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diff --git a/380-h/380-h.htm b/380-h/380-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bdb0d7f --- /dev/null +++ b/380-h/380-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5597 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Weir of Hermiston, by Robert Louis Stevenson</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 30%; } + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Weir of Hermiston, by Robert Louis Stevenson, +Edited by Sidney Colvin + + +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: Weir of Hermiston + an unfinished romance + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + +Editor: Sidney Colvin + +Release Date: November 7, 2010 [eBook #380] +[First posted: December 2, 1995] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEIR OF HERMISTON*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1913 Chatto and Windus edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>WEIR OF HERMISTON</h1> +<p style="text-align: center">AN UNFINISHED ROMANCE</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative image" +title= +"Decorative image" +src="images/p0s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">fine-paper +edition</span></p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="smcap">london</span><br /> +CHATTO & WINDUS<br /> +1913</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Printed by <span +class="smcap">Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.</span><br /> +at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh</p> +<h2>TO MY WIFE</h2> +<p class="poetry"><i>I saw rain falling and the rainbow +drawn</i><br /> +<i>On Lammermuir</i>. <i>Hearkening I heard again</i><br /> +<i>In my precipitous city beaten bells</i><br /> +<i>Winnow the keen sea wind</i>. <i>And here afar</i>,<br +/> +<i>Intent on my own race and place</i>, <i>I wrote</i>.<br /> + <i>Take thou the writing</i>: <i>thine it +is</i>. <i>For who</i><br /> +<i>Burnished the sword</i>, <i>blew on the drowsy coal</i>,<br /> +<i>Held still the target higher</i>, <i>chary of praise</i><br /> +<i>And prodigal of counsel—who but thou</i>?<br /> +<i>So now</i>, <i>in the end</i>, <i>if this the least be +good</i>,<br /> +<i>If any deed be done</i>, <i>if any fire</i><br /> +<i>Burn in the imperfect page</i>, <i>the praise be +thine</i>.</p> +<h2>INTRODUCTORY</h2> +<p>In the wild end of a moorland parish, far out of the sight of +any house, there stands a cairn among the heather, and a little +by east of it, in the going down of the brae-side, a monument +with some verses half defaced. It was here that Claverhouse +shot with his own hand the Praying Weaver of Balweary, and the +chisel of Old Mortality has clinked on that lonely +gravestone. Public and domestic history have thus marked +with a bloody finger this hollow among the hills; and since the +Cameronian gave his life there, two hundred years ago, in a +glorious folly, and without comprehension or regret, the silence +of the moss has been broken once again by the report of firearms +and the cry of the dying.</p> +<p>The Deil’s Hags was the old name. But the place is +now called Francie’s Cairn. For a while it was told +that Francie walked. Aggic Hogg met him in the gloaming by +the cairnside, and he spoke to her, with chattering teeth, so +that his words were lost. He pursued Rob Todd (if any one +could have believed Robbie) for the space of half a mile with +pitiful entreaties. But the age is one of incredulity; +these superstitious decorations speedily fell off; and the facts +of the story itself, like the bones of a giant buried there and +half dug up, survived, naked and imperfect, in the memory of the +scattered neighbours. To this day, of winter nights, when +the sleet is on the window and the cattle are quiet in the byre, +there will be told again, amid the silence of the young and the +additions and corrections of the old, the tale of the +Justice-Clerk and of his son, young Hermiston, that vanished from +men’s knowledge; of the two Kirsties and the Four Black +Brothers of the Cauldstaneslap; and of Frank Innes, “the +young fool advocate,” that came into these moorland parts +to find his destiny.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER I—LIFE AND DEATH OF MRS. WEIR</h2> +<p>The Lord Justice-Clerk was a stranger in that part of the +country; but his lady wife was known there from a child, as her +race had been before her. The old “riding Rutherfords +of Hermiston,” of whom she was the last descendant, had +been famous men of yore, ill neighbours, ill subjects, and ill +husbands to their wives though not their properties. Tales +of them were rife for twenty miles about; and their name was even +printed in the page of our Scots histories, not always to their +credit. One bit the dust at Flodden; one was hanged at his +peel door by James the Fifth; another fell dead in a carouse with +Tom Dalyell; while a fourth (and that was Jean’s own +father) died presiding at a Hell-Fire Club, of which he was the +founder. There were many heads shaken in Crossmichael at +that judgment; the more so as the man had a villainous reputation +among high and low, and both with the godly and the +worldly. At that very hour of his demise, he had ten going +pleas before the Session, eight of them oppressive. And the +same doom extended even to his agents; his grieve, that had been +his right hand in many a left-hand business, being cast from his +horse one night and drowned in a peat-hag on the Kye-skairs; and +his very doer (although lawyers have long spoons) surviving him +not long, and dying on a sudden in a bloody flux.</p> +<p>In all these generations, while a male Rutherford was in the +saddle with his lads, or brawling in a change-house, there would +be always a white-faced wife immured at home in the old peel or +the later mansion-house. It seemed this succession of +martyrs bided long, but took their vengeance in the end, and that +was in the person of the last descendant, Jean. She bore +the name of the Rutherfords, but she was the daughter of their +trembling wives. At the first she was not wholly without +charm. Neighbours recalled in her, as a child, a strain of +elfin wilfulness, gentle little mutinies, sad little gaieties, +even a morning gleam of beauty that was not to be +fulfilled. She withered in the growing, and (whether it was +the sins of her sires or the sorrows of her mothers) came to her +maturity depressed, and, as it were, defaced; no blood of life in +her, no grasp or gaiety; pious, anxious, tender, tearful, and +incompetent.</p> +<p>It was a wonder to many that she had married—seeming so +wholly of the stuff that makes old maids. But chance cast +her in the path of Adam Weir, then the new Lord-Advocate, a +recognised, risen man, the conqueror of many obstacles, and thus +late in the day beginning to think upon a wife. He was one +who looked rather to obedience than beauty, yet it would seem he +was struck with her at the first look. “Wha’s +she?” he said, turning to his host; and, when he had been +told, “Ay,” says he, “she looks menseful. +She minds me—”; and then, after a pause (which some +have been daring enough to set down to sentimental +recollections), “Is she releegious?” he asked, and +was shortly after, at his own request, presented. The +acquaintance, which it seems profane to call a courtship, was +pursued with Mr. Weir’s accustomed industry, and was long a +legend, or rather a source of legends, in the Parliament +House. He was described coming, rosy with much port, into +the drawing-room, walking direct up to the lady, and assailing +her with pleasantries, to which the embarrassed fair one +responded, in what seemed a kind of agony, “Eh, Mr. +Weir!” or “O, Mr. Weir!” or “Keep me, Mr. +Weir!” On the very eve of their engagement, it was +related that one had drawn near to the tender couple, and had +overheard the lady cry out, with the tones of one who talked for +the sake of talking, “Keep me, Mr. Weir, and what became of +him?” and the profound accents of the suitor reply, +“Haangit, mem, haangit.” The motives upon +either side were much debated. Mr. Weir must have supposed +his bride to be somehow suitable; perhaps he belonged to that +class of men who think a weak head the ornament of women—an +opinion invariably punished in this life. Her descent and +her estate were beyond question. Her wayfaring ancestors +and her litigious father had done well by Jean. There was +ready money and there were broad acres, ready to fall wholly to +the husband, to lend dignity to his descendants, and to himself a +title, when he should be called upon the Bench. On the side +of Jean, there was perhaps some fascination of curiosity as to +this unknown male animal that approached her with the roughness +of a ploughman and the <i>aplomb</i> of an advocate. Being +so trenchantly opposed to all she knew, loved, or understood, he +may well have seemed to her the extreme, if scarcely the ideal, +of his sex. And besides, he was an ill man to refuse. +A little over forty at the period of his marriage, he looked +already older, and to the force of manhood added the senatorial +dignity of years; it was, perhaps, with an unreverend awe, but he +was awful. The Bench, the Bar, and the most experienced and +reluctant witness, bowed to his authority—and why not +Jeannie Rutherford?</p> +<p>The heresy about foolish women is always punished, I have +said, and Lord Hermiston began to pay the penalty at once. +His house in George Square was wretchedly ill-guided; nothing +answerable to the expense of maintenance but the cellar, which +was his own private care. When things went wrong at dinner, +as they continually did, my lord would look up the table at his +wife: “I think these broth would be better to sweem in than +to sup.” Or else to the butler: “Here, +M‘Killop, awa’ wi’ this Raadical +gigot—tak’ it to the French, man, and bring me some +puddocks! It seems rather a sore kind of a business that I +should be all day in Court haanging Raadicals, and get nawthing +to my denner.” Of course this was but a manner of +speaking, and he had never hanged a man for being a Radical in +his life; the law, of which he was the faithful minister, +directing otherwise. And of course these growls were in the +nature of pleasantry, but it was of a recondite sort; and uttered +as they were in his resounding voice, and commented on by that +expression which they called in the Parliament House +“Hermiston’s hanging face”—they struck +mere dismay into the wife. She sat before him speechless +and fluttering; at each dish, as at a fresh ordeal, her eye +hovered toward my lord’s countenance and fell again; if he +but ate in silence, unspeakable relief was her portion; if there +were complaint, the world was darkened. She would seek out +the cook, who was always her <i>sister in the Lord</i>. +“O, my dear, this is the most dreidful thing that my lord +can never be contented in his own house!” she would begin; +and weep and pray with the cook; and then the cook would pray +with Mrs. Weir; and the next day’s meal would never be a +penny the better—and the next cook (when she came) would be +worse, if anything, but just as pious. It was often +wondered that Lord Hermiston bore it as he did; indeed, he was a +stoical old voluptuary, contented with sound wine and plenty of +it. But there were moments when he overflowed. +Perhaps half a dozen times in the history of his married +life—“Here! tak’ it awa’, and bring me a +piece bread and kebbuck!” he had exclaimed, with an +appalling explosion of his voice and rare gestures. None +thought to dispute or to make excuses; the service was arrested; +Mrs. Weir sat at the head of the table whimpering without +disguise; and his lordship opposite munched his bread and cheese +in ostentatious disregard. Once only, Mrs. Weir had +ventured to appeal. He was passing her chair on his way +into the study.</p> +<p>“O, Edom!” she wailed, in a voice tragic with +tears, and reaching out to him both hands, in one of which she +held a sopping pocket-handkerchief.</p> +<p>He paused and looked upon her with a face of wrath, into which +there stole, as he looked, a twinkle of humour.