minister. He did not seem +heart-broken or even heart-wounded--he did his parish work with +unfailing diligence; but as, Sunday after Sunday, he passed from the +Manse garden through the kirk-yard, where, green and moss-covered now, +was the one white stone which bore the name of "Helen Lindsay, wife of +the Reverend Alexander Cardross," he was often seen to glance at it less +sorrowfully than smilingly. Year by year, the world and its cares were +lessening and slipping away from him, as they had long since slipped +from her who once shared them all. She now waited for him in that +eternal reunion which the marriage union teaches, as perhaps none other +can, to realize as a living fact and natural necessity. + +But it was different with the earl. Sometimes, in an agony of +bitterness, he caught himself blaming her--Helen--whom her old +father never blamed; wondering how much she had found out of her +husband's conduct and character; speculating whether it was possible to +touch pitch and not be defiled; and whether the wife of Captain Bruce +had become in any way different from, and inferior to, innocent Helen +Cardross. + +Lord Cairnforth had never answered her letter--he could not, without +being a complete hypocrite; and she had not written again. He did not +expect it--scarcely wished it--and yet the blank was sore. More +and more he withdrew from all but necessary associations, shutting +himself up in the Castle for weeks together--neither reading, nor +talking much to any one, but sitting quite still--he always sat quite +still--by the fireside in his little chair. He felt creeping over him +that deadness to external things which makes pain itself seem +comparatively almost sweet. Once he was heard to say, looking wistfully +at Mrs. Campbell, who had been telling him with many tears, of a "freend +o' hers" who had just died down at the clachan, "Nurse, I wish I could +greet like you." + +The first thing which broke up in his heart this bitter, blighting frost +was, as so often happens, the sharp-edged blow of a new trouble. + +He had not been at the Manse for two or three weeks, and had not even +heard of the family for several days, when, looking up from his seat in +church, he was startled by the apparition of an unfamiliar face in the +pulpit--a voluble, flowery-tongued, foolish young assistant, +evidently caught haphazard to fill the place which Mr. Cardross, during +a long term of years, had never vacated, except at communion seasons. +It gave his faithful friend and pupil a sensation almost of pain to see +any new figure there, and not the dear old minister's, with his long +white hair, his earnest manner, and his simple, short sermon. Shorter +and simpler the older he grew, till he often declared he should end by +preaching like the beloved apostle John, who, tradition says, in his +latter days, did nothing but repeat, over and over again, to all around +him, his one exhortation--he, the disciple whom Jesus loved-- + +"Little children, love one another." + +On inquiry after service, the earl found that Mr. Cardross had been +ailing all week, and had had on Saturday to procure in haste this +substitute. But, on going to the Manse, the earl found him much as +usual, only complaining of a numbness in his arm. + +"And," he said, with a composure very different from his usual +nervousness about the slightest ailment, "Now I remember, my mother died +of paralysis. I wish Helen would come home." + +"Shall she be sent for?" suggested Lord Cairnforth. + +"Oh no--not the least necessity. Besides, she says she is coming." + +"She has long said that." + +"But now she is determined to make the strongest effort to be with us at +the New Year. Read her letter--it came yesterday; a week later than +usual. I should have sent it up to the Castle, for it troubled me a +little, especially the postscript; can you make it out? part of it is +under the seal. It is in answer to what I told her of Duncan; he was +always her pet, you know. How she used to carry him about the garden, +even when he grew quite a big boy! Poor Helen!" + +While the minister went on talking, feebly and wanderingly, in a way +that at another time would have struck the earl as something new and +rather alarming, Lord Cairnforth eagerly read the letter. It ended +thus: + +"Tell Dunnie I am awfully glad he is to be a minister. I hope all my +brothers will settle down in dear old Scotland, work hard, and pay their +way like honest men. And bid them, as soon as ever they can, to marry +honest women--good, loving Scotch lassies--no fremd (archaic: +strange, foreign) folk. Tell them never to fear for 'poortith cauld,' +as Mr. Burns wrote about; it's easy to bear, when it's honest poverty. +I would rather see my five brothers living on porridge and milk-- +wives, and weans, and all--than see them like these foreigners, +counts, barons, and princes though they be. Father, I hate them all. +And I mind always the way I was brought up, and that I was once a +minister's daughter in dear and bonnie Cairnforth." + +"What can she mean by that?" said Mr. Cardross, watching anxiously the +earl's countenance as he read. + +I suppose, what Helen always means, exactly what she says." + +"That is true. You know we used always to say Helen could hold her +tongue, though it wasn't easy to her, the dear lassie; but she could not +say what was not the fact, nor even give the impression of it. +Therefore, if she were unhappy, she would have told me?" + +This was meant as a question, but it gained no answer. + +"Surely," entreated the father, anxiously, "surely you do not think the +lassie is unhappy?" + +"This is not a very happy world," said the earl, sadly. "But I do +believe that if any thing had been seriously wrong with her Helen would +have told us." + +He spoke his real belief. But he did not speak of a dread far deeper, +which had sometimes occurred to him, but which that sad and even bitter +postscript now removed, that circumstances could change character, and +that Helen Cardross and Helen Bruce were two different women. + +As he went home, having arranged to come daily every forenoon to sit +with the minister, and to read a little Greek with Duncan, lest the +lad's studies should be interrupted, he decided that, in her father's +state, which appeared to him the more serious the longer he considered +it, it was right Helen should come home, and somebody, not Mr. Cardross, +ought to urge it upon her. He determined to do this himself. And, lest +means should be wanting--though of this he had no reason to fear, his +information from all quarters having always been that the Bruce family +lived more than well--luxuriously--he resolved to offer a gift +with which he had not before dared to think of insulting independent +Helen--money. + +With difficulty and pains, not intrusting this secret to even his +faithful secretary, he himself wrote a few lines, in his own feeble, +shaky hand, telling her exactly how things were; suggesting her coming +home, and inclosing wherewithal to do it, from "her affectionate old +friend and cousin," from whom she need not hesitate to accept any thing. +But though he carefully, after long consideration, signed himself her +"cousin," he did not once name Captain Bruce. He could not. + +This done, he waited day after day, till every chance of Helen's not +having had time to reply was long over, and still no answer came. That +the letter had been received was more than probable, almost certain. +Every possible interpretation that common sense allowed Lord Cairnforth +gave to her silence, and all failed. Then he let the question rest. To +distrust her, Helen, his one pure image of perfection, was impossible. +He felt it would have killed him--not his outer life, perhaps, but +the life of his heart, his belief in human goodness. + +So he still waited, nor judged her either as daughter or friend, but +contented himself with doing her apparently neglected duty for her-- +making himself an elder brother to Duncan, and a son to the minister, +and never missing a day without spending some hours at the Manse. + +For almost the first time since her departure, Helen's regular monthly +letter did not arrive, and the earl grew seriously alarmed. In the +utmost perplexity, he was resolving in his own mind what next step to +take--how, and how much he ought to tell of his anxieties to her +father--when all difficulties were solved in the sharpest and yet +easiest way by a letter from Helen herself--a letter so unlike +Helen's, so un-neat, blurred, and blotted, that at first he did not even +recognize it as hers. + +"To the Right Honorable the Earl of Cairnforth: + +"My Lord,--I have only just found your letter. The money inclosed +was not there. I conclude it had been used for our journey hither; but +it is gone, and I can not come to my dearest father. My husband is very +ill, and my little baby only three weeks old. Tell my father this, and +send me news of him soon. Help me, for I am almost beside myself with +misery! + +"Yours gratefully, + +"Helen Bruce + +"---- Street, Edinburg." + +Edinburg! Then she was come home! + +The earl had opened and read the letter with his secretary sitting by +him. Yet, dull and not prone to notice things as the old man was, he +was struck by an unusual tone of something very like exultation in his +master's voice as he said, + +"Mr. Mearns, call Malcolm to me; I must start for Edinburg immediately." + +In the interval Lord Cairnforth thought rapidly over what was best to be +done. To go at once to Helen, whatever her misery was, appeared to him +beyond question. To take Mr. Cardross in his present state, or the lad +Duncan, was not desirable: some people, good as they may be, are not the +sort of people to be trusted in calamity. And Helen's other brothers +were out and away in the world, scattered all over Scotland, earning, +diligently and hardly, their daily bread. + +There was evidently not a soul to go to her help except himself. Her +brief and formal letter, breaking down into that piteous cry of "help +me," seemed to come out of the very depths of despair. It pierced to +the core of Lord Cairnforth's heart; and yet--and yet--he felt +that strange sense of exultation and delight. + +Even Malcolm noticed this. + +"Your lordship has gotten gude news," said he. "Is it about Miss Helen? +She's coming home?" + +"Yes. We must start for Edinburg at once, and we'll bring her back with +us." He forgot for the moment the sick husband, the newborn baby-- +every thing but Helen herself and her being close at hand. "It's only +forty-eight hours journey to Edinburg now. We will travel post; I am +strong enough, Malcolm; set about it quickly, for it must be done." + +Malcolm knew his master too well to remonstrate. In truth, the whole +household was so bewildered by this sudden exploit--for the wheels of +life moved slowly enough ordinarily at Cairnforth--that before any +body was quite aware what had happened, the earl and his two necessary +attendants, Malcolm and Mr. Mearns--also Mrs. Campbell--Helen +might want a woman with her--were traveling across country as fast as +the only fast traveling of that era--relays of post-horses day and +night--could carry them. + +Lord Cairnforth, after much thought, left Helen's letter behind with +Duncan Cardross, charging him to break the tidings gradually to the +minister, and tell him that he himself was then traveling to Edinburg +with all the speed that, in those days, money, and money alone, could +procure. Oh, how he felt the blessing of riches! Now, whatever her +circumstances were, or might have been once, misery, poverty, could +never afflict Helen more. He was quite determined that from the time he +brought them home, his cousin and his cousin's wife should inhabit +Cairnforth Castle; that, whether Captain Bruce's life proved to be long +or short, worthy or unworthy, he should be borne with, and forgiven +every thing--for Helen's sake. + +All the journey--sleeping or waking, day or night--Lord Cairnforth +arranged or dreamed over his plans, until at ten o'clock the second +night he found himself driving along the familiar Princes Street, with +the grim Castle rock standing dark against the moonlight; while beyond, +on the opposite side of what was then a morass, but is now railways and +gardens, rose tier upon tier, like a fairy palace, the glittering lights +of the old town of Edinburg. + + + + + +Chapter 13 + +The earl reached Edinburg late at night. Mrs. Campbell entreated him to +go to bed, and not seek out the street where the Bruces lived till +morning. + +"For I ken the place weel," said she, when she heard Lord Cairnforth +inquiring for the address Helen had given. "It's ane o' thae high lands +in the New Town--a grand flat wi' a fine ha' door--and then ye +gang up an' up, till at the top flat ye find a bit nest like a bird's +--and the folk living there are as ill off as a bird in winter-time." + +The earl, weary as he had been, raised his head at this, and spoke +decisively, + +"Tell Malcolm to fetch a coach. I will go there tonight." + +"Eh! Couldna ye bide till the morn? Ye'll just kill yourself,' my +lamb," cried the affectionate woman, forgetting all her respect in her +affection; but Lord Cairnforth understood it, and replied in the good +old Scotch, which he always kept to warm his nurse's heart, + +"Na, na, I'll no dee yet. Keep your heart content; we'll all soon be +safe back at Cairnforth." + +It seemed, in truth, as if an almost miraculous amount of endurance and +energy had been given to that frail body for this hour of need. The +earl's dark eyes were gleaming with light, and every tone of his voice +was proud and manly, as the strong, manly soul, counteracting all +physical infirmities, rose up for the protection for the one creature in +all the world who to him had been most dear. + +"You'll order apartments in the hotel, nurse. See that every thing is +right and comfortable for Mrs. Bruce. I shall bring them back at once, +if I can," was his last word as he drove off, alone with Malcolm: he +wished to have no one with him who could possibly be done without. + +It was nearly midnight when they stood at the foot of the high stair-- +six stories high--and Captain Bruce, they learned, was inhabiting the +topmost flat. Malcolm looked at the earl uneasily. + +"The top flat! Miss Helen canna be vera well aff, I doubt. Will I gang +up and see, my lord"? + +"No, I will go myself. Carry me, Malcolm." + +And, in the old childish way, the big Highlander lifted his master up in +his arms, and carried him, flight after flight, to the summit of the +long dark stair. It narrowed up to a small door, very mean and +shabby-looking, from the keyhole of which, when Malcolm hid his lantern, +a light was seen to gleam. + +"They're no awa' to their beds yet, my lord. Will I knock?" + +Lord Cairnforth had no time to reply, if indeed he could have replied; +for Malcolm's footsteps had been heard from within, and opening the door +with an eager "Is that you, doctor?" there stood before them, in her +very own likeness, Helen Cardross. + +At least a woman like enough to the former Helen to leave no doubt it +was herself. But a casual acquaintance would never have recognized her. + +The face, once so round and rosy, was sharp and thin; the cheek-bones +stood out; the bright complexion was faded; the masses of flaxen curls +--her chief beauty--were all gone; and the thin hair was drawn up +close under a cap. Her dress, once the picture of neatness, was neat +still, but the figure had become gaunt and coarse, and the shabby gown +hung upon her in forlorn folds, as if put on carelessly by one who had +neither time nor thought to give to appearances. + +She was evidently sitting up watching, and alone. The rooms which her +door opened to view were only two, this topmost flat having been divided +in half, and each half made into just "a but and a ben," and furnished +in the meanest fashion of lodgings to let. + +"Is it the doctor?" she said again, shading her light and peering down +the dark stair. + +"Helen!" + +She recognized at once the little figure in Malcolm's arms. + +"You--you! And you have come to me--come your own self! Oh, +thank God!" + +She leant against the doorway--not for weeping; she looked like one +who had wept till she could weep no more, but breathing hard in heavy +breaths, like sobs. + +"Set me down, Malcolm, somewhere--any where. Then go outside." + +Malcolm obeyed, finding a broken arm-chair and settling his master +therein. Then, as he himself afterward told the story, though not till +many years after, when nothing he told about that dear master's concerns +could signify any more, he "gaed awa' doun and grat like a bairn." + +Lord