</p> +<p>“Noansense!” he said. “You and your +noansense! What do I want with a Christian +faim’ly? I want Christian broth! Get me a lass +that can plain-boil a potato, if she was a whüre off the +streets.” And with these words, which echoed in her +tender ears like blasphemy, he had passed on to his study and +shut the door behind him.</p> +<p>Such was the housewifery in George Square. It was better +at Hermiston, where Kirstie Elliott, the sister of a neighbouring +bonnet-laird, and an eighteenth cousin of the lady’s, bore +the charge of all, and kept a trim house and a good country +table. Kirstie was a woman in a thousand, clean, capable, +notable; once a moorland Helen, and still comely as a blood horse +and healthy as the hill wind. High in flesh and voice and +colour, she ran the house with her whole intemperate soul, in a +bustle, not without buffets. Scarce more pious than decency +in those days required, she was the cause of many an anxious +thought and many a tearful prayer to Mrs. Weir. Housekeeper +and mistress renewed the parts of Martha and Mary; and though +with a pricking conscience, Mary reposed on Martha’s +strength as on a rock. Even Lord Hermiston held Kirstie in +a particular regard. There were few with whom he unbent so +gladly, few whom he favoured with so many pleasantries. +“Kirstie and me maun have our joke,” he would declare +in high good-humour, as he buttered Kirstie’s scones, and +she waited at table. A man who had no need either of love +or of popularity, a keen reader of men and of events, there was +perhaps only one truth for which he was quite unprepared: he +would have been quite unprepared to learn that Kirstie hated +him. He thought maid and master were well matched; hard, +bandy, healthy, broad Scots folk, without a hair of nonsense to +the pair of them. And the fact was that she made a goddess +and an only child of the effete and tearful lady; and even as she +waited at table her hands would sometimes itch for my +lord’s ears.</p> +<p>Thus, at least, when the family were at Hermiston, not only my +lord, but Mrs. Weir too, enjoyed a holiday. Free from the +dreadful looking-for of the miscarried dinner, she would mind her +seam, read her piety books, and take her walk (which was my +lord’s orders), sometimes by herself, sometimes with +Archie, the only child of that scarce natural union. The +child was her next bond to life. Her frosted sentiment +bloomed again, she breathed deep of life, she let loose her +heart, in that society. The miracle of her motherhood was +ever new to her. The sight of the little man at her skirt +intoxicated her with the sense of power, and froze her with the +consciousness of her responsibility. She looked forward, +and, seeing him in fancy grow up and play his diverse part on the +world’s theatre, caught in her breath and lifted up her +courage with a lively effort. It was only with the child +that she forgot herself and was at moments natural; yet it was +only with the child that she had conceived and managed to pursue +a scheme of conduct. Archie was to be a great man and a +good; a minister if possible, a saint for certain. She +tried to engage his mind upon her favourite books, +Rutherford’s <i>Letters</i>, Scougalls <i>Grace +Abounding</i>, and the like. It was a common practice of +hers (and strange to remember now) that she would carry the child +to the Deil’s Hags, sit with him on the Praying +Weaver’s stone, and talk of the Covenanters till their +tears ran down. Her view of history was wholly artless, a +design in snow and ink; upon the one side, tender innocents with +psalms upon their lips; upon the other, the persecutors, booted, +bloody-minded, flushed with wine: a suffering Christ, a raging +Beelzebub. <i>Persecutor</i> was a word that knocked upon +the woman’s heart; it was her highest thought of +wickedness, and the mark of it was on her house. Her +great-great-grandfather had drawn the sword against the +Lord’s anointed on the field of Rullion Green, and breathed +his last (tradition said) in the arms of the detestable +Dalyell. Nor could she blind herself to this, that had they +lived in those old days, Hermiston himself would have been +numbered alongside of Bloody MacKenzie and the politic Lauderdale +and Rothes, in the band of God’s immediate enemies. +The sense of this moved her to the more fervour; she had a voice +for that name of <i>persecutor</i> that thrilled in the +child’s marrow; and when one day the mob hooted and hissed +them all in my lord’s travelling carriage, and cried, +“Down with the persecutor! down with Hanging +Hermiston!” and mamma covered her eyes and wept, and papa +let down the glass and looked out upon the rabble with his droll +formidable face, bitter and smiling, as they said he sometimes +looked when he gave sentence, Archie was for the moment too much +amazed to be alarmed, but he had scarce got his mother by herself +before his shrill voice was raised demanding an explanation: why +had they called papa a persecutor?</p> +<p>“Keep me, my precious!” she exclaimed. +“Keep me, my dear! this is poleetical. Ye must never +ask me anything poleetical, Erchie. Your faither is a great +man, my dear, and it’s no for me or you to be judging +him. It would be telling us all, if we behaved ourselves in +our several stations the way your faither does in his high +office; and let me hear no more of any such disrespectful and +undutiful questions! No that you meant to be undutiful, my +lamb; your mother kens that—she kens it well, +dearie!” And so slid off to safer topics, and left on +the mind of the child an obscure but ineradicable sense of +something wrong.</p> +<p>Mrs. Weir’s philosophy of life was summed in one +expression—tenderness. In her view of the universe, +which was all lighted up with a glow out of the doors of hell, +good people must walk there in a kind of ecstasy of +tenderness. The beasts and plants had no souls; they were +here but for a day, and let their day pass gently! And as +for the immortal men, on what black, downward path were many of +them wending, and to what a horror of an immortality! +“Are not two sparrows,” “Whosoever shall smite +thee,” “God sendeth His rain,” “Judge +not, that ye be not judged”—these texts made her body +of divinity; she put them on in the morning with her clothes and +lay down to sleep with them at night; they haunted her like a +favourite air, they clung about her like a favourite +perfume. Their minister was a marrowy expounder of the law, +and my lord sat under him with relish; but Mrs. Weir respected +him from far off; heard him (like the cannon of a beleaguered +city) usefully booming outside on the dogmatic ramparts; and +meanwhile, within and out of shot, dwelt in her private garden +which she watered with grateful tears. It seems strange to +say of this colourless and ineffectual woman, but she was a true +enthusiast, and might have made the sunshine and the glory of a +cloister. Perhaps none but Archie knew she could be +eloquent; perhaps none but he had seen her—her colour +raised, her hands clasped or quivering—glow with gentle +ardour. There is a corner of the policy of Hermiston, where +you come suddenly in view of the summit of Black Fell, sometimes +like the mere grass top of a hill, sometimes (and this is her own +expression) like a precious jewel in the heavens. On such +days, upon the sudden view of it, her hand would tighten on the +child’s fingers, her voice rise like a song. +“<i>I to the hills</i>!” she would repeat. +“And O, Erchie, are nae these like the hills of +Naphtali?” and her tears would flow.</p> +<p>Upon an impressionable child the effect of this continual and +pretty accompaniment to life was deep. The woman’s +quietism and piety passed on to his different nature +undiminished; but whereas in her it was a native sentiment, in +him it was only an implanted dogma. Nature and the +child’s pugnacity at times revolted. A cad from the +Potterrow once struck him in the mouth; he struck back, the pair +fought it out in the back stable lane towards the Meadows, and +Archie returned with a considerable decline in the number of his +front teeth, and unregenerately boasting of the losses of the +foe. It was a sore day for Mrs. Weir; she wept and prayed +over the infant backslider until my lord was due from Court, and +she must resume that air of tremulous composure with which she +always greeted him. The judge was that day in an observant +mood, and remarked upon the absent teeth.</p> +<p>“I am afraid Erchie will have been fechting with some of +they blagyard lads,” said Mrs. Weir.</p> +<p>My lord’s voice rang out as it did seldom in the privacy +of his own house. “I’ll have norm of that, +sir!” he cried. “Do you hear me?—nonn of +that! No son of mine shall be speldering in the glaur with +any dirty raibble.”</p> +<p>The anxious mother was grateful for so much support; she had +even feared the contrary. And that night when she put the +child to bed—“Now, my dear, ye see!” she said, +“I told you what your faither would think of it, if he +heard ye had fallen into this dreidful sin; and let you and me +pray to God that ye may be keepit from the like temptation or +strengthened to resist it!”</p> +<p>The womanly falsity of this was thrown away. Ice and +iron cannot be welded; and the points of view of the +Justice-Clerk and Mrs. Weir were not less unassimilable. +The character and position of his father had long been a +stumbling-block to Archie, and with every year of his age the +difficulty grew more instant. The man was mostly silent; +when he spoke at all, it was to speak of the things of the world, +always in a worldly spirit, often in language that the child had +been schooled to think coarse, and sometimes with words that he +knew to be sins in themselves. Tenderness was the first +duty, and my lord was invariably harsh. God was love; the +name of my lord (to all who knew him) was fear. In the +world, as schematised for Archie by his mother, the place was +marked for such a creature. There were some whom it was +good to pity and well (though very likely useless) to pray for; +they were named reprobates, goats, God’s enemies, brands +for the burning; and Archie tallied every mark of identification, +and drew the inevitable private inference that the Lord +Justice-Clerk was the chief of sinners.</p> +<p>The mother’s honesty was scarce complete. There +was one influence she feared for the child and still secretly +combated; that was my lord’s; and half unconsciously, half +in a wilful blindness, she continued to undermine her husband +with his son. As long as Archie remained silent, she did so +ruthlessly, with a single eye to heaven and the child’s +salvation; but the day came when Archie spoke. It was 1801, +and Archie was seven, and beyond his years for curiosity and +logic, when he brought the case up openly. If judging were +sinful and forbidden, how came papa to be a judge? to have that +sin for a trade? to bear the name of it for a distinction?</p> +<p>“I can’t see it,” said the little Rabbi, and +wagged his head.</p> +<p>Mrs. Weir abounded in commonplace replies.</p> +<p>“No, I cannae see it,” reiterated Archie. +“And I’ll tell you what, mamma, I don’t think +you and me’s justifeed in staying with him.”</p> +<p>The woman awoke to remorse, she saw herself disloyal to her +man, her sovereign and bread-winner, in whom (with what she had +of worldliness) she took a certain subdued pride. She +expatiated in reply on my lord’s honour and greatness; his +useful services in this world of sorrow and wrong, and the place +in which he stood, far above where babes and innocents could hope +to see or criticise. But she had builded too +well—Archie had his answers pat: Were not babes and +innocents the type of the kingdom of heaven? Were not +honour and greatness the badges of the world? And at any +rate, how about the mob that had once seethed about the +carriage?</p> +<p>“It’s all very fine,” he concluded, +“but in my opinion papa has no right to be it. And it +seems that’s not the worst yet of it. It seems +he’s called “The Hanging judge”—it seems +he’s crooool. I’ll tell you what it is, mamma, +there’s a tex’ borne in upon me: It were better for +that man if a milestone were bound upon his back and him flung +into the deepestmost pairts of the sea.”