Cairnforth sat silent, waiting till Helen had recovered herself-- +Helen, whom, however changed, he would have known among a thousand. And +then, with his quick observation, he took in as much of her +circumstances as was betrayed by the aspect of the room, evidently +kitchen, dining-room, and bedroom in one; for at the far end, close to +the door that opened into the second apartment, which seemed a mere +closet, was one of those concealed beds so common in Scotland, and on it +lay a figure which occasionally stirred, moaned, or coughed, but very +feebly, and for the most part lay still--very still. + +Its face, placed straight on the pillow--and as the fire blazed up, +the sharp profile being reflected in grotesque distinctness on the wall +behind--was a man's face, thin and ghastly, the skin tightly drawn +over the features, as is seen in the last stage of consumption. + +Lord Cairnforth had never beheld death--not in any form. But he +felt, by instinct, that he was looking upon it now, or the near approach +to it, in the man who lay there, too rapidly passing into +unconsciousness even to notice his presence--Helen's husband, Captain +Bruce. + +The dreadful fascination of the sight drew his attention even from Helen +herself. He sat gazing at his cousin, the man who had deceived and +wronged him, and not him only, but those dearer to him than himself +---the man whom, a day or two ago, he had altogether hated and despised. +He dared do neither now. A heavier hand than that of mortal justice was +upon his enemy. Whatever Captain Bruce was, whatever he had been, he +was now being taken away from all human judgment into the immediate +presence of Him who is at once the Judge and the Pardoner of sinners. + +Awe-struck, the earl sat and watched the young man (for he could not be +thirty yet), struck down thus in the prime of his days--carried away +into the other world--while he himself, with his frail, flickering +taper of a life, remained. Wherefore? At length, in a whisper, he +called "Helen!" and she came and knelt beside the earl's chair. + +"He is fast going," said she. + +"I see that." + +"In an hour or two, the doctor said." + +"Then I will stay, if I may?" + +"Oh yes." + +Helen said it quite passively; indeed, her whole appearance as she moved +about the room, and then took her seat by her husband's side, indicated +one who makes no effort either to express or to restrain grief--who +has, in truth, suffered till she can suffer no more. + +The dying man was not so near death as the doctor had thought, for after +a little he fell into what seemed a natural sleep. Helen leant her head +against the wall and closed her eyes. But that instant was heard from +the inner room a cry, the like of which Lord Cairnforth had never heard +before--the sharp, waking cry of a very young infant. + +In a moment Helen started up--her whole expression changed; and when, +after a short disappearance, she re-entered the room with her child, who +had dropped contentedly asleep again, nestling to her bosom, she was +perfectly transformed. No longer the plain, almost elderly woman; she +had in her poor worn face the look--which makes any face young, nay, +lovely--the mother's look. Fate had not been altogether cruel to +her; it had given her a child. + +"Isn't he a bonnie bairn?" she whispered, as once again she knelt down +by Lord Cairnforth's chair, and brought the little face down so that he +could see it and touch it. He did touch it with his feeble fingers-- +the small soft cheek--the first baby-cheek he had ever beheld. + +"It is a bonnie bairn, as you say; God bless it!" which, as she +afterward told him, was the first blessing ever breathed over the child. +"What is its name:" he asked by-and-by, seeing she expected more notice +taken of it. + +"Alexander Cardross--after my father. My son is a born Scotsman too +--an Edinburg laddie. We were coming home, as fast as we could, to +Cairnforth. He"--glancing toward the bed--"he wished it." + +Thus much thought for her, the dying man had shown. He had been +unwilling to leave his wife forlorn in a strange land. He had come +"fast as he could," that her child might be born and her husband die at +Cairnforth--at least so the earl supposed, nor subsequently found any +reason to doubt. It was a good thing to hear then--good to remember +afterward. + +For hours the earl sat in the broken chair, with Helen and her baby +opposite, watching and waiting for the end. + +It did not come till near morning. Once during the night Captain Bruce +opened his eyes and looked about him, but either his mind was confused, +or--who knows?--made clearer by the approach of death, for he +evinced no sign of surprise at the earl's presence in the room. He only +fixed upon him a long, searching, inquiring gaze, which seemed to compel +an answer. + +Lord Cairnforth spoke: + +"Cousin, I am come to take home with me your wife and child. Are you +satisfied?" + +"Yes." + +"I promise you they shall never want. I will take care of them always." + +There was a faint assenting movement of the dying head, and then, just +as Helen went out of the room with her baby, Captain Bruce followed her +with his eyes, in which the earl thought was an expression almost +approaching tenderness. "Poor thing--poor thing! Her long trouble +is over." + +These were the last words he ever said, for shortly afterward he again +fell into a sleep, out of which he passed quietly and without pain into +sleep eternal. They looked at him, and he was still breathing; they +looked at him a few minutes after, and he was, as Mr. Cardross would +have expressed it, "away"--far, far away--in His safe keeping with +whom abide the souls of both the righteous and the wicked, the living +and the dead. + +Let Him judge him, for no one else ever did. No one ever spoke of him +but as their dead can only be spoken of either to or by the widow and +the fatherless. + +Without much difficulty--for, after her husband's death, Helen's +strength suddenly collapsed, and she became perfectly passive in the +earl's hands and in those of Mrs. Campbell--Lord Cairnforth learned +all he required about the circumstances of the Bruce family. + +They were absolutely penniless. Helen's boy had been born only a day or +two after their arrival at Edinburg. Her husband's illness increased +suddenly at the last, but he had not been quite incapacitated till she +had gained a little strength, so as to be able to nurse him. But how +she had done it--how then and for many months past she had contrived +to keep body and soul together, to endure fatigue, privation, mental +anguish, and physical weakness, was, according to good Mrs. Campbell, +who heard and guessed a great deal more than she chose to tell, "just +wonderful'." It could only be accounted for by Helen's natural vigor of +constitution, and by that preternatural strength and courage which +Nature supplies to even the saddest form of motherhood. + +And now her brief term of wifehood--she had yet not been married two +years--was over forever, and Helen Bruce was left a mother only. It +was easy to see that she would be one of those women who remain such-- +mothers, and nothing but mothers, to the end of their days. + +"She's ower young for me to say it o' her," observed Mrs. Campbell, in +one of the long consultations that she and the earl held together +concerning Helen, who was of necessity given over almost exclusively to +the good woman's charge; "but ye'll see, my lord, she will look nae mair +at any mortal man. She'll just spend her days in tending that wean o' +hers--and a sweet bit thing it is, ye ken--by-and-by she'll get +blithe and bonnie again. She'll be aye gentle and kind, and no dreary, +but she'll never marry. Puir Miss Helen! She'll be ane o' thae widows +that the apostle tells o'--that are 'widows indeed'." + +And Mrs. Campbell, who herself was one of the number, heaved a sigh-- +perhaps for Helen, perhaps for herself, and for one whose very name was +now forgotten; who had gone down to the bottom of Loch Beg when the +Earl's father was drowned, and never afterward been seen, living or +dead, by any mortal eye. + +The earl gave no answer to his good nurse's gossip. He contented +himself with making all arrangements for poor Helen's comfort, and +taking care that she should be supplied with every luxury befitting not +alone Captain Bruce's wife and Mr. Cardross's daughter, but the "cousin" +of the Earl of Cairnforth. And now, whenever he spoke of her, it was +invariably and punctiliously as "my cousin." + +The baby too--Mrs. Campbell's truly feminine soul was exalted to +infinte delight and pride at being employed by the earl to procure the +most magnificent stock of baby clothes that Edinburg could supply. No +young heir to a peerage could be appareled more splendidly than was, +within a few days, Helen's boy. He was the admiration of the whole +hotel; and when his mother made some weak resistance, she received a +gentle message to the effect that the Earl of Cairnforth begged, as a +special favor, to be allowed to do exactly as he liked with his little +"cousin". + +And every morning, punctual to the hour, the earl had himself taken up +stairs into the infantile kingdom of which Mrs. Campbell was installed +once more as head nurse, where he would sit watching with an amused +curiosity, that was not without its pathos, the little creature so +lately come into the world--to him, unfamiliar with babies, such a +wondrous mystery. Alas! A mystery which it was his lot to behold--as +all the joys of life--from the outside. + +But, though life's joys were forbidden him, its duties seemed to +accumulate daily. There was Mr. Cardross to be kept patient by the +assurance that all was well, and that presently his daughter and his +grandchild would be coming home. There was Alick Cardross, now a young +clerk in the office of Menteith & Ross, to be looked after, and kept +from agitating his sister by any questionings; and there was a tribe of +young Menteiths always needing assistance or advice--now and then +something more tangible than advice. Then there were the earl's +Edinburg friends, who thronged round him in hearty welcome as soon as +ever they heard he was again in the good old city, and would willingly +have drawn him back again into that brilliant society which he had +enjoyed so much. + +He enjoyed it still--a little; and during the weeks that elapsed +before Helen was able to travel, or do any thing but lie still and be +taken care of, he found opportunity to mingle once more among his former +associates. But his heart was always in that quiet room which he only +entered once a day, where the newly-made widow sat with her orphan child +at her bosom, and waited for Time, the healer, to soothe and bind up the +inevitable wounds. + +At last the day arrived when the earl, with his little cortege of two +carriages, one his own, and the other containing Helen, her baby, and +Mrs. Campbell, quitted Edinburg, and, traveling leisurely, neared the +shores of Loch Beg. They did not come by the ferry, Lord Cairnforth +having given orders to drive round the head of the loch, as the easiest +and most unobtrusive way of bringing Helen home. Much he wondered how +she bore it--the sight of the familiar hills--exactly the same-- +for it was the same time of year, almost the very day, when she had left +Cairnforth; but he could not inquire. At length, after much thought, +during the last stage of the journey, he bade Malcolm ask Mrs. Bruce if +she would leave her baby for a little and come into the earl's carriage, +which message she obeyed at once. + +These few weeks of companionship, not constant, but still sufficiently +close, had brought them back very much into their old brother and sister +relation, and though nothing had been distinctly said about it, Helen +had accepted passively all the earl's generosity both for herself and +her child. Once or twice, when he had noticed a slight hesitation of +uneasiness in her manner, Lord Cairnforth had said, "I promised him, you +remember," and this had silenced her. Besides she was too utterly worn +out and broken down to resist any kindness. She seemed to open her +heart to it--Helen's proud, sensitive, independent heart--much as +a plant, long dried up, withered, and trampled upon, opens itself to the +sunshine and the dew. + +But now her health, both of body and mind, had revived a little; and as +she sat opposite him in her grave, composed widowhood, even the disguise +of the black weeds could not take away a look that returned again and +again, reminding the earl of the Helen of his childhood--the bright, +sweet, wholesome-natured, high-spirited Helen Cardross. + +"I asked you to come to me in the carriage," said he, after they had +spoken a while about ordinary things. "Before we reach home, I think we +ought to have a little talk upon some few matters which we have never +referred to as yet. Are you able for this?" + +"Oh yes, but--I can't--I can't!" and a sudden expression of +trouble and fear darkened the widow's face. "Do not ask me any +questions about the past. It is all over now; it seems like a dream-- +as if I had never been away from Cairnforth." + +"Let it be so then, Helen, my dear," replied the earl, tenderly. +"Indeed, I never meant otherwise. It is far the best." + +Thus, both at the time and ever after, he laid, and compelled others to +lay, the seal of silence upon those two sad years, the secrets of which +were buried in Captain Bruce's quiet grave in Grayfriars' church-yard. + +"Helen," he continued, "I am not going to ask you a single question; I +am only going to tell you a few things, which you are to tell your +father at the first opportunity, so as to place you in a right position +toward him, and whatever his health may be, to relieve his mind entirely +both as to you and Boy." + +"Boy" the little Alexander had already begun to be called. "Boy" par +excellence, for even at that early period of his existence he gave +tokens of being a most masculine character, with a resolute will of his +own, and a power of howling till he got his will which delighted Nurse +Campbell exceedingly. He was already a thorough Cardross--not in the +least a Bruce; he inherited Helen's great blue eyes, large frame, and +healthy temperament, and was, in short, that repetition of the mother in +the son which Dame Nature delights in, and out of which she sometimes +makes the finest and noblest men that the world ever sees. + +"Boy has been wide awake these two hours, noticing every thing," said +his mother, with a mother's firm conviction that this rather imaginative +fact was the most interesting possible to every body. "He might have +known the loch quite well already, by the way he kept staring at it." + +"He will know it well enough by-and by," said the earl, smiling. "You +are aware, Helen, that he and you are permanently coming home." + +"To the Manse? yes! My dear father! he will keep us there during his +life time. Afterward we must take our chance, my boy and I." + +"Not quite that. Are you not aware--I thought, from circumstances, +you must have guessed it long ago--that Cairnforth Castle, and my +whole property, will be yours sometime?" + +"I will tell you no untruth, Lord Cairnforth. I was aware of it. That +is, he--I mean it was suspected that you had meant it once. I found +this out--don't ask me how--shortly after I was married; and I +determined, as the only chance of avoiding it--and several other +things--never to write to you again; never to take the least means of +bringing myself--us--back to your memory." + +"Why so?" + +"I wished you to forget us, and all connected with us, and to choose +some one more worthy, more suitable, to inherit your property." + +"But, Helen, that choice rested with myself alone," said the earl, +smiling. "Has not a man the right to do what he likes with his own?" + +"Yes, but--oh," cried Helen, earnestly, "do not talk of this. It +caused me such misery once. Never let us speak of it again." + +"I must speak of it," was the answer, equally earnest. "All my comfort +--I will not say happiness; we have both learned, Helen, not to count +too much upon happiness in this world--but all the peace of my future +life, be it short or long, depends upon my having my heart's desire in +this matter. It is my heart's desire, and no one shall forbid it. I +will carry out my intentions, whether you agree to them or not. I will +speak of them no more, if you do not wish it, but I shall certainly +perform them. And I think it would be far better if we could talk +matters out together, and arrange every thing plainly and openly before +you go home to the Manse, if you prefer the Manse, though I could have +wished it