</p> +<p>“O, my lamb, ye must never say the like of that!” +she cried. “Ye’re to honour faither and mother, +dear, that your days may be long in the land. It’s +Atheists that cry out against him—French Atheists, +Erchie! Ye would never surely even yourself down to be +saying the same thing as French Atheists? It would break my +heart to think that of you. And O, Erchie, here +are’na <i>you</i> setting up to <i>judge</i>? And +have ye no forgot God’s plain command—the First with +Promise, dear? Mind you upon the beam and the +mote!”</p> +<p>Having thus carried the war into the enemy’s camp, the +terrified lady breathed again. And no doubt it is easy thus +to circumvent a child with catchwords, but it may be questioned +how far it is effectual. An instinct in his breast detects +the quibble, and a voice condemns it. He will instantly +submit, privately hold the same opinion. For even in this +simple and antique relation of the mother and the child, +hypocrisies are multiplied.</p> +<p>When the Court rose that year and the family returned to +Hermiston, it was a common remark in all the country that the +lady was sore failed. She seemed to loose and seize again +her touch with life, now sitting inert in a sort of durable +bewilderment, anon waking to feverish and weak activity. +She dawdled about the lasses at their work, looking stupidly on; +she fell to rummaging in old cabinets and presses, and desisted +when half through; she would begin remarks with an air of +animation and drop them without a struggle. Her common +appearance was of one who has forgotten something and is trying +to remember; and when she overhauled, one after another, the +worthless and touching mementoes of her youth, she might have +been seeking the clue to that lost thought. During this +period, she gave many gifts to the neighbours and house lasses, +giving them with a manner of regret that embarrassed the +recipients.</p> +<p>The last night of all she was busy on some female work, and +toiled upon it with so manifest and painful a devotion that my +lord (who was not often curious) inquired as to its nature.</p> +<p>She blushed to the eyes. “O, Edom, it’s for +you!” she said. “It’s slippers. I—I +hae never made ye any.”</p> +<p>“Ye daft auld wife!” returned his lordship. +“A bonny figure I would be, palmering about in +bauchles!”</p> +<p>The next day, at the hour of her walk, Kirstie +interfered. Kirstie took this decay of her mistress very +hard; bore her a grudge, quarrelled with and railed upon her, the +anxiety of a genuine love wearing the disguise of temper. +This day of all days she insisted disrespectfully, with rustic +fury, that Mrs. Weir should stay at home. But, “No, +no,” she said, “it’s my lord’s +orders,” and set forth as usual. Archie was visible +in the acre bog, engaged upon some childish enterprise, the +instrument of which was mire; and she stood and looked at him a +while like one about to call; then thought otherwise, sighed, and +shook her head, and proceeded on her rounds alone. The +house lasses were at the burnside washing, and saw her pass with +her loose, weary, dowdy gait.</p> +<p>“She’s a terrible feckless wife, the +mistress!” said the one.</p> +<p>“Tut,” said the other, “the wumman’s +seeck.”</p> +<p>“Weel, I canna see nae differ in her,” returned +the first. “A fushionless quean, a feckless +carline.”</p> +<p>The poor creature thus discussed rambled a while in the +grounds without a purpose. Tides in her mind ebbed and +flowed, and carried her to and fro like seaweed. She tried +a path, paused, returned, and tried another; questing, forgetting +her quest; the spirit of choice extinct in her bosom, or devoid +of sequency. On a sudden, it appeared as though she had +remembered, or had formed a resolution, wheeled about, returned +with hurried steps, and appeared in the dining-room, where +Kirstie was at the cleaning, like one charged with an important +errand.</p> +<p>“Kirstie!” she began, and paused; and then with +conviction, “Mr. Weir isna speeritually minded, but he has +been a good man to me.”</p> +<p>It was perhaps the first time since her husband’s +elevation that she had forgotten the handle to his name, of which +the tender, inconsistent woman was not a little proud. And +when Kirstie looked up at the speaker’s face, she was aware +of a change.</p> +<p>“Godsake, what’s the maitter wi’ ye, +mem?” cried the housekeeper, starting from the rug.</p> +<p>“I do not ken,” answered her mistress, shaking her +head. “But he is not speeritually minded, my +dear.”</p> +<p>“Here, sit down with ye! Godsake, what ails the +wife?” cried Kirstie, and helped and forced her into my +lord’s own chair by the cheek of the hearth.</p> +<p>“Keep me, what’s this?” she gasped. +“Kirstie, what’s this? I’m +frich’ened.”</p> +<p>They were her last words.</p> +<p>It was the lowering nightfall when my lord returned. He +had the sunset in his back, all clouds and glory; and before him, +by the wayside, spied Kirstie Elliott waiting. She was +dissolved in tears, and addressed him in the high, false note of +barbarous mourning, such as still lingers modified among Scots +heather.</p> +<p>“The Lord peety ye, Hermiston! the Lord prepare +ye!” she keened out. “Weary upon me, that I +should have to tell it!”</p> +<p>He reined in his horse and looked upon her with the hanging +face.</p> +<p>“Has the French landit?” cried he.</p> +<p>“Man, man,” she said, “is that a’ ye +can think of? The Lord prepare ye: the Lord comfort and +support ye!”</p> +<p>“Is onybody deid?” said his lordship. +“It’s no Erchie?”</p> +<p>“Bethankit, no!” exclaimed the woman, startled +into a more natural tone. “Na, na, it’s no sae +bad as that. It’s the mistress, my lord; she just +fair flittit before my e’en. She just gi’ed a +sab and was by wi’ it. Eh, my bonny Miss Jeannie, +that I mind sae weel!” And forth again upon that +pouring tide of lamentation in which women of her class excel and +over-abound.</p> +<p>Lord Hermiston sat in the saddle beholding her. Then he +seemed to recover command upon himself.</p> +<p>“Well, it’s something of the suddenest,” +said he. “But she was a dwaibly body from the +first.”</p> +<p>And he rode home at a precipitate amble with Kirstie at his +horse’s heels.</p> +<p>Dressed as she was for her last walk, they had laid the dead +lady on her bed. She was never interesting in life; in +death she was not impressive; and as her husband stood before +her, with his hands crossed behind his powerful back, that which +he looked upon was the very image of the insignificant.</p> +<p>“Her and me were never cut out for one another,” +he remarked at last. “It was a daft-like +marriage.” And then, with a most unusual gentleness +of tone, “Puir bitch,” said he, “puir +bitch!” Then suddenly: “Where’s +Erchie?”</p> +<p>Kirstie had decoyed him to her room and given him “a +jeely-piece.”</p> +<p>“Ye have some kind of gumption, too,” observed the +judge, and considered his housekeeper grimly. “When +all’s said,” he added, “I micht have done +waur—I micht have been marriet upon a skirting Jezebel like +you!”</p> +<p>“There’s naebody thinking of you, +Hermiston!” cried the offended woman. “We think +of her that’s out of her sorrows. And could +<i>she</i> have done waur? Tell me that, +Hermiston—tell me that before her clay-cauld +corp!”</p> +<p>“Weel, there’s some of them gey an’ ill to +please,” observed his lordship.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II—FATHER AND SON</h2> +<p>My Lord Justice-Clerk was known to many; the man Adam Weir +perhaps to none. He had nothing to explain or to conceal; +he sufficed wholly and silently to himself; and that part of our +nature which goes out (too often with false coin) to acquire +glory or love, seemed in him to be omitted. He did not try +to be loved, he did not care to be; it is probable the very +thought of it was a stranger to his mind. He was an admired +lawyer, a highly unpopular judge; and he looked down upon those +who were his inferiors in either distinction, who were lawyers of +less grasp or judges not so much detested. In all the rest +of his days and doings, not one trace of vanity appeared; and he +went on through life with a mechanical movement, as of the +unconscious; that was almost august.</p> +<p>He saw little of his son. In the childish maladies with +which the boy was troubled, he would make daily inquiries and +daily pay him a visit, entering the sick-room with a facetious +and appalling countenance, letting off a few perfunctory jests, +and going again swiftly, to the patient’s relief. +Once, a court holiday falling opportunely, my lord had his +carriage, and drove the child himself to Hermiston, the customary +place of convalescence. It is conceivable he had been more +than usually anxious, for that journey always remained in +Archie’s memory as a thing apart, his father having related +to him from beginning to end, and with much detail, three +authentic murder cases. Archie went the usual round of +other Edinburgh boys, the high school and the college; and +Hermiston looked on, or rather looked away, with scarce an +affectation of interest in his progress. Daily, indeed, +upon a signal after dinner, he was brought in, given nuts and a +glass of port, regarded sardonically, sarcastically +questioned. “Well, sir, and what have you donn with +your book to-day?” my lord might begin, and set him posers +in law Latin. To a child just stumbling into Corderius, +Papinian and Paul proved quite invincible. But papa had +memory of no other. He was not harsh to the little scholar, +having a vast fund of patience learned upon the bench, and was at +no pains whether to conceal or to express his +disappointment. “Well, ye have a long jaunt before ye +yet!” he might observe, yawning, and fall back on his own +thoughts (as like as not) until the time came for separation, and +my lord would take the decanter and the glass, and be off to the +back chamber looking on the Meadows, where he toiled on his cases +till the hours were small. There was no “fuller +man” on the bench; his memory was marvellous, though wholly +legal; if he had to “advise” extempore, none did it +better; yet there was none who more earnestly prepared. As +he thus watched in the night, or sat at table and forgot the +presence of his son, no doubt but he tasted deeply of recondite +pleasures. To be wholly devoted to some intellectual +exercise is to have succeeded in life; and perhaps only in law +and the higher mathematics may this devotion be maintained, +suffice to itself without reaction, and find continual rewards +without excitement. This atmosphere of his father’s +sterling industry was the best of Archie’s education. +Assuredly it did not attract him; assuredly it rather rebutted +and depressed. Yet it was still present, unobserved like +the ticking of a clock, an arid ideal, a tasteless stimulant in +the boy’s life.</p> +<p>But Hermiston was not all of one piece. He was, besides, +a mighty toper; he could sit at wine until the day dawned, and +pass directly from the table to the bench with a steady hand and +a clear head. Beyond the third bottle, he showed the +plebeian in a larger print; the low, gross accent, the low, foul +mirth, grew broader and commoner; he became less formidable, and +infinitely more disgusting. Now, the boy had inherited from +Jean Rutherford a shivering delicacy, unequally mated with +potential violence. In the playing-fields, and amongst his +own companions, he repaid a coarse expression with a blow; at his +father’s table (when the time came for him to join these +revels) he turned pale and sickened in silence. Of all the guests +whom he there encountered, he had toleration for only one: David +Keith Carnegie, Lord Glenalmond. Lord Glenalmond was tall +and emaciated, with long features and long delicate hands. +He was often compared with the statue of Forbes of Culloden in +the Parliament House; and his blue eye, at more than sixty, +preserved some of the fire of youth. His exquisite +disparity with any of his fellow-guests, his appearance as of an +artist and an aristocrat stranded in rude company, riveted the +boy’s attention; and as curiosity and interest are the +things in the world that are the most immediately and certainly +rewarded, Lord Glenalmond was attracted by the boy.</p> +<p>“And so this is your son, Hermiston?” he asked, +laying his hand on Archie’s shoulder. +“He’s getting a big lad.”</p> +<p>“Hout!” said the gracious father, “just his +mother over again—daurna say boo to a goose!”