was to the Castle." + +"To the Castle!" + +"Yes. I intended to have brought you back from Edinburgh--all of +you," added the earl, with emphasis, "to the Castle for life!" + +Helen was much affected. She made no attempt either to resist or to +reply. + +"But now, my dear, you shall do exactly what you will about the home you +choose--exactly what makes you most content, and your father also. +Only listen to me just for five minutes, without interrupting me. I +never could bear to be interrupted, you know." + +Helen faintly smiled, and Lord Cairnforth, in a brief, business-like +way, explained how, the day after his coming of age, he had +deliberately, and upon what he--and Mr. Menteith likewise-- +considered just grounds, constituted her, Helen Cardross, as his sole +heiress; that he had never altered his will since, and therefore she now +was, and always would have been, and her children after her, rightful +successors to the Castle and broad acres of Cairnforth. + +"The title lapses," he added: "there will be no more Earls of +Cairnforth. But your boy may be the founder of a new name and family, +that may live and rule for generations along the shores of our loch, and +perhaps keep even my poor name alive there for a little while." + +Helen did not speak. Probably she too, with her clear common sense, saw +the wisdom of the thing. For as, as the earl said, he had a right to +choose his own heir--and as even the world would say, what better +heir could he choose than his next of kin--Captain Bruce's child? +What mother could resist such a prospect for her son? She sat, her +tears flowing, but still with a great light in her blue eyes, as if she +saw far away in the distance, far beyond all this sorrow and pain, the +happy future of her darling--her only child. + +"Of course, Helen, I could pass you over, and leave all direct to that +young man of yours, who is, if I died intestate, my rightful heir. But +I will not--at least, not yet. Perhaps, if I live to see him of age, +I may think about making him take my name, as Bruce-Montgomerie. But +meanwhile I shall educate him, send him to school and college, and at +home he shall be put under Malcolm's care, and have ponies to ride and +boats to row. In short, Helen," concluded the earl, looking earnestly +in her face with that sad, fond, and yet peaceful expression he had, "I +mean your boy to do all that I could not do, and to be all that I ought +to have been. You are satisfied?" + +"Yes--quite. I thank you. And I thank God." + +A minute more, and the carriage stopped at the wicket-gate of the Manse +garden. + +There stood the minister, with his white locks bared, and his whole +figure trembling with agitation, but still himself--stronger and +better than he had been for many months. + +"Papa! papa!" And Helen, his own Helen, was in his arms. + +"Drive on," said Lord Cairnforth, hurriedly; "Malcolm, we will go +straight to the Castle now." + +And so, no one heeding him--they were too happy to notice any thing +beyond themselves--the earl passed on, with a strange smile, not of +this world at all, upon his quiet face, and returned to his own stately +and solitary home. + + + + + +Chapter 14 + +Good Mrs. Campbell had guessed truly that from this time forward Helen +Bruce would be only a mother. Either she was one of those women in whom +the maternal element predominates--who seem born to take care of +other people and rarely to be taken care of themselves--or else her +cruel experience of married life had forever blighted in her all wifely +emotions--even wifely regrets. She was grave, sad, silent, for many +months during her early term of widowhood, but she made no pretense of +extravagant sorrow, and, except under the rarest and most necessary +circumstances, she never even named her husband. Nothing did she betray +about him, or her personal relations with him, even to her nearest and +dearest friends. He had passed away, leaving no more enduring memory +than the tomb-stone which Lord Cairnforth had erected in Grayfriars' +church-yard. + +---Except his child, of whom it was the mother's undisguised delight +that, outwardly and inwardly, the little fellow appeared to be wholly a +Cardross. With his relatives on the father's side, after the one formal +letter which she had requested should be written to Colonel Bruce +announcing Captain Bruce's death, Helen evidently wished to keep up no +acquaintance whatever--nay, more than wished; she was determined it +should be so--with that quiet, resolute determination which was +sometimes seen in every feature of her strong Scotch face, once so +girlish, but it bore tokens of what she had gone through--of a battle +from which no woman ever comes out unwounded or unscarred. + +But, as before said, she was a mother, and wholly a mother, which +blessed fact healed the young widow's heart better and sooner than any +thing else could have done. Besides, in her case, there was no +suspense, no conflict of duties--all her duties were done. Had they +lasted after her child's birth the struggle might have been too hard; +for mothers have responsibilities as well as wives, and when these +conflict, as they do sometimes, God help her who has to choose between +them! But Helen was saved this misfortune. Providence had taken her +destiny out of her own hands, and here she was, free as Helen Cardross +of old, in exactly the same position, and going through the same simple +round of daily cares and daily avocations which she had done as the +minister's active and helpful daughter. + +For as nothing else but the minister's daughter would she, for the +present, be recognized at Cairnforth. Lord Cairnforth's intentions +toward herself or her son she insisted on keeping wholly secret, except, +of course, as regarded that dear and good father. + +"I may die," she said to the earl--"die before yourself; and if my +boy grows up, you may not love him, or he may not deserve your love, in +which case you must choose another heir. No, you shall be bound in no +way externally; let all go on as heretofore. I will have it so." + +And of all Lord Cairnforth's generosity she would accept of nothing for +herself except a small annual sum, which, with her widow's pension from +the East India Company, sufficed to make her independent of her father; +but she did not refuse kindness to her boy. + +Never was there such a boy. "Boy" he was called from the first, never +"baby;" there was nothing of the baby about him. Before he was a year +old he ruled his mother, grandfather, and Uncle Duncan with a rod of +iron. Nay, the whole village were his slaves. "Miss Helen's bairn" was +a little king every where. It might have gone rather hard for the poor +wee fellow thus allegorically + + "Wearing on his baby brow the round + And top of sovereignty" + +That dangerous sovereignty--any human being--to wield, had there +not been at least one person who was able to assume authority over him. + +This was, strange to say--and yet not strange--the Earl of +Cairnforth. + +From his earliest babyhood Boy had been accustomed to the sight of the +sight of the motionless figure in the moving chair, who never touched +him, but always spoke so kindly and looked around so smilingly; whom, he +could perceive--for children are quicker to notice things than we +some times think--his mother and grandfather invariably welcomed with +such exceeding pleasure, and treated with never-failing respect and +tenderness. And, as soon as he could crawl, the footboard of the +mysterious wheeled chair became to the little man a perfect +treasure-house of delight. Hidden there he found toys, picture-books, +"sweeties"--such as he got nowhere else, and for which, before +appropriating them, he was carefully taught to express thanks in his own +infantile way, and made to understand fully from whom they came. + +"It's bribery, and against my principles," the earl would say, half +sadly. "But, if I did not give him things, how else could Boy learn to +love me?" + +Helen never answered this, no more than she used answer many similar +speeches in the earl's childhood. She knew time would prove them all to +be wrong. + +What sort of idea the child really had of this wonderful donor, the +source of most of his pleasures, who yet was so different externally +from every body else; who never moved from the wheel-chair; who neither +caressed him nor played with him, and whom he was not allowed to play +with, but only lifted up sometimes to kiss softly the kind face which +always smiled down upon him with a sort of "superior love"--what the +child's childish notion of his friend was no one could of course +discover. But it must have been a mingling of awe and affectionateness; +for he would often--even before he could walk--crawl up to the +little chair, steady himself by it, and then look into Lord Cairnforth's +face with those mysterious baby eyes, full of questioning, but yet +without the slightest fear. And once, when his mother was teaching him +his first hymn-- + +"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, +Look upon a little child," + +Boy startled her by the sudden remark--one of the divine profanities +that are often falling from the innocent lips of little children-- + +"I know Jesus. He is the earl." + +And then Helen tried, in some simple way, to make the child understand +about Lord Cairnforth, and how he had been all his life so heavily +afflicted; but Boy could not comprehend it as affliction at all. There +seemed to him something not inferior, but superior to all other people +in that motionless figure, with its calm sweet face--who was never +troubled, never displeased--whom every body delighted to obey, and at +whose feet lay treasures untold. + +"I think Boy likes me," Lord Cairnforth would say, when he met the +upturned beaming face as the child, in an ecstasy of expectation, ran to +meet him. "His love may last as long as the playthings do." + +But the earl was mistaken, as Helen knew. His love-victory had been in +something deeper than toys and "goodies." Even when their charm began +to cease Boy still crept up to the little chair, and looked from the +empty footboard up to the loving face, which no one, man, woman, or +child, ever regarded without something far higher than pity. + +And, by degrees, Boy, or "Carr"--which, as being the diminutive for +his second Christian name, Cardross, he was often called now--found a +new attraction in his friend. He would listen with wide-open eyes, and +attention that never flagged, to the interminable "tories" which the +earl told him, out of the same brilliant imagination which had once used +to delight his uncles in the boat. And so, little by little, the child +and the man grew to be "a pair of friends"--familiar and fond, but +with a certain tender reverence always between them, which had the most +salutary effect on the younger. + + Whenever he was sick, or sorry, or naughty--and Master "Boy" could +be exceedingly naughty sometimes--the voice which had most influence +over him, the influence to which he always succumbed, came from the +little wheeled chair. No anger did he ever find there--no dark looks +or sharp tones--but he found steady, unbending authority; the firm +will which never passed over a single fault, or yielded to a single +whim. In his wildest passions of grief or wrath, it was only necessary +to say to the child, "If the earl could see you!" to make him pause; and +many and many a time, whenever motherly authority, which in this case +was weakened by occasional over-indulgence and by an almost morbid +terror of the results of the same, failed to conquer the child, Helen +used, as a last resource, to bring him in her arms, set him down beside +Lord Cairnforth, and leave him there. She never came back but she found +Boy "good". + +"He makes me good, too, I think," the earl would say now and then, "for +he makes me happy." + +It was true. Lord Cairnforth never looked otherwise than happy when he +had beside him that little blossom of hope of the new generation-- +Helen's child. + +As years went by, though he still lived alone at the Castle, it was by +no means the secluded life of his youth and early manhood. He gradually +gathered about him neighbors and friends. He filled his house +occasionally with guests, of his own rank and of all ranks; people +notable and worthy to be known. He became a "patron," as they called it +in those days, of art and literature, and assembled around him all who, +for his pleasure and their own benefit, chose to enjoy his hospitality. + +In a quiet way, for he disliked public show, he was likewise what was +termed a "philanthropist," but always on the system which he had learned +in his boyhood from Helen and Mr. Cardross, that "charity begins at +home;" with the father who guides well his own household; the minister +whose footstep is welcomed at every door in his own parish; the +proprietor whose just, wise, and merciful rule make him sovereign +absolute in his own estate. This last especially was the character +given along all the country-side to the Earl of Cairnforth. + +His was not a sad existence; far from it. None who knew him, and +certainly none who ever staid long with him in his own home, went away +with that impression. He enjoyed what he called "a sunshiny life"-- +having sunshiny faces about him; people who knew how to accept the sweet +and endure the bitter; to see the heavenly side even of sorrow; to do +good to all, and receive good from all; avoiding all envies, jealousies, +angers, and strifes, and following out literally the apostolic command, +"As much as in you lies, live peaceably with all men." + +And so the earl was, in the best sense of the word, popular. Every body +liked him, and he liked every body. But deep in his heart--ay, +deeper than any of these his friends and acquaintance ever dreamed-- +steadying and strengthening it, keeping it warm for all human uses, yet +calm with the quiet sadness of an eternal want, lay all those emotions +which are not likings, but loves; not sympathies, but passions; but +which with him were to be, in this world, forever dormant and +unfulfilled. + +Never, let the Castle be ever so full of visitors, or let his daily +cares, his outward interest, and his innumerable private charities be +ever so great, did he omit driving over twice or thrice a week to spend +an hour or two at the Manse--in winter, by the study fire; in summer, +under the shade of the green elm-trees--the same trees where he had +passed that first sunny Sunday when he came a poor, lonely, crippled +orphan child into the midst of the large, merry family--all scattered +now. + +The minister, Helen, and Boy were the sole inmates left at the Manse, +and of these three the latter certainly was the most important. Hide it +as she would, the principal object of the mother's life was her only +child. Many a time, as Lord Cairnforth sat talking with her, after his +old fashion, of all his interests, schemes, labors, and hopes--hopes +solely for others, and labors, the end of which he knew he would never +see--he would smile to himself, noticing how Helen's eye wandered all +the while--wandered to where that rosy young scapegrace rode his tiny +pony--the earl's gift--up and down the gravel walks, or played at +romps with Malcolm, or dug holes in the flower-beds, or got into all and +sundry of the countless disgraces which were forever befalling Boy; yet +which, so lovable was the little fellow, were as continually forgiven, +and, behind his back, even exalted into something very like merits. + +But once--and it was an incident which, whether or not Mrs. Bruce +forgot it herself, her friend never did, since it furnished a key to +much of the past, and a serious outlook for the future--Boy committed +an error which threw his mother into an agony of agitation such as she +had not betrayed since she came back, a widow, to Cairnforth. + +Her little son told a lie! It was a very small lie, such as dozens of +children tell--are punished and pardoned--but a lie it was. It +happened on August morning, when the raspberries for which the Manse was +famous. He was desired not to touch them--"not to lay a finger on +them," insisted the mother. And he promised. But, alas! The promises +of four years old are not absolutely reliable; and so that which +happened once in a more ancient garden happened in the garden of the +Manse. Boy plucked and ate. He came back to his mother with his white +pinafore all marked and his red mouth redder still with condemnatory +stains. Yet, when asked "if he had touched the raspberries," he opened +that wicked mouth and said, unblushingly, "No!" + +Of course it was an untruth--self-evident; in its very simplicity +almost amusing; but the earl was not prepared for the effect it seemed +to have upon Helen. She started back, her lips actually blanched and +her eyes glowing. + +"My son has told a lie!" she cried, and kept repeating it over and over +again. "My son has looked me in the face and told me a lie--his +first lie!" + +"Hush, Helen!" for her manner seemed actually to frighten the child. + +"No, I can not pass it over! I dare not! He must be punished. Come!" + +She seized Boy by the hand, looking another way, and was moving off with +him, as if she hardly knew what she was doing. + +"Helen!" called the earl, almost reproachfully; for, in his opinion, out +of all comparison with the offense seemed the bitterness with which the +mother felt it, and was about to punish it. "Tell me, first, what are +you going to do with the child?" + +"I hardly know--I must think--must pray. What if my son, my only +son, should inherit--I mean, if he should grow up a liar?" + +That word "inherit" betrayed her. No wonder now at the mother's agony +of fear--she who was mother to Captain Bruce's son. Lord Cairnforth +guessed it all. + +"I understand," said he. "But--" + +"No," Helen interrupted, "you need understand nothing, for I have told +you nothing. Only I must kill the sin--the fatal sin--at the very +root. I must punish him. Come, child!" + +"Come back, Helen," said the earl; and something in the tone made her +obey at once, as occasionally during her life Helen had been glad to +obey him, and creep under the shelter of a stronger will and clearer +judgment than her own. "You are altogether mistaken, my dear friend. +Your boy is only a child, and errs as such, and you treat him as if he +had sinned like a grown-up man. Be reasonable. We will both take care +of him. No fear that he will turn out a liar!" + +Helen hesitated; but still her looks were so angry and stern, all the +mother vanished out of them, that the boy, instead of clinging to her, +ran away crying, and hid himself behind Lord Cairnforth's chair. + +"Leave him to me, Helen. Can not you trust me--me--with your +son!" + +Mrs. Bruce paused. + +"Now," said the earl, wheeling himself round a little, so that he came +face to face with the sobbing child, "lift up your head, Boy, and speak +the truth like a man to me and to your mother--see! She is listening. +Did you touch those raspberries?" + +"No!" + +"Cardross!" Calling him by his rarely-spoken name, not his pet-name, and +fixing upon him eyes, not angry, but clear and searching, that compelled +the truth even from a child, "think again. You must tell us!" + +"No, me didn't touch them," answered Boy, dropping his head in conscious +shame. "Not with me fingers. Me just opened me mouth and they popped +in." + +Lord Cairnforth could hardly help smiling at the poor little sinner-- +the infant Jesuit attaining his object by such an ingenious device; but +the mother didn't smile, and her look was harder than ever. + +"You hear! If not a lie, it was a prevarication. He who lies is a +scoundrel, but he who prevaricates is a scoundrel and coward too. +Sooner than Boy should grow up like--like that, I would rather die. +No, I would rather see him die; for I might come in time to hate my own +son." + +By these fierce words, and by the gleaming eyes, which made a sudden and +total change in the subdued manner, and the plain, almost elderly face +under the widow's cap that Helen always wore, Lord Cairnforth guessed, +more than he had ever guessed before, of what the sufferings of her +married life had been. + +"My friend," he said, and there was infinite pity as well as tenderness +in his voice, "believe me, you are wrong. You are foreboding what, +please God, will never happen. God does not deal with us in that +manner. He bids us do His will, each of us individually, without +reference to the doings or misdoings of any other person. And if we +obey Him, I believe He takes care we shall not suffer--at least not +forever, even in this world. Do not be afraid. Boy," calling the +little fellow, who was now sobbing in bitterest contrition behind the +wheeled chair, "come and kiss your mother. Promise her that you will +never again vex her by telling a lie." + +"No, no, no. Me'll not vex mamma. Good mamma! Pretty mamma! Boy so +sorry!" + +And he clung closely and passionately to his mother, kissing her averted +face twenty times over. + +"You see, Helen, you need not fear," said the earl. + +Helen burst into tears. + +After that day it came to be a general rule that, when she could not +manage him herself, which not infrequently happened--for the very +similarity in temperament and disposition between the mother and son +made their conflicts, even at this early age, longer and harder--Helen +brought Boy up to the Castle and left him, sometimes for hours together, +in the library with Lord Cairnforth. He always came home to the Manse +quiet and "good." + +And so out of babyhood into boyhood, and thence into youth, grew the +earl's adopted son; for practically it became that relationship, though +no distinct explanation was ever given, or any absolute information +vouchsafed, for indeed there was none who had a right to inquire; still, +the neighborhood and the public at large took it for granted that such +were Lord Cairnforth's intentions toward his little cousin. + +As for the boy's mother, she led a life very retired--more retired +than even Helen Cardross, doing all her duties as the minister's +daughter, but seldom appearing in society. And society speculated +little about her. Sometimes, when the Castle was full of guests, Mrs. +Bruce appeared among them, still in her widow's weeds, to be received by +Lord Cairnforth with marked attention and respect--always called "my +cousin," and whoever was present, invariably requested to take the head +of his table; but, except at these occasional seasons, and at birthdays, +new years, and so on, Helen was seldom seen out of the Manse, and was +very little known to the earl's ordinary acquaintance. + +But every body in the whole peninsula knew the minister's grandson, +young Master Bruce. The boy was tall of his age--not exactly +handsome, being too like his mother for that; nevertheless, the +robustness of form, which in her was too large for comeliness, became in +him only manly size and strength. He was athletic, graceful, and +active; he learned to ride almost as soon as he could walk; and, under +Malcolm's charge, was early initiated in all the mysteries of moor and +loch. By fourteen years of age Cardross Bruce was the best shot, the +best fisher, the best hand at an oar, of all the young lads in the +neighborhood. + +Then, too, though allowed to run rather wild, he was unmistakably a +gentleman. Though he mixed freely with every body in the parish, he was +neither haughty nor over-familiar with any one. He had something of the +minister's manner with inferiors--frank, gentle, and free--winning +both trust and love, and yet it was impossible to take liberties with +him. And some of the elder people in the clachan declared the lad had +at times just "the merry glint o' the minister's e'en" when Mr. Cardross +first came to the parish as a young man with his young wife. + +He was an old man now, "wearin' awa'," but slowly and peacefully; +preaching still, though less regularly; for, to his great delight, his +son Duncan, having come out creditably at college, had been appointed +his assistant and successor. Uncle Duncan--only twelve years his +nephew's senior--was also appointed by Lord Cairnforth tutor to "Boy" +Bruce. The two were very good friends, and not unlike one another. +"Ay, he's just a Cardross," was the universal remark concerning young +Bruce. No one had ever hinted that the lad was like his father. + +He was not. Nature seemed mercifully to have forgotten to perpetuate +that type of character which had given Mr. Menteith formerly, and others +since, such a justifiable dread of the Bruce family, and such a +righteous determination to escape them. Lord Cairnforth still paid the +annuity, but on condition that no one of his father's kindred should +ever interfere, in the smallest degree, with Helen's child. + +This done, both he and she trusted to the strong safeguards of habit and +education, and all other influences which so strongly modify character, +to make the boy all that they desired him to be, and to counteract those +tendencies which, as Lord Cairnforth plainly perceived, were Helen's +daily dread. It was a struggle, mysterious as that which visible human +free-will is forever opposing (apparently) to invisible fate, the end of +which it is impossible to see, and yet we struggle on. + +Thus laboring together with one hope, one aim, and one affection, all +centered in this boy, Lord Cairnforth and Mrs. Bruce passed many a +placid year. And when the mother's courage failed her--when her +heart shrank in apprehension from real terrors or from chimeras of her +own creating, her friend taught her to fold patiently her trembling +hands, and say, as she herself and the minister had first taught him in +his forlorn boyhood, the one only prayer which calms fear and comforts +sorrow--the lesson of the earl's whole life--"Thy will be done!" + + + + + +Chapter 15 + +"Helen, that boy of yours ought to be sent to college." + +"Oh no! Surely you do not think it necessary?" said Helen, visibly +shrinking. + +She and Lord Cairnforth were sitting together in the Castle library. +Young Cardross had been sitting beside them, holding a long argument +with his mother, as he often did, for he was of a decidedly +argumentative turn of mind, until, getting the worst of the battle, and +being rather "put down"--a position rarely agreeable to the +self-esteem of eighteen--he had flushed up angrily, made no reply, +but opened one of the low windows and leaped out on the terrace. There, +pacing to and fro along the countess's garden, they saw the boy, or +rather young man, for he looked like one now. He moved with a rapid +step, the wind tossing his fair curls--Helen's curls over again-- +and cooling his cheeks as he tried to recover his temper, which he did +not often lose, especially in the earl's presence. + +Experience had not effaced the first mysterious impression made on the +little child's mind by the wheeled chair and its occupant. If there was +one person in the world who had power to guide and control this +high-spirited lad, it was Lord Cairnforth. And as the latter moved his +chair a little round, so that he could more easily look out into the +garden and see the graceful figure sauntering among the flower-beds, it +was evident by his expression that the earl loved Helen's boy very +dearly. + +"He is a fine fellow, and a good fellow as ever was born, that young man +of yours. Still, as I have told you many a time, he would be all the +better if he were sent to college." + +"For his education?" I thought Duncan was fully competent to complete +that." + +"Not altogether. But, for many reasons, I think it would be advisable +for him to go from home for a while." + +"Why? Because his mother spoils him?" + +The earl smiled, and gave no direct answer. In truth, the harm Helen +did her boy was not so much in her "spoiling"--love rarely injures +--as in the counteracting weight which she sometimes threw on the +other side--in the sudden tight rein which she drew upon his little +follies and faults--the painful clashing of two equally strong wills, +which sometimes happened between the mother and the son. + +This was almost inevitable, with Helen's peculiar character. As she sat +there, the sun shining on her fair face--still fair; a clear, healthy +red and white, though she was over forty--you might trace some harsh +lines in it, and see clearly that, save for her exceeding unselfishness +and lovingness of disposition, Mrs. Bruce might in middle age have grown +into what is termed a "hard" woman; capable of passionate affection, but +of equally passionate severity, and prone to exercise both alike upon +the beings most precious to her on earth. + +"I fear it is not a pleasant doctrine to preach to mothers," said Lord +Cairnforth; "but, Helen, all boys ought to leave home some time. How +else are they to know the world?" + +"I do not wish my boy to know the world." + +"But he must. He ought. Remember his life is likely to be a very +different one from either yours or mine." + +"Do not let us think of that," said Helen, uneasily. + +"My friend, I have been thinking of it ever since he was born--or, at +least, ever since he came to Cairnforth. That day seems almost like +yesterday, and yet--We are growing quite middle-aged folk, Helen, my +dear." + +Helen sighed. These peaceful, uneventful years, how fast they had +slipped by! She began to count them after the only fashion by which she +cared to count any thing now. "Yes, Cardross will be a man--actually +and legally a man--in little more than two years." + +"That is just what I was considering. By that time we must come to some +decision on a subject which you will never let me speak of; but by-and +by, Helen, you must. Do you suppose that your son guesses, or that any +body has ever told him, what his future position is to be?" + +"I think not. There was nobody to tell him, for nobody knew. No," +continued Helen, speaking strongly and decidedly, "I am determined on +one point--nothing shall bind you as regards my son or me-- +nothing, except your own free will. To talk of me as your successor is +idle. I am older than you are; and you must not be compromised as +regards my son. He is a good boy now, but temptation is strong, and," +with an irrepressible shudder, "appearances are deceitful sometimes. +Wait, as I have always said--wait till you see what sort of man +Cardross turns out to be." + +Lord Cairnforth made no reply, and once more the two friends sat +watching the unconscious youth, who had been for so many years the one +object of both their lives. + +"Ignorance is not innocence," said the earl at length, after along fit +of musing. "If you bind a creature mortally hand and foot, how can it +ever learn to walk? It would, as soon as you loosed the bonds, find +itself not free, but paralyzed--as helpless a creature as myself." + +Helen turned away from watching her boy, and laid her hand tenderly, in +her customary caress, on the feeble hand, which yet had been the means +of accomplishing so much. + +"You should not speak so," she said. "Scarcely ever is there a more +useful life than yours." + +"More useful, certainly, than any one once expected--except you, +Helen. I have tried to make you not ashamed of me these thirty years." +"Is it so many? Thirty years since the day you first came to the +Manse?" + +"Yes; you know I was forty last birthday. Who would have thought my +life would have lasted so long? But it can not last forever; and before +I am 'away' as your dear old father would say, I should like to leave +you quite settled and happy about that boy." + +"Who says I am not happy?" answered Mrs. Bruce, rather sharply. + +"Nobody; but I see it myself sometimes--when you get that restless, +anxious look--there it is now! Helen, I must have it away. I think +it would trouble me in my grave if I left you unhappy," added the earl, +regarding her with that expression of yearning tenderness which she had +been so used to all her days that she rarely noticed it until the days +came when she saw it no more. + +"I am not unhappy," she said, earnestly. "Why should I be? My dear +father keeps well still--he enjoys a green old age. And is not my +son growing up every thing that a mother's heart could desire?" + +"I do believe it. Cardross is a good boy--a very good boy. But the +metal has never been tested--as the soundest metal always requires to +be--and until this is done, you will never rest. I had rather it +were done during my lifetime than afterward. Helen, I particularly wish +the boy to go to college." + +The earl spoke so decidedly that Mrs. Bruce replied with only the brief +question "Where?" + +"To Edinburg; because there he would not be left quite alone. His uncle +Alick would keep an eye upon him, and he could be boarded with Mrs. +Menteith, whose income would be none the worse for the addition I would +make to it; for of course, Helen, if he goes, it must be--not exactly +as my declared heir, since you dislike that so much, but--as my +cousin and nearest of kin, which he is undeniably." + +Helen acquiesced in silence. + +"I have a right to him, you see," said Lord Cairnforth, smiling, "and +really I am rather proud of my young fellow. He may not be very clever +--the minister says he is not--but he is what I call a man. Like +his mother, who never was clever, but yet was every inch a woman--the +best woman, in all