</p> +<p>But the stranger retained the boy, talked to him, drew him +out, found in him a taste for letters, and a fine, ardent, +modest, youthful soul; and encouraged him to be a visitor on +Sunday evenings in his bare, cold, lonely dining-room, where he +sat and read in the isolation of a bachelor grown old in +refinement. The beautiful gentleness and grace of the old +judge, and the delicacy of his person, thoughts, and language, +spoke to Archie’s heart in its own tongue. He +conceived the ambition to be such another; and, when the day came +for him to choose a profession, it was in emulation of Lord +Glenalmond, not of Lord Hermiston, that he chose the Bar. +Hermiston looked on at this friendship with some secret pride, +but openly with the intolerance of scorn. He scarce lost an +opportunity to put them down with a rough jape; and, to say +truth, it was not difficult, for they were neither of them +quick. He had a word of contempt for the whole crowd of +poets, painters, fiddlers, and their admirers, the bastard race +of amateurs, which was continually on his lips. +“Signor Feedle-eerie!” he would say. “O, +for Goad’s sake, no more of the Signor!”</p> +<p>“You and my father are great friends, are you +not?” asked Archie once.</p> +<p>“There is no man that I more respect, Archie,” +replied Lord Glenalmond. “He is two things of +price. He is a great lawyer, and he is upright as the +day.”</p> +<p>“You and he are so different,” said the boy, his +eyes dwelling on those of his old friend, like a lover’s on +his mistress’s.</p> +<p>“Indeed so,” replied the judge; “very +different. And so I fear are you and he. Yet I would +like it very ill if my young friend were to misjudge his +father. He has all the Roman virtues: Cato and Brutus were +such; I think a son’s heart might well be proud of such an +ancestry of one.”</p> +<p>“And I would sooner he were a plaided herd,” cried +Archie, with sudden bitterness.</p> +<p>“And that is neither very wise, nor I believe entirely +true,” returned Glenalmond. “Before you are +done you will find some of these expressions rise on you like a +remorse. They are merely literary and decorative; they do +not aptly express your thought, nor is your thought clearly +apprehended, and no doubt your father (if he were here) would +say, ‘Signor Feedle-eerie!’”</p> +<p>With the infinitely delicate sense of youth, Archie avoided +the subject from that hour. It was perhaps a pity. +Had he but talked—talked freely—let himself gush out +in words (the way youth loves to do and should), there might have +been no tale to write upon the Weirs of Hermiston. But the +shadow of a threat of ridicule sufficed; in the slight tartness +of these words he read a prohibition; and it is likely that +Glenalmond meant it so.</p> +<p>Besides the veteran, the boy was without confidant or +friend. Serious and eager, he came through school and +college, and moved among a crowd of the indifferent, in the +seclusion of his shyness. He grew up handsome, with an +open, speaking countenance, with graceful, youthful ways; he was +clever, he took prizes, he shone in the Speculative +Society. It should seem he must become the centre of a +crowd of friends; but something that was in part the delicacy of +his mother, in part the austerity of his father, held him aloof +from all. It is a fact, and a strange one, that among his +contemporaries Hermiston’s son was thought to be a chip of +the old block. “You’re a friend of Archie +Weir’s?” said one to Frank Innes; and Innes replied, +with his usual flippancy and more than his usual insight: +“I know Weir, but I never met Archie.” No one +had met Archie, a malady most incident to only sons. He +flew his private signal, and none heeded it; it seemed he was +abroad in a world from which the very hope of intimacy was +banished; and he looked round about him on the concourse of his +fellow-students, and forward to the trivial days and +acquaintances that were to come, without hope or interest.</p> +<p>As time went on, the tough and rough old sinner felt himself +drawn to the son of his loins and sole continuator of his new +family, with softnesses of sentiment that he could hardly credit +and was wholly impotent to express. With a face, voice, and +manner trained through forty years to terrify and repel, +Rhadamanthus may be great, but he will scarce be engaging. +It is a fact that he tried to propitiate Archie, but a fact that +cannot be too lightly taken; the attempt was so unconspicuously +made, the failure so stoically supported. Sympathy is not +due to these steadfast iron natures. If he failed to gain +his son’s friendship, or even his son’s toleration, +on he went up the great, bare staircase of his duty, uncheered +and undepressed. There might have been more pleasure in his +relations with Archie, so much he may have recognised at moments; +but pleasure was a by-product of the singular chemistry of life, +which only fools expected.</p> +<p>An idea of Archie’s attitude, since we are all grown up +and have forgotten the days of our youth, it is more difficult to +convey. He made no attempt whatsoever to understand the man +with whom he dined and breakfasted. Parsimony of pain, glut +of pleasure, these are the two alternating ends of youth; and +Archie was of the parsimonious. The wind blew cold out of a +certain quarter—he turned his back upon it; stayed as +little as was possible in his father’s presence; and when +there, averted his eyes as much as was decent from his +father’s face. The lamp shone for many hundred days +upon these two at table—my lord, ruddy, gloomy, and +unreverent; Archie with a potential brightness that was always +dimmed and veiled in that society; and there were not, perhaps, +in Christendom two men more radically strangers. The +father, with a grand simplicity, either spoke of what interested +himself, or maintained an unaffected silence. The son +turned in his head for some topic that should be quite safe, that +would spare him fresh evidences either of my lord’s +inherent grossness or of the innocence of his inhumanity; +treading gingerly the ways of intercourse, like a lady gathering +up her skirts in a by-path. If he made a mistake, and my +lord began to abound in matter of offence, Archie drew himself +up, his brow grew dark, his share of the talk expired; but my +lord would faithfully and cheerfully continue to pour out the +worst of himself before his silent and offended son.</p> +<p>“Well, it’s a poor hert that never +rejoices!” he would say, at the conclusion of such a +nightmare interview. “But I must get to my +plew-stilts.” And he would seclude himself as usual in his +back room, and Archie go forth into the night and the city +quivering with animosity and scorn.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III—IN THE MATTER OF THE HANGING OF DUNCAN +JOPP</h2> +<p>It chanced in the year 1813 that Archie strayed one day into +the Justiciary Court. The macer made room for the son of +the presiding judge. In the dock, the centre of men’s +eyes, there stood a whey-coloured, misbegotten caitiff, Duncan +Jopp, on trial for his life. His story, as it was raked out +before him in that public scene, was one of disgrace and vice and +cowardice, the very nakedness of crime; and the creature heard +and it seemed at times as though he understood—as if at +times he forgot the horror of the place he stood in, and +remembered the shame of what had brought him there. He kept +his head bowed and his hands clutched upon the rail; his hair +dropped in his eyes and at times he flung it back; and now he +glanced about the audience in a sudden fellness of terror, and +now looked in the face of his judge and gulped. There was +pinned about his throat a piece of dingy flannel; and this it was +perhaps that turned the scale in Archie’s mind between +disgust and pity. The creature stood in a vanishing point; +yet a little while, and he was still a man, and had eyes and +apprehension; yet a little longer, and with a last sordid piece +of pageantry, he would cease to be. And here, in the +meantime, with a trait of human nature that caught at the +beholder’s breath, he was tending a sore throat.</p> +<p>Over against him, my Lord Hermiston occupied the bench in the +red robes of criminal jurisdiction, his face framed in the white +wig. Honest all through, he did not affect the virtue of +impartiality; this was no case for refinement; there was a man to +be hanged, he would have said, and he was hanging him. Nor +was it possible to see his lordship, and acquit him of gusto in +the task. It was plain he gloried in the exercise of his +trained faculties, in the clear sight which pierced at once into +the joint of fact, in the rude, unvarnished gibes with which he +demolished every figment of defence. He took his ease and +jested, unbending in that solemn place with some of the freedom +of the tavern; and the rag of man with the flannel round his neck +was hunted gallowsward with jeers.</p> +<p>Duncan had a mistress, scarce less forlorn and greatly older +than himself, who came up, whimpering and curtseying, to add the +weight of her betrayal. My lord gave her the oath in his +most roaring voice, and added an intolerant warning.</p> +<p>“Mind what ye say now, Janet,” said he. +“I have an e’e upon ye, I’m ill to jest +with.”</p> +<p>Presently, after she was tremblingly embarked on her story, +“And what made ye do this, ye auld runt?” the Court +interposed. “Do ye mean to tell me ye was the +panel’s mistress?”</p> +<p>“If you please, ma loard,” whined the female.</p> +<p>“Godsake! ye made a bonny couple,” observed his +lordship; and there was something so formidable and ferocious in +his scorn that not even the galleries thought to laugh.</p> +<p>The summing up contained some jewels.</p> +<p>“These two peetiable creatures seem to have made up +thegither, it’s not for us to explain +why.”—“The panel, who (whatever else he may be) +appears to be equally ill set-out in mind and +boady.”—“Neither the panel nor yet the old wife +appears to have had so much common sense as even to tell a lie +when it was necessary.” And in the course of +sentencing, my lord had this <i>obiter dictum</i>: “I have +been the means, under God, of haanging a great number, but never +just such a disjaskit rascal as yourself.” The words +were strong in themselves; the light and heat and detonation of +their delivery, and the savage pleasure of the speaker in his +task, made them tingle in the ears.</p> +<p>When all was over, Archie came forth again into a changed +world. Had there been the least redeeming greatness in the +crime, any obscurity, any dubiety, perhaps he might have +understood. But the culprit stood, with his sore throat, in +the sweat of his mortal agony, without defence or excuse: a thing +to cover up with blushes: a being so much sunk beneath the zones +of sympathy that pity might seem harmless. And the judge +had pursued him with a monstrous, relishing gaiety, horrible to +be conceived, a trait for nightmares. It is one thing to +spear a tiger, another to crush a toad; there are æsthetics +even of the slaughter-house; and the loathsomeness of Duncan Jopp +enveloped and infected the image of his judge.</p> +<p>Archie passed by his friends in the High Street with +incoherent words and gestures. He saw Holyrood in a dream, +remembrance of its romance awoke in him and faded; he had a +vision of the old radiant stories, of Queen Mary and Prince +Charlie, of the hooded stag, of the splendour and crime, the +velvet and bright iron of the past; and dismissed them with a cry +of pain. He lay and moaned in the Hunter’s Bog, and +the heavens were dark above him and the grass of the field an +offence. “This is my father,” he said. +“I draw my life from him; the flesh upon my bones is his, +the bread I am fed with is the wages of these +horrors.” He recalled his mother, and ground his +forehead in the earth. He thought of flight, and where was +he to flee to? of other lives, but was there any life worth +living in this den of savage and jeering animals?</p> +<p>The interval before the execution was like a violent +dream. He met his father; he would not look at him, he +could not speak to him. It seemed there was no living +creature but must have been swift to recognise that imminent +animosity; but the hide of the Justice-Clerk remained +impenetrable. Had my lord been talkative, the truce could +never have subsisted; but he was by fortune in one of his humours +of sour silence; and under the very guns of his broadside, Archie +nursed the enthusiasm of rebellion. It seemed to him, from +the top of his nineteen years’ experience, as if he were +marked at birth to be the perpetrator of some signal action, to +set back fallen Mercy, to overthrow the usurping devil that sat, +horned and hoofed, on her throne. Seductive Jacobin +figments, which he had often refuted at the Speculative, swam up +in his mind and startled him as with voices: and he seemed to +himself to walk accompanied by an almost tangible presence of new +beliefs and duties.</p> +<p>On the named morning he was at the place of execution. +He saw the fleering rabble, the flinching wretch produced. +He looked on for a while at a certain parody of devotion, which +seemed to strip the wretch of his last claim to manhood. +Then followed the brutal instant of extinction, and the paltry +dangling of the remains like a broken jumping-jack. He had +been prepared for something terrible, not for this tragic +meanness. He stood a moment silent, and then—“I +denounce this God-defying murder,” he shouted; and his +father, if he must have disclaimed the sentiment, might have +owned the stentorian voice with which it was uttered.</p> +<p>Frank Innes dragged him from the spot. The two handsome +lads followed the same course of study and recreation, and felt a +certain mutual attraction, founded mainly on good looks. It +had never gone deep; Frank was by nature a thin, jeering +creature, not truly susceptible whether of feeling or inspiring +friendship; and the relation between the pair was altogether on +the outside, a thing of common knowledge and the pleasantries +that spring from a common acquaintance. The more credit to +Frank that he was appalled by Archie’s outburst, and at +least conceived the design of keeping him in sight, and, if +possible, in hand, for the day. But Archie, who had just +defied—was it God or Satan?—would not listen to the +word of a college companion.</p> +<p>“I will not go with you,” he said. “I +do not desire your company, sir; I would be alone.”</p> +<p>“Here, Weir, man, don’t be absurd,” said +Innes, keeping a tight hold upon his sleeve. “I will +not let you go until I know what you mean to do with yourself; +it’s no use brandishing that staff.” For indeed +at that moment Archie had made a sudden—perhaps a +warlike—movement. “This has been the most +insane affair; you know it has. You know very well that +I’m playing the good Samaritan. All I wish is to keep +you quiet.”</p> +<p>“If quietness is what you wish, Mr. Innes,” said +Archie, “and you will promise to leave me entirely to +myself, I will tell you so much, that I am going to walk in the +country and admire the beauties of nature.”</p> +<p>“Honour bright?” asked Frank.</p> +<p>“I am not in the habit of lying, Mr. Innes,” +retorted Archie. “I have the honour of wishing you +good-day.”</p> +<p>“You won’t forget the Spec.?” asked +Innes.</p> +<p>“The Spec.?” said Archie. “O no, I +won’t forget the Spec.”</p> +<p>And the one young man carried his tortured spirit forth of the +city and all the day long, by one road and another, in an endless +pilgrimage of misery; while the other hastened smilingly to +spread the news of Weir’s access of insanity, and to drum +up for that night a full attendance at the Speculative, where +further eccentric developments might certainly be looked +for. I doubt if Innes had the least belief in his +prediction; I think it flowed rather from a wish to make the +story as good and the scandal as great as possible; not from any +ill-will to Archie—from the mere pleasure of beholding +interested faces. But for all that his words were +prophetic. Archie did not forget the Spec.; he put in an +appearance there at the due time, and, before the evening was +over, had dealt a memorable shock to his companions. It +chanced he was the president of the night. He sat in the +same room where the Society still meets—only the portraits +were not there: the men who afterwards sat for them were then but +beginning their career. The same lustre of many tapers shed +its light over the meeting; the same chair, perhaps, supported +him that so many of us have sat in since. At times he +seemed to forget the business of the evening, but even in these +periods he sat with a great air of energy and +determination. At times he meddled bitterly, and launched +with defiance those fines which are the precious and rarely used +artillery of the president. He little thought, as he did +so, how he resembled his father, but his friends remarked upon +it, chuckling. So far, in his high place above his +fellow-students, he seemed set beyond the possibility of any +scandal; but his mind was made up—he was determined to +fulfil the sphere of his offence. He signed to Innes (whom +he had just fined, and who just impeached his ruling) to succeed +him in the chair, stepped down from the platform, and took his +place by the chimney-piece, the shine of many wax tapers from +above illuminating his pale face, the glow of the great red fire +relieving from behind his slim figure. He had to propose, +as an amendment to the next subject in the case-book, +“Whether capital punishment be consistent with God’s +will or man’s policy?”</p> +<p>A breath of embarrassment, of something like alarm, passed +round the room, so daring did these words appear upon the lips of +Hermiston’s only son. But the amendment was not +seconded; the previous question was promptly moved and +unanimously voted, and the momentary scandal smuggled by. +Innes triumphed in the fulfilment of his prophecy. He and +Archie were now become the heroes of the night; but whereas every +one crowded about Innes, when the meeting broke up, but one of +all his companions came to speak to Archie.</p> +<p>“Weir, man! That was an extraordinary raid of +yours!” observed this courageous member, taking him +confidentially by the arm as they went out.</p> +<p>“I don’t think it a raid,” said Archie +grimly. “More like a war. I saw that poor brute +hanged this morning, and my gorge rises at it yet.”</p> +<p>“Hut-tut,” returned his companion, and, dropping +his arm like something hot, he sought the less tense society of +others.</p> +<p>Archie found himself alone. The last of the +faithful—or was it only the boldest of the +curious?—had fled. He watched the black huddle of his +fellow-students draw off down and up the street, in whispering or +boisterous gangs. And the isolation of the moment weighed +upon him like an omen and an emblem of his destiny in life. +Bred up in unbroken fear himself, among trembling servants, and +in a house which (at the least ruffle in the master’s +voice) shuddered into silence, he saw himself on the brink of the +red valley of war, and measured the danger and length of it with +awe. He made a detour in the glimmer and shadow of the +streets, came into the back stable lane, and watched for a long +while the light burn steady in the Judge’s room. The +longer he gazed upon that illuminated window-blind, the more +blank became the picture of the man who sat behind it, endlessly +turning over sheets of process, pausing to sip a glass of port, +or rising and passing heavily about his book-lined walls to +verify some reference. He could not combine the brutal +judge and the industrious, dispassionate student; the connecting +link escaped him; from such a dual nature, it was impossible he +should predict behaviour; and he asked himself if he had done +well to plunge into a business of which the end could not be +foreseen? and presently after, with a sickening decline of +confidence, if he had done loyally to strike his father? +For he had struck him—defied him twice over and before a +cloud of witnesses—struck him a public buffet before +crowds. Who had called him to judge his father in these +precarious and high questions? The office was +usurped. It might have become a stranger; in a +son—there was no blinking it—in a son, it was +disloyal. And now, between these two natures so +antipathetic, so hateful to each other, there was depending an +unpardonable affront: and the providence of God alone might +foresee the manner in which it would be resented by Lord +Hermiston.</p> +<p>These misgivings tortured him all night and arose with him in +the winter’s morning; they followed him from class to +class, they made him shrinkingly sensitive to every shade of +manner in his companions, they sounded in his ears through the +current voice of the professor; and he brought them home with him +at night unabated and indeed increased. The cause of this +increase lay in a chance encounter with the celebrated Dr. +Gregory. Archie stood looking vaguely in the lighted window +of a book shop, trying to nerve himself for the approaching +ordeal. My lord and he had met and parted in the morning as +they had now done for long, with scarcely the ordinary civilities +of life; and it was plain to the son that nothing had yet reached +the father’s ears. Indeed, when he recalled the awful +countenance of my lord, a timid hope sprang up in him that +perhaps there would be found no one bold enough to carry +tales. If this were so, he asked himself, would he begin +again? and he found no answer. It was at this moment that a +hand was laid upon his arm, and a voice said in his ear, +“My dear Mr. Archie, you had better come and see +me.”</p> +<p>He started, turned round, and found himself face to face with +Dr. Gregory. “And why should I come to see +you?” he asked, with the defiance of the miserable.</p> +<p>“Because you are looking exceedingly ill,” said +the doctor, “and you very evidently want looking after, my +young friend. Good folk are scarce, you know; and it is not +every one that would be quite so much missed as yourself. +It is not every one that Hermiston would miss.”</p> +<p>And with a nod and a smile, the doctor passed on.</p> +<p>A moment after, Archie was in pursuit, and had in turn, but +more roughly, seized him by the arm.</p> +<p>“What do you mean? what did you mean by saying +that? What makes you think that Hermis—my father +would have missed me?”</p> +<p>The doctor turned about and looked him all over with a +clinical eye. A far more stupid man than Dr. Gregory might +have guessed the truth; but ninety-nine out of a hundred, even if +they had been equally inclined to kindness, would have blundered +by some touch of charitable exaggeration. The doctor was +better inspired. He knew the father well; in that white +face of intelligence and suffering, he divined something of the +son; and he told, without apology or adornment, the plain +truth.</p> +<p>“When you had the measles, Mr. Archibald, you had them +gey and ill; and I thought you were going to slip between my +fingers,” he said. “Well, your father was +anxious. How did I know it? says you. Simply because +I am a trained observer. The sign that I saw him make, ten +thousand would have missed; and perhaps—<i>perhaps</i>, I +say, because he’s a hard man to judge of—but perhaps +he never made another. A strange thing to consider! +It was this. One day I came to him: +‘Hermiston,’ said I, ‘there’s a +change.’ He never said a word, just glowered at me +(if ye’ll pardon the phrase) like a wild beast. +‘A change for the better,’ said I. And I +distinctly heard him take his breath.”</p> +<p>The doctor left no opportunity for anti-climax; nodding his +cocked hat (a piece of antiquity to which he clung) and repeating +“Distinctly” with raised eye-brows, he took his +departure, and left Archie speechless in the street.</p> +<p>The anecdote might be called infinitely little, and yet its +meaning for Archie was immense. “I did not know the +old man had so much blood in him.” He had never +dreamed this sire of his, this aboriginal antique, this +adamantine Adam, had even so much of a heart as to be moved in +the least degree for another—and that other himself, who +had insulted him! With the generosity of youth, Archie was +instantly under arms upon the other side: had instantly created a +new image of Lord Hermiston, that of a man who was all iron +without and all sensibility within. The mind of the vile +jester, the tongue that had pursued Duncan Jopp with unmanly +insults, the unbeloved countenance that he had known and feared +for so long, were all forgotten; and he hastened home, impatient +to confess his misdeeds, impatient to throw himself on the mercy +of this imaginary character.