relations of life, that I ever knew." + +Helen smiled too--a little sadly, perhaps--but soon her mind +recurred from all other things to her one prominent thought. + +"And what would you do with the boy himself? He knows nothing of money +--has never had a pound-note in his pocket all his life." + +"Then it is high time he should have--and a good many of them. I +shall pay Mrs. Menteith well for his board, but I shall make him a +sufficient allowance besides. He must stand on his own feet, without +any one to support him. It is the only way to make a boy into a man-- +a man that is worth anything. Do you not see that yourself?" + +"I see, Lord Cairnforth, that you think it would be best for my boy to +be separated from his mother." + +She spoke in a hurt tone, and yet with a painful consciousness that what +she said was not far off the truth, more especially as the earl did not +absolutely deny the accusation. + +"I think, my dear Helen, that it would be better if he were separated +from us all for a time. We are such quiet, old-fashioned folks at +Cairnforth, he may come to weary of us, you know. But my strongest +motive is exactly what I stated--that he should be left to himself, +to feel his own strength and the strength of those principles which we +have tried to give him--that any special character he possesses may +have free space to develop itself. Up to a certain point we can take +care of our children; beyond, we can not--nay, we ought not; they +must take care of themselves. I believe--do not be angry, Helen-- +but I believe there comes a time in every boy's life when the wisest +thing even his mother can do for him is--to leave him alone." + +"And not watch over him--not to guide him?" + +"Yes, but not so as to vex him by the watching and the guiding. +However, we will talk of this another day. Here the lad comes." + +And the earl's eyes brightened almost as much as Helen's did when +Cardross leaped in at the window, all his good-humor restored, kissed +his mother in his rough, fond way, of which he was not in the least +ashamed as yet, and sat down by the wheeled chair with that tender +respectfulness and involuntary softening of manner and tone which he +never failed to show Lord Cairnforth, and had never shown so much to any +other human being. + +Ay, the earl had his compensations. We all have, if we know it. + +Gradually, in many a long, quiet talk, during which she listened to his +reasonings as probably she would have listened to no other man's, he +contrived to reconcile Mrs. Bruce to the idea of parting with her boy +--their first separation, even for a day, since Cardross was born. It +was neither for very long nor very far, since civilization had now +brought Edinburg within a few hours' journey of Cairnforth; but it was +very sore, nevertheless, to both mother and son. + +Helen took her boy and confided him to Mrs. Menteith herself; but she +could not be absent for more than one day, for just about this time her +father's "green old age" began to fail a little, and he grew extremely +dependent upon her, which, perhaps, was the best thing that could have +happened to her at this crisis. She had to assume that tenderest, +happiest duty of being "nursing mother" to the second childhood of one +who throughout her own childhood, youth, and middle age had been to her +every thing that was honored and deserving honor--loving, and worthy +of love--in a parent. + +Not that Mr. Cardross had sank into any helpless state of mind or body; +the dread of paralysis had proved a false alarm; and Helen's coming +home, to remain there forever, together with the thoroughly peaceful +life which he had since lived for so many years, had kept up the old +man's vitality to a surprising extent. His life was now only fading +away by slow and insensible degrees, like the light out of the sunset +clouds, or the colors from the mountains--silent warnings of the +night coming "in which no man can work." + +The minister had worked all his days--his Master's work; none the +less worthy that it was done in no public manner, and had met with no +public reward. Beyond his own Presbytery the name of the Reverend +Alexander Cardross was scarcely known. He was not a popular preacher; +he had never published a book, nor even a sermon, and he had taken no +part in the theological controversies of the time. He was content to +let other men fight about Christianity; he only lived it, spending +himself for naught, some might think, in his own country parish and +among his poor country people, the pastor and father of them all. + +He had never striven after this world's good things, and they never came +to him in any great measure; but better things did. He always had +enough, and a little to spare for those who had less. In his old age +this righteous man was not "forsaken," and his seed never "begged their +bread." His youngest, Duncan, was always beside him, and yearly his +four other sons came to visit him from the various places where they had +settled themselves, to labor, and prosper, and transmit honorably to +another generation the honest name of Cardross. + +For the minister's "ae dochter," she was, as she had been always, his +right hand, watching him, tending him, helping and guarding him, +expending her whole life for him, so as to make him feel as lightly as +possible the gradual decay of his own; above all, loving him with a love +that made labor easy and trouble light--the passionately devoted love +which we often see sons show to mothers, and daughters to fathers, when +they have never had the parental ideal broke, nor been left to wander +through life in a desolation which is only second to that of being +"without God in the world." + +"I think he has a happy old age--the dear old father!" said Helen one +day, when she and Lord Cairnforth sat talking, while the minister was as +usual absorbed in the library--the great Cairnforth library, now +becoming notable all over Scotland, of which Mr. Cardross had had the +sole arrangement, and every book therein the earl declared he loved as +dearly as he did his children. + +"Yes, he is certainly happy. And he has had a happy life, too--more +so than most people." + +"He deserved it. All these seventy-five years he has kept truth on his +lips, and honor and honesty in his heart. He has told no man a lie; has +overreached and deceived no man; and, though he was poor--poor +always; when he married my mother, exceedingly poor--he has +literally, from that day to this, 'owed no man any thing but to love one +another.' Oh!" cried Helen, looking after the old man in almost a +passion of tenderness, "oh that my son may grow up like his grandfather! +Like nobody else--only his grandfather." + +"I think he will," answered Lord Cairnforth. + +And, in truth, the accounts they had of young Cardross were for some +time extremely satisfactory. He had accommodated himself to his new +life--had taken kindly to his college work; gave no trouble to Mrs. +Menteith, and still less to his uncle; the latter a highly respectable +but not very interesting gentleman--a partner in the firm of Menteith +and Ross, and lately married to the youngest Miss Menteith. + +Still, by his letters, the nephew did not seem overwhelmingly fond of +him, complaining sometimes that Uncle Alick interfered with him a little +too much; investigated his expenses, made him balance his accounts, and +insisted that these should be kept within the limits suitable for Mrs. +Bruce's son and Mr. Cardross's grandson, who would have to work his way +in the world as his uncles had done before him. + +"You see, Helen," said the earl, "all concealment brings its +difficulties. It would be much easier for the boy if he were told his +position and his future career at once--nay, if he had known it from +the first." + +But Helen would not hear of this. She was obstinate, all but fierce, on +the subject. No argument would convince her that it was not safer for +her son, who had been brought up in such Arcadian simplicity, to +continue believing himself what he appeared to be, than to be dazzled by +the knowledge that he was the chosen heir of the Earl of Cairnforth. + +So, somewhat against his judgment, the earl yielded. + +All winter and spring things went on peacefully in the little peninsula, +which was now being grasped tightly by the strong arm of encroaching +civilization. Acre after acre of moorland disappeared, and became +houses, gardens, green-houses, the feu-rents of which made the estate of +Cairnforth more valuable every year. + +"That young man of yours will have enough on his hands one day," the +earl said to Helen. "He lives an easy life now, and little thinks what +hard work he is coming to. As Mr. Menteith once told me, the owner of +Cairnforth has no sinecure, nor will have for the next quarter of a +century." + +"You expect a busy life, then?" + +"Yes; and I must have that boy to help me--till he comes to his own. +But, Helen, after that time, you must not let him be idle. The richest +man should work, if he can. I wonder what line of work Cardross will +take; whether he will attempt politics--his letters are very +political just now, do you notice?" + +"Very. And there is not half enough about himself." + +"He might get into Parliament," continued the earl, "and perhaps some +day win a peerage in his own right. Eh, Helen? Would you like to be +mother to a viscount--Viscount Cairnforth?" + +"No," said Helen, tenderly, "there shall never be another Lord +Cairnforth." + +Thus sat these two, planning by the hour together the future of the boy +who was their one delight. It amused them through all the winter and +spring, till Cairnforth woods grew green again, and Loch Beg recovered +its smile of sunshiny peace, and the hills at the head of it took their +summer colors, lovely and calm, even as, year after year, these friends +had watched them throughout their two lives, of which both were now +keenly beginning to feel the greater part lay, not before them, but +behind. But in thinking of this boy they felt young again, as if he +brought to one the hope, to the other the faint recollection of +happiness that in the great mystery of Providence to each had been +personally denied. + +And yet they were not unhappy. Helen was not. No one could look into +her face--strongly marked, but rosy-complexioned, health, and comely +--the sort of large comeliness which belongs to her peculiar type of +Scotch women, especially in their middle age--without seeing that +life was to her not only duty, but enjoyment--ay, in spite of the +widow's cap, which marked her out as one who permanently belonged and +meant to belong only to her son. + +And the earl, though he was getting to look old--older than Helen did +--for his black curls were turning gray, and the worn and withered +features, contrasting with the small childish figure, gave him a weird +sort of aspect that struck almost painfully at first upon strangers, +still Lord Cairnforth preserved the exceeding sweetness and peacefulness +of expression which had made his face so beautiful as a boy, and so +winning as a young man. + +"He'll ne'er be an auld man," sometimes said the folk about Cairnforth, +shaking their heads as they looked after him, and speculating for how +many years the feeble body would hold out. Also, perhaps--for +self-interest is bound up in the heart of every human being--feeling +a little anxiety as to who should come after him, to be lord and ruler +over them; perhaps to be less loved, less honored--more so none could +possibly be. + +It was comfort to those who loved him then, and far more comfort +afterward to believe--nay, to know for certain--that many a man, +absorbed in the restless struggle of this busy world, prosperous +citizen, husband and father, had, on the whole, led a far less happy +life than the Earl of Cairnforth. + + + + + +Chapter 16 + +One mild, sunny autumn day, when Cardross, having ended his first +session at college, had spent apparently with extreme enjoyment his +first vacation at home, and had just gone back again to Edinburg to +commence his second "year," the Earl of Cairnforth drove down to the +Manse, as he now did almost daily, for the minister was growing too +feeble to come to the Castle very often. + +His old pupil found him sitting in the garden, sunning himself in a +sheltered nook, backed by a goodly show of China roses and fuchsias, +and companioned by two or three volumes of Greek plays, in which, +however, he did not read much. He looked up with pleasure at the sound +of the wheeled chair along the gravel walk. + +"I'm glad you are come," said he. "I'm sorely needing somebody, for I +have scarcely seen Helen all the morning. There she is! My lassie, +where have you been these three hours?" + +Helen put off his question in some gentle manner, and took her place +beside her charge, or rather between her two charges, each helpless in +their way, though the one most helpless once was least so now. + +"Helen, something is wrong with you this morning?" said the earl, when, +Mr. Cardross having gone away for his little daily walk up and down +between the garden and the kirk-yard, they two sat by themselves for a +while. + +Mrs. Bruce made no answer. + +"Nothing can be amiss with your boy, for I had a letter from him only +yesterday." + +"I had one this morning." + +"And what does he say to you? To me little enough, merely complaining +how dull he finds Edinburg now, and wishing he were back again among us +all." + +"I do not wonder," said Helen, in a hard tone, and with that hard +expression which sometimes came over her face: the earl knew it well. + +"Helen, I am certain something is very wrong with you. Why do you not +tell it out to me?" + +"Hush! Here comes my father!" + +And she hurried to him, gave him her arm, and helped his feeble steps +back into the house, where for some time they three remained talking +together about the little chit-chat of the parish, and the news of the +family, in its various ramifications, now extending year by year. Above +all, the minister like to hear and to talk about his eldest and favorite +grandchild--his name-child, too--Alexander Cardross Bruce. + +But on this subject, usually the never-ceasing topic at the Manse, Helen +was for once profoundly silent. Even when her father had dropped +asleep, as in his feebleness of age he frequently did in the very midst +of conversation, she sat restlessly fingering her wedding-ring, and +another which she wore as a sort of guard to it, the only jewel she +possessed. It was a very large diamond, set in a plain hoop of gold. +The earl had given it to her a few months after she came back to +Cairnforth, when her persistent refusal of all his offered kindnesses +had almost produced a breach between them--at least the nearest +approach to a quarrel they had ever known. She, seeing how deeply she +had wounded him, had accepted this ring as a pledge of amity, and had +worn it ever since--by his earnest request--until it had become as +familiar to her finger as the one beside it. But now she kept looking +at it, and taking it off and on with a troubled air. + +"I am going to ask you a strange question, Lord Cairnforth--a rude +one, if you and I were not such old friends that we do not mind any +thing we say to one another." + +"Say on." + +"Is this ring of mine very valuable?" + +"Rather so." + +"Worth how much?" + +"You certainly are rude, Helen," replied the earl, with a smile. "Well, +if you particularly wish to know, I believe it is worth two hundred +pounds." + +"Two hundred pounds!" + +"Was that so alarming? How many times must I suggest that a man may do +what he likes with his own? It was mine--that is, my mother's, and I +gave it to you. I hope you are worth to me at least two hundred +pounds." + +But no cheerfulness removed the settled cloud from Mrs. Bruce's face. + +"Now--answer me--you know, Helen, you always answer me candidly +and truly, what makes you put that question about the ring?" + +"Because I wished to sell it." + +"Sell it! why?" + +"I want money; in fact, I must have money--a good large sum," said +Helen, in exceeding agitation. "And as I will neither beg, borrow, not +steal, I must sell something to procure that sum, and this diamond is +the only thing I have to sell. Now you comprehend?" + +"I think I do," was the grave answer. "My poor Helen!" + +She might have held out, but the tenderness of his tone overcame her. +She turned her head away. + +"Oh, it's bitter, bitter! After all these years!" + +"What is bitter? But you need not tell me. I think I can guess. You +did not show me your boy's letter of this morning." + +"There it is!" + +And the poor mother, with her tears fast flowing--they had been +restrained so long that now they burst out like a tide--gave way to +that heart-break which many a mother has had to endure--the discovery +that her son was not the perfect being she had thought him; that he was +no better than other women's sons, and equally liable to fall away. +Poor Cardross had been doing all sorts of wrong and foolish things, +which he had kept to himself as long as he could, as long as he dared, +and then had come, in an agony of penitence, and poured out the whole +story of his errors and his miseries into his mother's bosom. + +They were, happily, only errors, not sins--extravagancies in dress; +amusements and dissipations, resulting in serious expenses; but the +young fellow had done nothing absolutely wicked. In the strongest +manner, and with the most convincing evidence to back it, he protested +this and promised to amend his ways, to "turn over a new leaf," if only +his mother would forgive him, and find means to pay the heap of bills +which he enclosed, and which amounted to much more than would be covered +by his yearly allowance from the earl. + +"Poor lad!" said Lord Cairnforth, as he read the letter twice over, and +then carefully examined the list of debts it enclosed. "A common +story." + +"I know that," cried Helen, passionately. "But oh! That it should have +happened to my son!" + +And she bowed her face upon her hands, and swayed herself to and fro in +the bitterest grief and humiliation. + +The earl regarded her a little while, and then said, gently, "My friend, +are you not making for yourself a heavy burden out of a very light +matter?" + +"A light matter? But you do not see--you can not understand." + +"I think I can." + +"It is not so much the thing itself--the fact of my son's being so +mean, so dishonest as to run into debt, when he knows I hate it--that +I have cause to hate it, and to shrink from it as I would from--But +this is idle talking. I see you smile. You do not know all the--the +dreadful past." + +"My dear, I do know--every thing you could tell me--and more." + +"Then can not you see what I dread? The first false step--the fatal +beginning, of which no one can foresee the end? I must prevent it. I +must snatch my poor boy like a brand from the burning. I shall go to +Edinburg myself to-morrow. I would start this very day if could leave +my father." + +"You can not possibly leave your father," said the ear, gently but +decisively. "Sit down, Helen. You must keep quiet." + +For she was in a state of excitement such as, since her widowed days, +had never been betrayed by Helen Bruce. + +"These debts must be paid, and immediately. The bare thought of them +nearly drives me wild. But you shall not pay--do not think it," she +added, almost fiercely. "See what my son himself says--and thank God +he had the grace to say it--that I am on no account to go to you; +that he 'will turn writer's clerk, or tutor, or any thing, rather than +encroach farther on Lord Cairnforth's generosity.'." + +"Poor boy! poor boy!" + +"Then you don't think him altogether a bad boy?" appealed Mrs. Bruce, +pitifully. "You do not fear that I may live to weep over the day when +my son was born?" + +The earl smiled, and that quiet, half-amused smile, coming upon her in +her excited state, seemed to soothe the mother more than any reasoning +could have done. + +"No, Helen, I do not think any such thing. I think the lad has been +very foolish, and we may have been the same. We kept him in +leading-strings too long, and trusted him out of them too suddenly. But +as to his being altogether bad--Helen Cardross's son, and the +minister's grandson--nonsense, my dear." + +Mr. Cardross might have heard himself named, for he stirred in his +peaceful slumbers, and Helen hastily took her letter from Lord +Cairnforth's hand." + +"Not a word to him. He is too old. No trouble must ever come near him +any more." + +"No, Helen. But remember your promise to do nothing till you have +talked with me. It is my right, you know. The boy is my boy too. When +will you come up to the Castle?" To-morrow? Nay, to-night, if you +like." + +"I will come to-night." + +So, at dusk, in the midst of a wild storm, such as in these regions +sometimes, nay, almost always succeeds very calm, mild autumn days, +Helen appeared at the Castle, and went at once into the library where +the earl usually sat. Strange contrast it was between the spacious +apartment, with its lofty octagon walls laden with treasures of +learning; book-shelves, tier upon tier, reaching to the very roof, which +was painted in fresco; every ornamentation of the room being also made +as perfect as its owner's fine taste and lavish means could accomplish, +and this owner, this master of it all, a diminutive figure, sitting all +alone by the vacant fireside--before him a little table, a lamp, and +a book. But he was not reading; he was sitting thinking, as he often +did now; he said he had read so much in his time that he was rather +weary of it, and preferred thinking. Of what? the life he had passed +through--still, uneventful, and yet a full and not empty human life? +Or it might be, oftener still, upon the life to come? + +Lord Cairnforth refused to let his visitor say one word, or even sit +down, till he had placed her in Mrs. Campbell's charge, to be dried and +reclothed, for she was dripping wet with rain--such rain as come +nowhere but at Loch Beg. By-and-by she reappeared in the library, +moving through its heavy shadows, and looking herself again--the +calm, dignified woman, "my cousin, Mrs. Bruce," who sometimes appeared +among Lord Cairnforth's guests, and whom, though she was too retiring to +attract much notice, every body who did notice was sure to approve. + +She took her accustomed place by the earl's side, and plunged at once, +in Helen's own way, into the business which had brought her hither. + +"I am not come to beg or to borrow, do not think it--only to ask +advice. Tell me, what am I to say to my boy?" + +And again, the instant she mentioned her son's name, she gave way to +tears. Yet all the while her friend saw that she was very hard, and +bent upon being hard; that, had Cardross appeared before her at that +minute, she would immediately have frozen up again into the stern mother +whose confidence had been betrayed, whose principles infringed, and who, +though loving her son with all the strength of her heart, could also +punish him with all the power of her conscience, even though her heart +was breaking with sorrow the while. + +"I will give you the best advice I can. But, first, let me have his +letter again." + +Lord Cairnforth read it slowly over, Mrs. Bruce's eager eyes watching +him, and then suffered her to take it from his helpless hands, and fold +it up, tenderly, as mothers do. + +"What do you think of it?" + +"Exactly what I did this morning--that your boy has been very +foolish, but not wicked. There is no attempt at deception or +untruthfulness. + +"No, thank God! Whatever else he is, my son is not a liar. I have +prevented or conquered that." + +"Yes, because you brought him up, as your father brought us up, to be +afraid of nothing, to speak out our minds to him without fear of +offending him, to stand in no dread of rousing his anger, but only of +grieving his love. And so, you see, Helen, it is the same with your +boy. He never attempts to deceive you. He tells out, point-blank, the +most foolish things he has done--the most ridiculous expenses he has +run into. He may be extravagant, but he is not untruthful. I have no +doubt, if I sent this list to his trades-people, they would verify every +halfpenny, and that this really is the end of the list. Not such a long +list neither, if you consider. Below two hundred pounds for which you +were going to sell my ring." + +"Were going! I shall do it still." + +"If you will; though it seems a pity to part with a gift of mine, when +the sum is a mere nothing to me, with my large income, which, Helen, +will one day be all yours." + +Helen was silent--a little sorry and ashamed. The earl talked with +her till he had succeeded in calming her and bringing her into her +natural self again--able to see things in their right proportions, +and take just views of all. + +"Then you will trust me?" she said at last. "You think I may be depended +upon to do nothing rashly when I go to Edinburg to-morrow?" + +"My dear, I have no intention of letting you go." + +"But some one must go. Something must be done, and I can not trust +Alick to do it. My brother does not understand my boy," said she, +returning to her restless, helpless manner. She, the helpful Helen, +only weak in this one point--her only son. + +"Something has been done. I have already sent for Cardross. He will +be at the Castle to-morrow." + +Helen started. + +"At the Castle, I said, not the Manse. No, Helen, you shall not be +compromised; you may be as severe as you like with your son. But he is +my son too"--and a faint shade of color passed over the earl's +withered cheeks--"my adopted son, and it is time that he should know +it." + +"Do you mean to tell him--" + +"I mean to tell him all my intentions concerning him." + +"What! now?" + +"Yes, now. It is the safest and most direct course, both for him, for +you, and for me. I have been thinking over the matter all day, and can +come to no other conclusion. Even for myself--if I may speak of +myself--it is best. I do not wish to encroach upon his mother's +rights--it is not likely I should," added the earl, with a somewhat +sad smile; "still, it is hard that during the years, few or many, that I +have to live, I, a childless man, should not enjoy a little of the +comfort of a son." + +Helen sat silent with averted face. It was all quite true, and yet-- + +"I will tell you, to make all clear, the position I wish Cardross to +hold with regard to me--shall I?" + +Mrs. Bruce assented. + +"Into his mother's place he can never step; I do not desire it. You +must still be, as you have always been, and I shall now publicly give +out the fact, my immediate successor; and, except for a stated +allowance, to be doubled when he marries, which I hope he will, and +early, Cardross must still be dependent upon his mother during her +lifetime. Afterward he inherits all. But there is one thing," he +continued, seeing that Helen did not speak, "I should like: it would +make me happy if, on his coming of age, he would change his name, or add +mine to it--be Alexander Cardross Bruce Montgomerie, or simply +Alexander Cardross Montgomerie. Which do you prefer?" + +Helen meditated long. Many a change came and went over the widow's face +--widowed long enough for time to have softened down all things, and +made her remember only the young days--the days of a girl's first +love. It might have been so, for she said at last, almost with a gasp, + +"I wish my son to be Bruce-Montgomerie." + +"Be it so." + +After that Lord Cairnforth was long silent. + +Helen resumed the conversation by asking if he did not think it +dangerous, almost wrong, to tell the boy of this brilliant future +immediately after his errors? + +"No, not after errors confessed and forsaken. Remember, it was over +very rags that the prodigal's father put upon him the purple robe. But +our boy is not a prodigal, Helen. I know him well, and I have faith in +him, and faith in human nature--especially Cardross nature." And the +earl smiled. "Far deeper than any harshness will smite him the +consciousness of being forgiven and trusted--of being expected to +carry out in his future life all that was a-missing in two not +particularly happy lives, his mother's--and mine." + +Helen Bruce resisted no more. She could not. She was a wise woman-- +a generous and loving-hearted woman; still, in that self-contained, +solitary existence, which had been spent close beside her, yet into the +mystery of which she had never penetrated, and never would penetrate, +there was a nearness to heaven and heavenly things, and clearness of +vision about earthly things which went far beyond her own. She could +not quite comprehend it--she would never have thought of it herself +--but she dimly felt that the earl's judgment was correct, and that, +strange as his conduct might appear, he was acting after that large +sense of rightness which implies righteousness; a course of action which +the world so often ridicules and misconstrues, because the point of view +is taken from an altitude not of this world, and the objects regarded +there-from are things not visible, but invisible. + +Cardross appeared next day--not at home, but at the Castle, and was +closeted there for several hours with the earl before he ever saw his +mother. When he did--and it was he who came to her, for she refused +to take one step to go to him--he flung himself on his knees before +her and sobbed in her lap--the great fellow of six feet high and +twenty years old--sobbed and prayed for forgiveness with the humility +of a child. + +"Oh, mother, mother--and he has forgiven me too! To think what he +has done for me--what he is about to do--me, who have had no +father, or worse than none. Do you know, sometimes people in Edinburgh +--the Menteiths, and so on--have taunted me cruelly about my +father?" + +"And what do you answer?" asked Helen, in a slow, cold voice. + +"That he was my father, and that he was dead; and I bade them speak no +more about him." + +"That was right, my son." + +Then they were silent till Cardross burst out again. + +"It is wonderful--wonderful! I can hardly believe it yet--that we +should never be poor nay more--you, mother, who have gone through so +much, and I, who thought I should have to work hard all my days for both +of us. And I will work!" cried the boy, as he tossed back his curls +and lifted up to his mother a face that in brightness and energy was the +very copy of her own, or what hers used to be. "I'll show you, and the +earl too, how hard I can work--as hard as if for daily bread. I'll +do every thing he wishes me--I'll be his right hand, as he says. I +will make a name for myself and him too--mother, you know I am to +bear his name?" + +"Yes, my boy." + +"And I am glad to bear it. I told him so. He shall be proud of me yet, +and you too. Oh, mother, mother, I will never vex you again." + +And once more his voice broke into sobs, and Helen's too, as she clasped +him close, and felt that whatever God had taken away from her, He had +given her as much--and more. + +Mother and son--widowed mother and only son--there is something in +the tie unlike all others in the world--not merely in its +blessedness, but in its divine compensations. + +Helen waited till her father had retired, which he often did quite +early, for the days were growing too long for him, with whom every one +of them was numbered; and he listened to the wonderful news which his +grandson told him with the even smile of old age, which nothing now +either grieves or surprises. + +"You'll not be going to live at the Castle, though, not while I am +alive, Helen?" was his first uneasy thought. But his daughter soon +quieted it, and saw him to his bed, as she did every evening, bidding +him good-night, and kissing his placid brow--placid as a child's-- +just as if he had been her child instead of her father. Then she took +her son's arm--such a stalwart arm now, and walked with him through +the bright moonlight, clear as day, to Cairnforth Castle. + +When they entered the library they found the earl sitting in his usual +place, and engaged in his usual evening occupation, which he sometimes +called "the hard labor of doing nothing;" for, though he was busy enough +in the daytime with a young man he had as secretary--his faithful old +friend, Mr. Mearns, having lately died--still, he generally spent his +evenings alone. Malcolm lurked within call, in case he wanted any +thing; but he rarely did. Often he would pass hours at a time sitting +as now, with his feeble hands folded on his lap, his head bent, and his +eyes closed, or else open and looking out straight before him-- +calmly, but with an infinite yearning in them that would have seemed +painful to those who did not know how peaceful his inmost nature was. + +But at the first sound of his visitors' footsteps he turned round-- +that is, he turned his little chair round--and welcomed them heartily +and brightly. + +A little ordinary talk ensued, in which Cardross scarcely joined. The +young man was not himself at all--silent, abstracted; and there was +an expression in his face which almost frightened his mother, so solemn +was it, yet withal so exceedingly sweet. + +The earl had been right in his conclusions; he, with his keen insight +into character, had judged Cardross better than the boy's own mother +would have