</p> +<p>He was not to be long without a rude awakening. It was +in the gloaming when he drew near the door-step of the lighted +house, and was aware of the figure of his father approaching from +the opposite side. Little daylight lingered; but on the +door being opened, the strong yellow shine of the lamp gushed out +upon the landing and shone full on Archie, as he stood, in the +old-fashioned observance of respect, to yield precedence. +The judge came without haste, stepping stately and firm; his chin +raised, his face (as he entered the lamplight) strongly +illumined, his mouth set hard. There was never a wink of +change in his expression; without looking to the right or left, +he mounted the stair, passed close to Archie, and entered the +house. Instinctively, the boy, upon his first coming, had +made a movement to meet him; instinctively he recoiled against +the railing, as the old man swept by him in a pomp of +indignation. Words were needless; he knew all—perhaps +more than all—and the hour of judgment was at hand.</p> +<p>It is possible that, in this sudden revulsion of hope, and +before these symptoms of impending danger, Archie might have +fled. But not even that was left to him. My lord, +after hanging up his cloak and hat, turned round in the lighted +entry, and made him an imperative and silent gesture with his +thumb, and with the strange instinct of obedience, Archie +followed him into the house.</p> +<p>All dinner-time there reigned over the Judge’s table a +palpable silence, and as soon as the solids were despatched he +rose to his feet.</p> +<p>“M‘Killup, tak’ the wine into my +room,” said he; and then to his son: “Archie, you and +me has to have a talk.”</p> +<p>It was at this sickening moment that Archie’s courage, +for the first and last time, entirely deserted him. +“I have an appointment,” said he.</p> +<p>“It’ll have to be broken, then,” said +Hermiston, and led the way into his study.</p> +<p>The lamp was shaded, the fire trimmed to a nicety, the table +covered deep with orderly documents, the backs of law books made +a frame upon all sides that was only broken by the window and the +doors.</p> +<p>For a moment Hermiston warmed his hands at the fire, +presenting his back to Archie; then suddenly disclosed on him the +terrors of the Hanging Face.</p> +<p>“What’s this I hear of ye?” he asked.</p> +<p>There was no answer possible to Archie.</p> +<p>“I’ll have to tell ye, then,” pursued +Hermiston. “It seems ye’ve been skirting +against the father that begot ye, and one of his Maijesty’s +Judges in this land; and that in the public street, and while an +order of the Court was being executit. Forbye which, it +would appear that ye’ve been airing your opeenions in a +Coallege Debatin’ Society”; he paused a moment: and +then, with extraordinary bitterness, added: “Ye damned +eediot.”</p> +<p>“I had meant to tell you,” stammered Archie. +“I see you are well informed.”</p> +<p>“Muckle obleeged to ye,” said his lordship, and +took his usual seat. “And so you disapprove of +Caapital Punishment?” he added.</p> +<p>“I am sorry, sir, I do,” said Archie.</p> +<p>“I am sorry, too,” said his lordship. +“And now, if you please, we shall approach this business +with a little more parteecularity. I hear that at the +hanging of Duncan Jopp—and, man! ye had a fine client +there—in the middle of all the riff-raff of the ceety, ye +thought fit to cry out, ‘This is a damned murder, and my +gorge rises at the man that haangit him.’”</p> +<p>“No, sir, these were not my words,” cried +Archie.</p> +<p>“What were yer words, then?” asked the Judge.</p> +<p>“I believe I said, ‘I denounce it as a +murder!’” said the son. “I beg your +pardon—a God-defying murder. I have no wish to +conceal the truth,” he added, and looked his father for a +moment in the face.</p> +<p>“God, it would only need that of it next!” cried +Hermiston. “There was nothing about your gorge +rising, then?”</p> +<p>“That was afterwards, my lord, as I was leaving the +Speculative. I said I had been to see the miserable +creature hanged, and my gorge rose at it.”</p> +<p>“Did ye, though?” said Hermiston. “And +I suppose ye knew who haangit him?”</p> +<p>“I was present at the trial, I ought to tell you that, I +ought to explain. I ask your pardon beforehand for any +expression that may seem undutiful. The position in which I +stand is wretched,” said the unhappy hero, now fairly face +to face with the business he had chosen. “I have been +reading some of your cases. I was present while Jopp was +tried. It was a hideous business. Father, it was a +hideous thing! Grant he was vile, why should you hunt him +with a vileness equal to his own? It was done with +glee—that is the word—you did it with glee; and I +looked on, God help me! with horror.”</p> +<p>“You’re a young gentleman that doesna approve of +Caapital Punishment,” said Hermiston. “Weel, +I’m an auld man that does. I was glad to get Jopp +haangit, and what for would I pretend I wasna? You’re +all for honesty, it seems; you couldn’t even steik your +mouth on the public street. What for should I steik mines +upon the bench, the King’s officer, bearing the sword, a +dreid to evil-doers, as I was from the beginning, and as I will +be to the end! Mair than enough of it! Heedious! I +never gave twa thoughts to heediousness, I have no call to be +bonny. I’m a man that gets through with my +day’s business, and let that suffice.”</p> +<p>The ring of sarcasm had died out of his voice as he went on; +the plain words became invested with some of the dignity of the +Justice-seat.</p> +<p>“It would be telling you if you could say as +much,” the speaker resumed. “But ye +cannot. Ye’ve been reading some of my cases, ye +say. But it was not for the law in them, it was to spy out +your faither’s nakedness, a fine employment in a son. +You’re splairging; you’re running at lairge in life +like a wild nowt. It’s impossible you should think +any longer of coming to the Bar. You’re not fit for +it; no splairger is. And another thing: son of mines or no +son of mines, you have flung fylement in public on one of the +Senators of the Coallege of Justice, and I would make it my +business to see that ye were never admitted there yourself. +There is a kind of a decency to be observit. Then comes the +next of it—what am I to do with ye next? Ye’ll +have to find some kind of a trade, for I’ll never support +ye in idleset. What do ye fancy ye’ll be fit +for? The pulpit? Na, they could never get diveenity +into that bloackhead. Him that the law of man whammles is +no likely to do muckle better by the law of God. What would +ye make of hell? Wouldna your gorge rise at that? Na, +there’s no room for splairgers under the fower quarters of +John Calvin. What else is there? Speak up. Have +ye got nothing of your own?”</p> +<p>“Father, let me go to the Peninsula,” said +Archie. “That’s all I’m fit for—to +fight.”</p> +<p>“All? quo’ he!” returned the Judge. +“And it would be enough too, if I thought it. But +I’ll never trust ye so near the French, you that’s so +Frenchi-feed.”</p> +<p>“You do me injustice there, sir,” said +Archie. “I am loyal; I will not boast; but any +interest I may have ever felt in the French—”</p> +<p>“Have ye been so loyal to me?” interrupted his +father.</p> +<p>There came no reply.</p> +<p>“I think not,” continued Hermiston. +“And I would send no man to be a servant to the King, God +bless him! that has proved such a shauchling son to his own +faither. You can splairge here on Edinburgh street, and +where’s the hairm? It doesna play buff on me! +And if there were twenty thousand eediots like yourself, sorrow a +Duncan Jopp would hang the fewer. But there’s no +splairging possible in a camp; and if ye were to go to it, you +would find out for yourself whether Lord Well’n’ton +approves of caapital punishment or not. You a +sodger!” he cried, with a sudden burst of scorn. +“Ye auld wife, the sodgers would bray at ye like +cuddies!”</p> +<p>As at the drawing of a curtain, Archie was aware of some +illogicality in his position, and stood abashed. He had a +strong impression, besides, of the essential valour of the old +gentleman before him, how conveyed it would be hard to say.</p> +<p>“Well, have ye no other proposeetion?” said my +lord again.</p> +<p>“You have taken this so calmly, sir, that I cannot but +stand ashamed,” began Archie.</p> +<p>“I’m nearer voamiting, though, than you would +fancy,” said my lord. The blood rose to +Archie’s brow.</p> +<p>“I beg your pardon, I should have said that you had +accepted my affront. . . . I admit it was an affront; I did not +think to apologise, but I do, I ask your pardon; it will not be +so again, I pass you my word of honour. . . . I should have said +that I admired your magnanimity +with—this—offender,” Archie concluded with a +gulp.</p> +<p>“I have no other son, ye see,” said +Hermiston. “A bonny one I have gotten! But I +must just do the best I can wi’ him, and what am I to do? +If ye had been younger, I would have wheepit ye for this +rideeculous exhibeetion. The way it is, I have just to grin +and bear. But one thing is to be clearly understood. +As a faither, I must grin and bear it; but if I had been the Lord +Advocate instead of the Lord Justice-Clerk, son or no son, Mr. +Erchibald Weir would have been in a jyle the night.”</p> +<p>Archie was now dominated. Lord Hermiston was coarse and +cruel; and yet the son was aware of a bloomless nobility, an +ungracious abnegation of the man’s self in the man’s +office. At every word, this sense of the greatness of Lord +Hermiston’s spirit struck more home; and along with it that +of his own impotence, who had struck—and perhaps basely +struck—at his own father, and not reached so far as to have +even nettled him.</p> +<p>“I place myself in your hands without reserve,” he +said.</p> +<p>“That’s the first sensible word I’ve had of +ye the night,” said Hermiston. “I can tell ye, +that would have been the end of it, the one way or the other; but +it’s better ye should come there yourself, than what I +would have had to hirstle ye. Weel, by my way of +it—and my way is the best—there’s just the one +thing it’s possible that ye might be with decency, and +that’s a laird. Ye’ll be out of hairm’s +way at the least of it. If ye have to rowt, ye can rowt +amang the kye; and the maist feck of the caapital punishment +ye’re like to come across’ll be guddling +trouts. Now, I’m for no idle lairdies; every man has +to work, if it’s only at peddling ballants; to work, or to +be wheeped, or to be haangit. If I set ye down at Hermiston +I’ll have to see you work that place the way it has never +been workit yet; ye must ken about the sheep like a herd; ye must +be my grieve there, and I’ll see that I gain by ye. +Is that understood?”</p> +<p>“I will do my best,” said Archie.</p> +<p>“Well, then, I’ll send Kirstie word the morn, and +ye can go yourself the day after,” said Hermiston. +“And just try to be less of an eediot!” he concluded +with a freezing smile, and turned immediately to the papers on +his desk.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV—OPINIONS OF THE BENCH</h2> +<p>Late the same night, after a disordered walk, Archie was +admitted into Lord Glenalmond’s dining-room, where he sat +with a book upon his knee, beside three frugal coals of +fire. In his robes upon the bench, Glenalmond had a certain +air of burliness: plucked of these, it was a may-pole of a man +that rose unsteadily from his chair to give his visitor +welcome. Archie had suffered much in the last days, he had +suffered again that evening; his face was white and drawn, his +eyes wild and dark. But Lord Glenalmond greeted him without +the least mark of surprise or curiosity.</p> +<p>“Come in, come in,” said he. “Come in +and take a seat. Carstairs” (to his servant), +“make up the fire, and then you can bring a bit of +supper,” and again to Archie, with a very trivial accent: +“I was half expecting you,” he added.</p> +<p>“No supper,” said Archie. “It is +impossible that I should eat.”</p> +<p>“Not impossible,” said the tall old man, laying +his hand upon his shoulder, “and, if you will believe me, +necessary.”</p> +<p>“You know what brings me?” said Archie, as soon as +the servant had left the room.