done. Those brilliant prospects, that total change in his +expected future, which might have dazzled a lower nature and sent it all +astray, made this boy--Helen's boy, with Helen's nature strong in +him, only the more sensible of his deficiencies as well as his +responsibilities--humble, self-distrustful, and full of doubts and +fears. Ten years seemed to have passed over his head since morning, +changing him from a boy into a sedate, thoughtful man. + +Lord Cairnforth noticed this, as he noticed every thing; and at last, +seeing the young heart was too full almost to bear much talking, he said +kindly, + +"Cardross, give your mother that arm-chair; she looks very wearied. And +the, would you mind having a consultation with Malcolm about those +salmon-weirs at the head of the Loch Mohr? I know his is longing to +open his heart to you on the subject. Go, my boy, and don't hurry back. +I want to have a good long talk with your mother." + +Cardross obeyed. The two friends looked after him as he walked down the +room with his light, active step, and graceful, gentlemanly figure--a +youth who seemed born to be heir to all the splendors around him. Helen +clasped her hands tightly together on her lap, and her lips moved. She +did not speak, but the earl almost seemed to hear the great outcry of +the mother's heart going up to God--"Give any thing thou wilt to me, +only give him all!" Alas! That such a cry should ever fall back to +earth in the other pitiful moan, "Would God that I had died for thee, O +Abaslom, my son--my son!" + +But it was not to be so with Helen Bruce. Her son was no Absalom. Her +days of sorrow were ended. + +Laird Cairnforth saw how violently affected she was, and began to talk +to her in a commonplace and practical manner about all that he and +Cardross had been arranging that morning. + +"And I must say that, though he will never shine at college, and +probably his grandfather would mourn over him as having no learning, +there is an amount of solid sense about the fellow with which I am quite +delighted. He is companionable too--knows how to make use of his +acquirements. Whatever light he possesses, he will never hide it under +a bushel, which is, perhaps, the best qualification for the position +that he will one day hold. I have no fear about Cardross. He will be +an heir after my own heart--will accomplish all I wished, and +possibly a little more." + +Mrs. Bruce answered only by tears. + +"But there is one thing which he and I have settled between us, subject +to your approval, of course. He must go back to college immediately." + +"To Edinburg?" + +"Do not look so alarmed, Helen. No, not Edinburg. It is best to break +off all associations there--he wishes it himself. He would like to +go to a new University--St. Andrew's." + +"But he knows nobody there. He would be quite alone. For I can not-- +do you not see I can not?--leave my father. Oh, it is like being +pulled in two," cried Mrs. Bruce, in great distress. + +"Be patient, Helen, and hear. We have arranged it all, the boy and I. +Next week we are both bound for St. Andrew's." + +"You?" + +"You think I shall be useless? That it is a man, and not such a +creature as I, who ought to take charge of your boy?" + +The earl spoke with that deep bitterness which sometimes, though very, +very rarely, he betrayed, till he saw what exceeding pain he had given. + +"Forgive me, Helen; I know you did not mean that; but it was what I +myself often thought until this morning. Now I see that after all I-- +even I--may be the very best person to go with the boy, because, +while keeping a safe watch over him, and a cheerful house always open to +him, I shall also give him somebody to take care of. I shall be as much +charge to him almost as a woman, and it will be good for him. Do you +not perceive this?" + +Helen did, clearly enough. + +"Besides," continued the earl, "I might, perhaps, like to see the world +myself--just once again. At any rate, I shall like to see it through +this young man's eyes. He has not told you of our plan yet?" + +"Not a word." + +"That is well. I like to see he can keep faith. I made him promise +not, because I wanted to tell you myself, Helen--I wanted to see how +you would take the plan. Will you let us go? That is, the boy must go, +and--you will do without me for a year?" + +"A whole year! Can not Cardross come home once--just once?" + +"Yes, I will manage it so; he shall come, even if I can not," replied +the earl, and then was silent. + +"And you," said Mrs. Bruce, suddenly, after a long meditation upon her +son and his future, "you leave, for a year, your home, your pleasant +life here; you change all your pursuits and plans, and give yourself no +end of trouble, just to go and watch over my boy, and keep his mother's +heart from aching! How can I ever thank you--ever reward you?" + +No, she never could. + +"It is an ugly word, 'reward;' I don't like it. And, Helen, I thought +thanks were long since set aside as unnecessary between you and me." + +"And you will be absent a whole year?" + +"Probably, or a little more; for the boy ought to keep two sessions at +least; and locomotion is not so easy to me as it is to Cardross. Yes, +my dear, you will have to part with me--I mean I shall have to part +with you--for a year. It is a long time in our short lives. I would +not do it--give myself the pain of it--for any thing in this world +except to make Helen happy." + +"Thank you; I know that." + +But Helen, full of her son and his prospects--her youth renewed in +his youth, her life absorbed in his, seeming to stretch out to a future +where there was no ending, knew not half of what she thanked him for. + +She yielded to all the earl's plans; and after so many years of +resistance, bowed her independent spirit to accept his bounty with +humility of gratitude that was almost painful to both, until a few words +of his led her to, and left her in the belief that he was doing what was +agreeable to himself--that he really did enjoy the idea of a long +sojourn at St. Andrew's; and, mother-like, when she was satisfied on +this head, she began almost to envy him the blessing of her boy's +constant society. + +So she agreed to all his plans cheerfully, contentedly, as indeed she +had good reason to be contented; thankfully accepted every thing, and +never for a moment suspected that she was accepting a sacrifice. + + + + + +Chapter 17 + +During a whole year the Earl of Cairnforth and Mr. Bruce-Montgomery-- +for, as soon as possible, Cardross legally assumed the name--resided +at that fairest of ancient cities and pleasantest of Scotch +Universities, St. Andrew's. + +A few of the older inhabitants may still remember the house the earl +occupied there, the society with which he filled it, and the general +mode of life carried on by himself and his adopted son. Some may recall +--for indeed it was not easy to forget--the impression made in the +good old town by the two new-comers when they first appeared in the +quiet streets, along the Links and on the West Sands--every where +that the little carriage could be drawn. A strange contrast they were +--the small figure in the pony-chair, and the tall young man walking +beside it in all the vigor, grace, and activity of his blooming youth. +Two companions pathetically unlike, and yet always seen together, and +evidently associating with one another from pure love. + +They lived for some time in considerable seclusion, for the earl's rank +and wealth at first acted as a bar to much seeking of his acquaintance +among the proud and poor University professors and old-fashioned +inhabitants of the city; and Cardross, being the senior of most of the +college lads, did not cultivate them much. By degrees, however, he +became well known--not as a hard student--that was not his line +--he never took any high college honors; but he was the best golfer, +the most dashing rider, the boldest swimmer--he saved more than one +life on that dangerous shore; and, before the session was half over, he +was the most popular youth in the whole University. But he would leave +every thing, or give up every thing--both his studies and his +pleasures--to sit, patient as a girl, beside the earl's chair, or to +follow it--often guiding it himself--up and down St. Andrews' +streets; never heeding who looked at him, or what comments were made-- +as they were sure to be made--upon him, until what was at first so +strange and touching a sight grew at last familiar to the whole town. + +Of course, very soon all the circumstances of the case came out, +probably with many imaginary additions, though the latter never reached +the ears of the two concerned. Still, the tale was romantic and +pathetic enough to make the earl and his young heir objects of marked +interest, and welcome guests in the friendly hospitalities of the place, +which hospitalities were gladly requited, for Lord Cairnforth still +keenly enjoyed society, and Cardross was at an age when all pleasure is +attractive. + +People said sometimes, What a lucky fellow was Mr. Bruce-Montgomerie! +But they also said--as no one could help seeing and saying--that +very few fathers were blessed with a son half so attentive and devoted +as this young man was to the Earl of Cairnforth. + +And meantime Helen Bruce lived quietly at the Manse, devoting herself to +the care of her father, who still lingered on, feeble in body, though +retaining most of his faculties, as though death were unwilling to end a +life which had so much of peace and enjoyment of it to the very last. +When the session was over, Cardross went home to see his mother and +grandfather, and on his return Lord Cairnforth listened eagerly to all +the accounts of Cairnforth, and especially of all that Mrs. Bruce was +doing there; she, as the person most closely acquainted with the earl's +affairs, having been constituted regent in his absence. + +"She's a wonderful woman--my mother," said Cardross, with great +admiration. "She has the sense of a man, and the tact of a woman. She +is doing every thing about the estate almost as cleverly as you would do +it yourself." + +"Is she? It is good practice for her," said the earl. "She will need +it soon." + +Cardross looked at him. He had never till then noticed, what other +people began to notice, how exceedingly old the earl now looked, his +small, delicate features withering up almost like those of an elderly +man, though he was not much past forty. + +"You don't, mean--oh no, not that! You must not be thinking of that. +My mother's rule at Cairnforth is a long way off yet." And--big +fellow as he was--the lad's eyes filled with tears. + +After that day he refused all holiday excursions in which Lord +Cairnforth could not accompany him. It was only by great persuasion +that he agreed to go for a week to Edinburg, to revisit his old haunts +there, to look on the ugly fields where he had sown his wild oats, and +prove to even respectable and incredulous Uncle Alick that there was no +fear of their ever sprouting up again. Also, Lord Cairnforth took the +opportunity to introduce his cousin into his own set of Edinburg +friends, to familiarize the young man with the society in which he must +shortly take his place, and to hear from them, what he so warmly +believed himself, that Cardross was fitted to be heir to any property in +all Scotland. + +"What a pity," some added, "that he could not be heir to the earldom +also!" "No," said others, "better that 'the wee earl' (as old-fashioned +folk still sometimes called him) should be the last Earl of Cairnforth." + +With the exception of those two visits, during a whole twelvemonth the +earl and his adopted son were scarcely parted for a single day. Years +afterward, Cardross loved to relate, first to his mother, and then to +his children, sometimes with laughter, and again with scarcely repressed +tears, may an anecdote of the life they two led together at St. Andrew's +--a real student life, yet filled at times with the gayest amusements. +For the earl loved gayety--actual mirth; sometimes he and Cardross +were as full of jests and pranks as two children, and at other times +they held long conversations upon all manner of grave and earnest +topics, like equal friends. It was the sort of companionship, free and +tender, cheerful and bright, yet with all the influence of the elder +over the younger, which, occurring to a young man of Cardross's age and +temperament, usually determines his character for life. + +Thus, day by day, Helen's son developed and matured, becoming more and +more a thorough Cardross, sound to the core, and yet polished outside in +a manner which had not been the lot of any of the earlier generation, +save the minister. Also, he had a certain winning way with him--a +power of suiting himself to every body, and pleasing every body-- +which even his mother, who only pleased those she loved or those that +loved her, had never possessed. + +"It's his father's way he has, ye ken," Malcolm would say--Malcolm, +who, after a season of passing jealousy, had for years succumbed wholly +to his admiration of "Miss Helen's bairn." "But it's the only bit o' +the Bruces that the lad's gotten in him, thank the Lord!" + +Though the earl did not say openly "thank the Lord," still he, too, +recognized with a solemn joy that the qualities he and Helen dreaded had +either not been inherited by Captain Bruce's son, or else timely care +had rooted them out. And as he gradually relaxed his watch over the +young man, and left him more and more to his own guidance, Lord +Cairnforth, sitting alone in his house at St. Andrew's--almost as +much alone as he used to sit in the Castle library--would think, with +a strange consolation, that this year's heavy sacrifice had not been in +vain. + +Once Cardross, coming in from a long golfing match, broke upon one of +these meditative fits, and was a little surprised to find that the earl +did not rouse himself out of it quite so readily as was his wont; also +that the endless college stories, which he always liked so much to +listen to, fell rather blank, and did not meet Lord Cairnforth's hearty +laugh, as gay as that of a young fellow could share and sympathize in +them all. + +"You are not well to-day," suddenly said the lad. "What have you been +doing?" + +"My usual work--nothing." + +"But you have been thinking. What about?" cried Cardross, with the +affectionate persistency of one who knew himself a favorite, and looking +up in the earl's face with his bright, fond eyes--Helen's very eyes. + +"I was thinking of your mother, my boy. You know it is a whole year +since I have seen your mother." + +"So she said in her last letter, and wondered when you intended coming +home, because she misses you more and more every day." + +"You, she means, Carr." + +"No, yourself. I know my mother wishes you would come home." + +"Does she? And so do I. But I should have to leave you alone, my boy; +for if once I make the effort, and return to Cairnforth, I know I shall +never quit it more." + +He spoke earnestly--more so than the occasion seemed to need, and +there was a weary look in his eyes which struck his companion. + +"Are you afraid to leave me alone, Lord Cairnforth?" asked Cardross, +sadly. + +"No." And again, as if he had not answered strongly enough, he +repeated, "My dear boy, no!" + +"Thank you. You never said it, but I knew. You came here for my sake, +to take charge of me. You made me happy--you never blamed me--you +neither watched me or domineered over me--still, I knew. Oh, how +good you have been!" + +Lord Cairnforth did not speak for some time, and then he said, gravely, + +"However things were at first, you must feel, my boy, that I trust you +now entirely, and that you and I are thorough friends--equal +friends." + +"Not equal. On, never in my whole life shall I be half so good as you! +But I'll try hard to be as good as I can. And I shall be always beside +you. Remember your promise." + +This was, that after he came of age, and ended his university career, +instead of taking "the grand tour," like most young heirs of the period, +Cardross should settle down at home, in the character of of Lord +Cairnforth's private secretary--always at hand, and ready in every +possible way to lighten the burden of business which, even as a young +man, the earl had found heavy enough, and as an old man he would be +unable to bear. + +"I shall never be clever, I know that," pleaded the lad, who was +learning a touching humility, "but I may be useful; and oh! if you would +but use me, in any thing or every thing, I'd work day and night for you +--I would indeed!" + +"I know you would, my son" (earl sometimes called him "my son" when they +were by themselves), "and so you shall." + +That evening Lord Cairnforth dictated to Helen, by her boy's hand, one +of his rare letters, telling her that he and Cardross would return home +in time for the latter's birthday, which would be in a month from now, +and which he wished kept with all the honors customary to the coming of +age of an heir of Cairnforth. + +"Heir of Cairnforth!" The lad started, and stopped writing. + +"It must be so, my son; I wish it. After your mother, you are my heir, +and I shall honor you as such; afterward you will return here alone, and +stay till the session is over; then come back, and live with me at the +Castle, and fit yourself in every way to become--what I can now wholly +trust you to be--the future master of Cairnforth." + +And so, as soon as the earl's letter reached the peninsula, the +rejoicings began. The tenantry knew well enough who the earl had fixed +upon to come after him, but his was his first public acknowledgment of +the fact. Helen's position, as heiress presumptive, was regarded as +merely nominal; it was her son, the fine young fellow whom every body +knew from his babyhood, toward whom the loyalty of the little community +blazed up in a height of feudal devotion that was touching to see. The +warm Scotch heart--all the warmer, perhaps, for a certain narrowness +and clannishness, which in its pride would probably, nay, certainly, +have shut itself up against a stranger or an inferior--opened freely +to "Miss Helen's" son and the minister's grandson, a young man known to +all and approved of by all. + +So the festivity was planned to be just the earl's coming of age over +again, with the difference between June and December, which removed the +feasting-place from the lawn to the great kitchen of the Castle, and +caused bonfires on the hill-tops to be a very doubtful mode of +jubilation. The old folk--young then--who remembered the bright +summer festival of twenty-four years ago told many a tale of that day, +and how the "puir wee earl" came forward in his little chair and made +his brief speech, every word and every promise of which his after life +had so faithfully fulfilled. + +"The heir's a wise-like lad, and a braw lad," said the old folks of the +clachan, patronizingly. "He's no that ill the noo, and he'll aiblins +grow the better, ye ken; but naibody that comes after will be like him. +We'll ne'er see anither Earl o' Cairnforth." + +The same words which Mr. Menteith and the rest had said when the earl +was born, but with what a different meaning! + +Lord Cairnforth came back among his own people amid a transport of +welcome. Though he had been long away, Mrs. Bruce and other assistants +had carried out his plans and orders so successfully that the estate had +not suffered for his absence. In the whole extent of it was now little +or no poverty; none like that which, in his youth, had startled Lord +Cairnforth into activity upon hearing the story of the old shepherd of +Loch Mhor. There was plenty of work, and hands to do it, along the +shores of both lochs; new farms had sprung up, and new roads been made; +churches and schools were built as occasion required; and though the +sheep had been driven a little higher up the mountains, and the deer and +grouse fled farther back into the inland moors, still Cairnforth village +was a lovely spot, inhabited by a contented community. Civilization +could bring to it no evils that were not counteracted by two strong +influences--(stronger than any one can conceive who does not +understand the peculiarities almost feudal in their simplicity, of +country parish life in Scotland)--a minister like Mr. Cardross, and a +resident proprietor like the Earl of Cairnforth. + +The earl arrived a few days before the festival day, and spent the time +in going over his whole property from one end to the other. He took +Mrs. Bruce with him. "I can't want you for a day now, Helen," said he, +and made her sit beside him in his carriage, which, by dint of various +modern appliances, he could now travel in far easier than he used to do, +or else asked her to drive him in the old familiar pony-chaise along the +old familiar hill-side roads, whence you look down on ether loch-- +sometimes on both--lying like a sheet of silver below. + +Man a drive they took every day, the weather being still and clam, as it +often is at Cairnforth, by fits and snatches, all winter through. + +"I think there never was such a place as this place," the earl would +often say, when he stopped at particular points of view, and gazed his +fill on every well-known outline of the hills and curve of the lochs, +generally ending with a smiling look on the face beside him, equally +familiar, which had watched all these things with him for more than +thirty years. "Helen, I have had a happy life, or it seems so, looking +back upon it. Remember, I said this, and let no one ever say the +contrary." + +And in all the houses they visited--farm, cottage, or bothie-- +every body noticed how exceedingly happy the earl looked, how cheerfully +he spoke, and how full of interest he was in every thing around him. + +"His lordship may live to be an auld man yet," said some one to Malcolm, +and Malcolm indignantly repudiated the possibility of any thing else. + +The minister was left a little lonely during this week of Lord +Cairnforth's coming home, but he did not seem to feel it. He felt +nothing very much now except pleasure in the sunshine and the fire, in +looking at the outside of his books, now rarely opened, and in watching +the bright faces around him. He was made to understand what a grand +festival was to be held at Cairnforth, and the earl took especial pains +to arrange that the feeble octogenarian should be brought to the Castle +without fatigue, and enabled to appear both at the tenants' feast in the +kitchen, and the more formal banquet of friends and neighbors in the +hall--the grand old dining-room--which was arranged exactly as it +had been on the earl's coming of age. + +However, there was a difference. Then the board was almost empty, now +it was quite full. With a carefulness that at the time Helen almost +wondered at, the earl collected about him that day the most brilliant +gathering he could invite from all the country round--people of +family, rank, and wealth--above all, people of worth; who, either by +inherited position, or that high character which is the best possession +of all, could confer honor by their presence, and who, since "a man is +known by his friends," would be suitable and creditable friends to a +young man just entering the world. + +And before all these, with Helen sitting as mistress at the foot of the +table, and Helen's father at his right hand, the Earl of Cairnforth +introduced, in a few simple words, his chosen heir. + +"Deliberately chosen," he added; "not merely as being my cousin and my +nearest of kin, but because he is his mother's son, and Mr. Cardross's +grandson, and worthy of them both--also because, for his own sake, I +respect him, and I love him. I give you the health of Alexander +Cardross Bruce-Montgomerie." + +And then they all wished the young man joy, and the dining-hall of +Cairnforth Castle rang with hearty cheers for Mr. Bruce-Montgomerie. + +No more speeches were made, for it was noticed that Lord Cairnforth +looked excessively wearied; but he kept his place to the last. Of the +many brilliant circles that he had entertained at his hospitable board, +none were ever more brilliant than this; none gayer, with the genial, +wholesome gayety which the earl, of whom it might truly be said, + + "A merrier man, never spent an hour's talk withal," + +knew so well how to scatter around him. By what magic he did this, no +one ever quite found out; but it was done, and especially so on this +night of all nights, when, after his long absence, he came back to his +own ancestral home, and appeared again among his own neighbors and +friends. They long remembered it--and him. + +At length the last carriage rolled away, and shortly afterward the wind +began suddenly to rise and howl wildly round the Castle. There came on +one of those wild winter-storms, common enough in these regions-- +brief, but fierce while they last. + +"You can not go home," said the earl to Mrs. Bruce, who remained with +him, the minister having departed with his son Duncan early in the +evening. "Stay here till to-morrow. Cardross, persuade your mother. +You never yet spent a night under my roof. Helen, will you do it his +once? I shall never ask you again." + +There was an earnest entreaty in his manner which Helen could not +resist; and hardly knowing why she did it, she consented. Her son went +off to his bed, fairly worn out with pleasurable excitement, and she +staid with Lord Cairnforth, as he seemed to wish, for another half hour. +They sat by the library fire, listening to the rain beating and the wind +howling--not continuously, but coming and going in frantic blasts, +which seemed like the voices of living creatures borne on its wings. + +"Do you mind, Helen, it was just such a night as this when Mr. Menteith +died, before I went to Edinburg? The sort of wind that, they say, is +always sent to call away souls. I know not why it is, or why there +should be any connection between things material and immaterial, +comprehensible and wholly incomprehensible, but I often sit here and +fancy I should like my soul to be called away in just such a tempest as +this--to be set free, + + "'And on the wings of mighty winds + Go flying all abroad,' + +"As the psalm has it. It would be glorious--glorious! Suddenly to +find one's self strong, active--cumbered with no burden of a body-- +to be all spirit, and spirit only." + +As the earl spoke, his whole face, withered and worn as it was, lighted +up and glowed, Helen thought, almost like what one could imagine a +disembodied soul. + +She answered nothing, for she could find nothing to say. Her quiet, +simple faith was almost frightened at the passionate intensity of his, +and the nearness with which he seemed to realize the unseen world. + +"I wonder," he said again--"I sometimes sit for hours wondering-- +what the other life is like--the life of which we know nothing, yet +which may be so near to us all. I often find myself planning about it +in a wild, vague way, what I am to do in it--what God will permit me +to do--and to be. Surely something more than He ever permitted here." + +"I believe that," said Helen. And after her habit of bringing all +things to the one test and the one teaching, she reminded him of the +parable of the talents: "I think," she added, "that you will be one of +those whom, in requital for having made the most of all his gifts here, +He will make 'ruler over ten cities' at least, if he is a just God." + +"He is a just God. In my worst trials I have never doubted that," +replied Lord Cairnforth, solemnly. And then he repeated those words of +St. Paul, to which many an agonized doubter has clung, as being the last +refuge of sorrow--the only key to mysteries which sometime shake the +firmest faith--"'For now we see through a glass darkly, but then +face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I +am known.'" + +When Helen rose to retire, which was not till midnight--for the earl +seemed unwilling to let her go, saying it was so long since they had had +a quiet talk together--he asked her earnestly if she were content +about her son. + +"Perfectly content. Not merely content, but happy--happier than I +once thought it possible to be in this world. And it is you who have +done it all--you who have made my boy what he is. But he will reward +you--I know he will. Henceforward he will be as much your son as +mine." + +"I hope so. And now good-night, my dear." + +"Good-night--God bless you." + +Mrs. Bruce knelt down beside the chair, and touched with her lips the +poor, useless hands. + +"Helen," said the earl as she rose, "kiss me--just once--as I +remember your doing when I was a boy--a poor, lonely, miserable boy." + +She kissed him very tenderly, then went away and left him sitting there +in his little chair, opposite the fire, alone in the large, splendid, +empty room. + + + * * * * * + + +Helen Bruce could not sleep that night. Either the day's excitement had +been too much for her, or she was disturbed by the wild winds that went +shrieking round the Castle, reminding her over and over again of what +the earl had just said concerning them. There came into her mind an +uneasy feeling about her father, whom for so many years she had never +left a night alone; but it was useless regretting this now. At last, +toward morning, the storm gradually lulled. She rose, and looked out of +her window on the loch, which glittered in moonlight like a sea of +glass. It reminded her, with an involuntary fancy, of the sea "clear as +glass, like unto crystal," spoken of in the fourth chapter of the +Apocalypse as being "before the Throne." She stood looking at it for a +minute or so, then went back to her bed and slept peacefully till +daylight. + +She was dressing herself, full of quiet and happy thoughts, admiring the +rosy winter sunrise, and planning all she meant to do that day, when she +was startled by Mrs. Campbell, who came suddenly into the room with a +face as white and rigid as marble. + +"He's awa'," she said, or rather whispered. + +"Who's is away?" shrieked Helen, thinking at once of her father. + +"Whisht!" said the old nurse, catching hold of Mrs. Bruce as she was +rushing from the room, and speaking beneath her breath; "wisht! My +lord's deid; but we'll no greet; I canna greet. He's gane awa' hame." + +No, it was not the old man who was called. Mr. Cardross lived several +years after then--lived to be nearly ninety. It was the far younger +life--young, and yet how old in suffering!--which had thus +suddenly and unexpectedly come to an end. + +The earl was found dead in his bed, in his customary attitude of repose, +just as Malcolm always placed him, and left him till the morning. His +eyes were wide open, so that he could not have died in his sleep. But +how, at what hour, or in what manner he had died--whether the summons +had been slow or sudden, whether he had tried to call assistance and +failed, or whether, calling no one and troubling no one, his fearless +soul had passed, and chosen to pass thus solitary unto its God, none +ever knew or ever could know, and it was all the same now. + +He died as he had lived, quite alone. But it did not seem to have been +a painful death, for the expression of his features was peaceful, and +they had already settled down into that mysteriously beautiful +death-smile which is never seen on any human face but once. + +Helen stood and looked down upon it--the dear familiar face, now, in +the grandeur of death, suddenly grown strange. She thought of what hey +had been talking about last night concerning the world to come. Now he +knew it all. She did not "greet;" she could not. In spite of its +outward incompleteness, it had been a noble life--an almost perfect +life; and now it was ended. He had had his desire; his poor helpless +body cumbered him no more--he was "away." + + + * * * * * + + +It was a bright winter morning the day the Earl of Cairnforth was buried +--clear hard frost, and a little snow--not much--snow never lies +long on the shores of Loch Beg. There was no stately funeral, for it +was found that he had left express orders to the contrary; but four of +his own people, Malcolm Campbell and three more, took on their shoulders +the small coffin, scarcely heavier than a child's, and bore it tenderly +from Cairnforth Castle to Cainforth kirk-yard. After it came a long, +long train of silent mourners, as is customary in Scotch funerals. Such +a procession had not been witnessed for centuries in all this +country-side. Ere they left the Castle the funeral prayer was offered +up by Mr. Cardross, the last time the good old minister's voice was ever +heard publicly in his own parish, and at the head of the coffin walked, +as chief mourner, Cardross Bruce-Montgomerie, the earl's adopted son. + +And so, laid beside his father and mother, they left him to his rest. + +According to his own wish, his grave bears this inscription, carved upon +a plain upright stone, which--also by his particular request-- +stands facing the Manse windows: + + +Charles Edward Stuart Montgomerie, + +THE LAST EARL OF CAIRNFORTH, + +Died---- + +Aged 43 Years. + + +"Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NOBLE LIFE*** + + +******* This file should be named 14373.txt or 14373.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/3/7/14373 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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