</p> +<p>“I have a guess, I have a guess,” replied +Glenalmond. “We will talk of it presently—when +Carstairs has come and gone, and you have had a piece of my good +Cheddar cheese and a pull at the porter tankard: not +before.”</p> +<p>“It is impossible I should eat” repeated +Archie.</p> +<p>“Tut, tut!” said Lord Glenalmond. “You +have eaten nothing to-day, and I venture to add, nothing +yesterday. There is no case that may not be made worse; +this may be a very disagreeable business, but if you were to fall +sick and die, it would be still more so, and for all +concerned—for all concerned.”</p> +<p>“I see you must know all,” said Archie. +“Where did you hear it?”</p> +<p>“In the mart of scandal, in the Parliament House,” +said Glenalmond. “It runs riot below among the bar +and the public, but it sifts up to us upon the bench, and rumour +has some of her voices even in the divisions.”</p> +<p>Carstairs returned at this moment, and rapidly laid out a +little supper; during which Lord Glenalmond spoke at large and a +little vaguely on indifferent subjects, so that it might be +rather said of him that he made a cheerful noise, than that he +contributed to human conversation; and Archie sat upon the other +side, not heeding him, brooding over his wrongs and errors.</p> +<p>But so soon as the servant was gone, he broke forth again at +once. “Who told my father? Who dared to tell +him? Could it have been you?”</p> +<p>“No, it was not me,” said the Judge; +“although—to be quite frank with you, and after I had +seen and warned you—it might have been me—I believe +it was Glenkindie.”</p> +<p>“That shrimp!” cried Archie.</p> +<p>“As you say, that shrimp,” returned my lord; +“although really it is scarce a fitting mode of expression +for one of the senators of the College of Justice. We were +hearing the parties in a long, crucial case, before the fifteen; +Creech was moving at some length for an infeftment; when I saw +Glenkindie lean forward to Hermiston with his hand over his mouth +and make him a secret communication. No one could have +guessed its nature from your father: from Glenkindie, yes, his +malice sparked out of him a little grossly. But your +father, no. A man of granite. The next moment he +pounced upon Creech. ‘Mr. Creech,’ says he, +‘I’ll take a look of that sasine,’ and for +thirty minutes after,” said Glenalmond, with a smile, +“Messrs. Creech and Co. were fighting a pretty up-hill +battle, which resulted, I need hardly add, in their total +rout. The case was dismissed. No, I doubt if ever I +heard Hermiston better inspired. He was literally rejoicing +<i>in apicibus juris</i>.”</p> +<p>Archie was able to endure no longer. He thrust his plate +away and interrupted the deliberate and insignificant stream of +talk. “Here,” he said, “I have made a +fool of myself, if I have not made something worse. Do you +judge between us—judge between a father and a son. I +can speak to you; it is not like . . . I will tell you what I +feel and what I mean to do; and you shall be the judge,” he +repeated.</p> +<p>“I decline jurisdiction,” said Glenalmond, with +extreme seriousness. “But, my dear boy, if it will do +you any good to talk, and if it will interest you at all to hear +what I may choose to say when I have heard you, I am quite at +your command. Let an old man say it, for once, and not need +to blush: I love you like a son.”</p> +<p>There came a sudden sharp sound in Archie’s +throat. “Ay,” he cried, “and there it +is! Love! Like a son! And how do you think I +love my father?”</p> +<p>“Quietly, quietly,” says my lord.</p> +<p>“I will be very quiet,” replied Archie. +“And I will be baldly frank. I do not love my father; +I wonder sometimes if I do not hate him. There’s my +shame; perhaps my sin; at least, and in the sight of God, not my +fault. How was I to love him? He has never spoken to +me, never smiled upon me; I do not think he ever touched +me. You know the way he talks? You do not talk so, yet you +can sit and hear him without shuddering, and I cannot. My +soul is sick when he begins with it; I could smite him in the +mouth. And all that’s nothing. I was at the +trial of this Jopp. You were not there, but you must have +heard him often; the man’s notorious for it, for +being—look at my position! he’s my father and this is +how I have to speak of him—notorious for being a brute and +cruel and a coward. Lord Glenalmond, I give you my word, +when I came out of that Court, I longed to die—the shame of +it was beyond my strength: but I—I—” he rose +from his seat and began to pace the room in a disorder. +“Well, who am I? A boy, who have never been tried, +have never done anything except this twopenny impotent folly with +my father. But I tell you, my lord, and I know myself, I am +at least that kind of a man—or that kind of a boy, if you +prefer it—that I could die in torments rather than that any +one should suffer as that scoundrel suffered. Well, and +what have I done? I see it now. I have made a fool of +myself, as I said in the beginning; and I have gone back, and +asked my father’s pardon, and placed myself wholly in his +hands—and he has sent me to Hermiston,” with a +wretched smile, “for life, I suppose—and what can I +say? he strikes me as having done quite right, and let me off +better than I had deserved.”</p> +<p>“My poor, dear boy!” observed Glenalmond. +“My poor dear and, if you will allow me to say so, very +foolish boy! You are only discovering where you are; to one +of your temperament, or of mine, a painful discovery. The +world was not made for us; it was made for ten hundred millions +of men, all different from each other and from us; there’s +no royal road there, we just have to sclamber and tumble. +Don’t think that I am at all disposed to be surprised; +don’t suppose that I ever think of blaming you; indeed I +rather admire! But there fall to be offered one or two +observations on the case which occur to me and which (if you will +listen to them dispassionately) may be the means of inducing you +to view the matter more calmly. First of all, I cannot +acquit you of a good deal of what is called intolerance. +You seem to have been very much offended because your father +talks a little sculduddery after dinner, which it is perfectly +licit for him to do, and which (although I am not very fond of it +myself) appears to be entirely an affair of taste. Your +father, I scarcely like to remind you, since it is so trite a +commonplace, is older than yourself. At least, he is +<i>major</i> and <i>sui juris</i>, and may please himself in the +matter of his conversation. And, do you know, I wonder if +he might not have as good an answer against you and me? We +say we sometimes find him <i>coarse</i>, but I suspect he might +retort that he finds us always dull. Perhaps a relevant +exception.”</p> +<p>He beamed on Archie, but no smile could be elicited.</p> +<p>“And now,” proceeded the Judge, “for +‘Archibald on Capital Punishment.’ This is a +very plausible academic opinion; of course I do not and I cannot +hold it; but that’s not to say that many able and excellent +persons have not done so in the past. Possibly, in the past +also, I may have a little dipped myself in the same heresy. +My third client, or possibly my fourth, was the means of a return +in my opinions. I never saw the man I more believed in; I +would have put my hand in the fire, I would have gone to the +cross for him; and when it came to trial he was gradually +pictured before me, by undeniable probation, in the light of so +gross, so cold-blooded, and so black-hearted a villain, that I +had a mind to have cast my brief upon the table. I was then +boiling against the man with even a more tropical temperature +than I had been boiling for him. But I said to myself: +‘No, you have taken up his case; and because you have +changed your mind it must not be suffered to let drop. All +that rich tide of eloquence that you prepared last night with so +much enthusiasm is out of place, and yet you must not desert him, +you must say something.’ So I said something, and I +got him off. It made my reputation. But an experience +of that kind is formative. A man must not bring his +passions to the bar—or to the bench,” he added.</p> +<p>The story had slightly rekindled Archie’s +interest. “I could never deny,” he +began—“I mean I can conceive that some men would be +better dead. But who are we to know all the springs of +God’s unfortunate creatures? Who are we to trust +ourselves where it seems that God Himself must think twice before +He treads, and to do it with delight? Yes, with delight. +<i>Tigris ut aspera</i>.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps not a pleasant spectacle,” said +Glenalmond. “And yet, do you know, I think somehow a +great one.”</p> +<p>“I’ve had a long talk with him to-night,” +said Archie.</p> +<p>“I was supposing so,” said Glenalmond.</p> +<p>“And he struck me—I cannot deny that he struck me +as something very big,” pursued the son. “Yes, +he is big. He never spoke about himself; only about +me. I suppose I admired him. The dreadful +part—”</p> +<p>“Suppose we did not talk about that,” interrupted +Glenalmond. “You know it very well, it cannot in any +way help that you should brood upon it, and I sometimes wonder +whether you and I—who are a pair of +sentimentalists—are quite good judges of plain +men.”</p> +<p>“How do you mean?” asked Archie.</p> +<p>“<i>Fair</i> judges, mean,” replied +Glenalmond. “Can we be just to them? Do we not +ask too much? There was a word of yours just now that +impressed me a little when you asked me who we were to know all +the springs of God’s unfortunate creatures. You +applied that, as I understood, to capital cases only. But +does it—I ask myself—does it not apply all +through? Is it any less difficult to judge of a good man or +of a half-good man, than of the worst criminal at the bar? +And may not each have relevant excuses?”</p> +<p>“Ah, but we do not talk of punishing the good,” +cried Archie.</p> +<p>“No, we do not talk of it,” said Glenalmond. +“But I think we do it. Your father, for +instance.”</p> +<p>“You think I have punished him?” cried Archie.</p> +<p>Lord Glenalmond bowed his head.</p> +<p>“I think I have,” said Archie. “And +the worst is, I think he feels it! How much, who can tell, with +such a being? But I think he does.”</p> +<p>“And I am sure of it,” said Glenalmond.</p> +<p>“Has he spoken to you, then?” cried Archie.</p> +<p>“O no,” replied the judge.</p> +<p>“I tell you honestly,” said Archie, “I want +to make it up to him. I will go, I have already pledged +myself to go to Hermiston. That was to him. And now I +pledge myself to you, in the sight of God, that I will close my +mouth on capital punishment and all other subjects where our +views may clash, for—how long shall I say? when shall I +have sense enough?—ten years. Is that +well?”</p> +<p>“It is well,” said my lord.</p> +<p>“As far as it goes,” said Archie. “It +is enough as regards myself, it is to lay down enough of my +conceit. But as regards him, whom I have publicly +insulted? What am I to do to him? How do you pay +attentions to a—an Alp like that?”</p> +<p>“Only in one way,” replied Glenalmond. +“Only by obedience, punctual, prompt, and +scrupulous.”</p> +<p>“And I promise that he shall have it,” answered +Archie. “I offer you my hand in pledge of +it.”</p> +<p>“And I take your hand as a solemnity,” replied the +judge. “God bless you, my dear, and enable you to +keep your promise. God guide you in the true way, and spare +your days, and preserve to you your honest heart.” At that, +he kissed the young man upon the forehead in a gracious, distant, +antiquated way; and instantly launched, with a marked change of +voice, into another subject. “And now, let us +replenish the tankard; and I believe if you will try my Cheddar +again, you would find you had a better appetite. The Court +has spoken, and the case is dismissed.”</p> +<p>“No, there is one thing I must say,” cried +Archie. “I must say it in justice to himself. I +know—I believe faithfully, slavishly, after our +talk—he will never ask me anything unjust. I am proud +to feel it, that we have that much in common, I am proud to say +it to you.”</p> +<p>The Judge, with shining eyes, raised his tankard. +“And I think perhaps that we might permit ourselves a +toast,” said he. “I should like to propose the +health of a man very different from me and very much my +superior—a man from whom I have often differed, who has +often (in the trivial expression) rubbed me the wrong way, but +whom I have never ceased to respect and, I may add, to be not a +little afraid of. Shall I give you his name?”</p> +<p>“The Lord Justice-Clerk, Lord Hermiston,” said +Archie, almost with gaiety; and the pair drank the toast +deeply.</p> +<p>It was not precisely easy to re-establish, after these +emotional passages, the natural flow of conversation. But +the Judge eked out what was wanting with kind looks, produced his +snuff-box (which was very rarely seen) to fill in a pause, and at +last, despairing of any further social success, was upon the +point of getting down a book to read a favourite passage, when +there came a rather startling summons at the front door, and +Carstairs ushered in my Lord Glenkindie, hot from a midnight +supper. I am not aware that Glenkindie was ever a beautiful +object, being short, and gross-bodied, and with an expression of +sensuality comparable to a bear’s. At that moment, +coming in hissing from many potations, with a flushed countenance +and blurred eyes, he was strikingly contrasted with the tall, +pale, kingly figure of Glenalmond. A rush of confused +thought came over Archie—of shame that this was one of his +father’s elect friends; of pride, that at the least of it +Hermiston could carry his liquor; and last of all, of rage, that +he should have here under his eyes the man that had betrayed +him. And then that too passed away; and he sat quiet, +biding his opportunity.</p> +<p>The tipsy senator plunged at once into an explanation with +Glenalmond. There was a point reserved yesterday, he had +been able to make neither head nor tail of it, and seeing lights +in the house, he had just dropped in for a glass of +porter—and at this point he became aware of the third +person. Archie saw the cod’s mouth and the blunt lips +of Glenkindie gape at him for a moment, and the recognition +twinkle in his eyes.</p> +<p>“Who’s this?” said he. “What? is +this possibly you, Don Quickshot? And how are ye? And +how’s your father? And what’s all this we hear +of you? It seems you’re a most extraordinary leveller, by +all tales. No king, no parliaments, and your gorge rises at +the macers, worthy men! Hoot, toot! Dear, dear +me! Your father’s son too! Most +rideeculous!”</p> +<p>Archie was on his feet, flushing a little at the reappearance +of his unhappy figure of speech, but perfectly +self-possessed. “My lord—and you, Lord +Glenalmond, my dear friend,” he began, “this is a +happy chance for me, that I can make my confession and offer my +apologies to two of you at once.”</p> +<p>“Ah, but I don’t know about that. +Confession? It’ll be judeecial, my young +friend,” cried the jocular Glenkindie. “And +I’m afraid to listen to ye. Think if ye were to make +me a coanvert!”</p> +<p>“If you would allow me, my lord,” returned Archie, +“what I have to say is very serious to me; and be pleased +to be humorous after I am gone!”</p> +<p>“Remember, I’ll hear nothing against the +macers!” put in the incorrigible Glenkindie.</p> +<p>But Archie continued as though he had not spoken. +“I have played, both yesterday and to-day, a part for which +I can only offer the excuse of youth. I was so unwise as to +go to an execution; it seems I made a scene at the gallows; not +content with which, I spoke the same night in a college society +against capital punishment. This is the extent of what I +have done, and in case you hear more alleged against me, I +protest my innocence. I have expressed my regret already to +my father, who is so good as to pass my conduct over—in a +degree, and upon the condition that I am to leave my law +studies.” . . .</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V—WINTER ON THE MOORS</h2> +<h3>I. At Hermiston</h3> +<p>The road to Hermiston runs for a great part of the way up the +valley of a stream, a favourite with anglers and with midges, +full of falls and pools, and shaded by willows and natural woods +of birch. Here and there, but at great distances, a byway +branches off, and a gaunt farmhouse may be descried above in a +fold of the hill; but the more part of the time, the road would +be quite empty of passage and the hills of habitation. +Hermiston parish is one of the least populous in Scotland; and, +by the time you came that length, you would scarce be surprised +at the inimitable smallness of the kirk, a dwarfish, ancient +place seated for fifty, and standing in a green by the burn-side +among two-score gravestones. The manse close by, although +no more than a cottage, is surrounded by the brightness of a +flower-garden and the straw roofs of bees; and the whole colony, +kirk and manse, garden and graveyard, finds harbourage in a grove +of rowans, and is all the year round in a great silence broken +only by the drone of the bees, the tinkle of the burn, and the +bell on Sundays. A mile beyond the kirk the road leaves the +valley by a precipitous ascent, and brings you a little after to +the place of Hermiston, where it comes to an end in the back-yard +before the coach-house. All beyond and about is the great +field, of the hills; the plover, the curlew, and the lark cry +there; the wind blows as it blows in a ship’s rigging, hard +and cold and pure; and the hill-tops huddle one behind another +like a herd of cattle into the sunset.</p> +<p>The house was sixty years old, unsightly, comfortable; a +farmyard and a kitchen-garden on the left, with a fruit wall +where little hard green pears came to their maturity about the +end of October.</p> +<p>The policy (as who should say the park) was of some extent, +but very ill reclaimed; heather and moorfowl had crossed the +boundary wall and spread and roosted within; and it would have +tasked a landscape gardener to say where policy ended and +unpolicied nature began. My lord had been led by the +influence of Mr. Sheriff Scott into a considerable design of +planting; many acres were accordingly set out with fir, and the +little feathery besoms gave a false scale and lent a strange air +of a toy-shop to the moors. A great, rooty sweetness of +bogs was in the air, and at all seasons an infinite melancholy +piping of hill birds. Standing so high and with so little +shelter, it was a cold, exposed house, splashed by showers, +drenched by continuous rains that made the gutters to spout, +beaten upon and buffeted by all the winds of heaven; and the +prospect would be often black with tempest, and often white with +the snows of winter. But the house was wind and weather +proof, the hearths were kept bright, and the rooms pleasant with +live fires of peat; and Archie might sit of an evening and hear +the squalls bugle on the moorland, and watch the fire prosper in +the earthy fuel, and the smoke winding up the chimney, and drink +deep of the pleasures of shelter.</p> +<p>Solitary as the place was, Archie did not want +neighbours. Every night, if he chose, he might go down to +the manse and share a “brewst” of toddy with the +minister—a hare-brained ancient gentleman, long and light +and still active, though his knees were loosened with age, and +his voice broke continually in childish trebles—and his +lady wife, a heavy, comely dame, without a word to say for +herself beyond good-even and good-day. Harum-scarum, +clodpole young lairds of the neighbourhood paid him the +compliment of a visit. Young Hay of Romanes rode down to +call, on his crop-eared pony; young Pringle of Drumanno came up +on his bony grey. Hay remained on the hospitable field, and +must be carried to bed; Pringle got somehow to his saddle about 3 +A.M., and (as Archie stood with the lamp on the upper doorstep) +lurched, uttered a senseless view-holloa, and vanished out of the +small circle of illumination like a wraith. Yet a minute or +two longer the clatter of his break-neck flight was audible, then +it was cut off by the intervening steepness of the hill; and +again, a great while after, the renewed beating of phantom +horse-hoofs, far in the valley of the Hermiston, showed that the +horse at least, if not his rider, was still on the homeward +way.</p> +<p>There was a Tuesday club at the “Cross-keys” in +Crossmichael, where the young bloods of the country-side +congregated and drank deep on a percentage of the expense, so +that he was left gainer who should have drunk the most. +Archie had no great mind to this diversion, but he took it like a +duty laid upon him, went with a decent regularity, did his +manfullest with the liquor, held up his head in the local jests, +and got home again and was able to put up his horse, to the +admiration of Kirstie and the lass that helped her. He +dined at Driffel, supped at Windielaws. He went to the new +year’s ball at Huntsfield and was made welcome, and +thereafter rode to hounds with my Lord Muirfell, upon whose name, +as that of a legitimate Lord of Parliament, in a work so full of +Lords of Session, my pen should pause reverently. Yet the +same fate attended him here as in Edinburgh. The habit of +solitude tends to perpetuate itself, and an austerity of which he +was quite unconscious, and a pride which seemed arrogance, and +perhaps was chiefly shyness, discouraged and offended his new +companions. Hay did not return more than twice, Pringle +never at all, and there came a time when Archie even desisted +from the Tuesday Club, and became in all things—what he had +had the name of almost from the first—the Recluse of +Hermiston. High-nosed Miss Pringle of Drumanno and +high-stepping Miss Marshall of the Mains were understood to have +had a difference of opinion about him the day after the +ball—he was none the wiser, he could not suppose himself to +be remarked by these entrancing ladies. At the ball itself +my Lord Muirfell’s daughter, the Lady Flora, spoke to him +twice, and the second time with a touch of appeal, so that her +colour rose and her voice trembled a little in his ear, like a +passing grace in music. He stepped back with a heart on +fire, coldly and not ungracefully excused himself, and a little +after watched her dancing with young Drumanno of the empty laugh, +and was harrowed at the sight, and raged to himself that this was +a world in which it was given to Drumanno to please, and to +himself only to stand aside and envy. He seemed excluded, +as of right, from the favour of such society—seemed to +extinguish mirth wherever he came, and was quick to feel the +wound, and desist, and retire into solitude. If he had but +understood the figure he presented, and the impression he made on +these bright eyes and tender hearts; if he had but guessed that +the Recluse of Hermiston, young, graceful, well spoken, but +always cold, stirred the maidens of the county with the charm of +Byronism when Byronism was new, it may be questioned whether his +destiny might not even yet have been modified. It may be +questioned, and I think it should be doubted. It was in his +horoscope to be parsimonious of pain to himself, or of the chance +of pain, even to the avoidance of any opportunity of pleasure; to +have a Roman sense of duty, an instinctive aristocracy of manners +and taste; to be the son of Adam Weir and Jean Rutherford.</p> +<h3>2. Kirstie</h3> +<p>Kirstie was now over fifty, and might have sat to a +sculptor. Long of limb, and still light of foot, +deep-breasted, robust-loined, her golden hair not yet mingled +with any trace of silver, the years had but caressed and +embellished her. By the lines of a rich and vigorous +maternity, she seemed destined to be the bride of heroes and the +mother of their children; and behold, by the iniquity of fate, +she had passed through her youth alone, and drew near to the +confines of age, a childless woman. The tender ambitions +that she had received at birth had been, by time and +disappointment, diverted into a certain barren zeal of industry +and fury of interference. She carried her thwarted ardours +into housework, she washed floors with her empty heart. If +she could not win the love of one with love, she must dominate +all by her temper. Hasty, wordy, and wrathful, she had a +drawn quarrel with most of her neighbours, and with the others +not much more than armed neutrality. The grieve’s +wife had been “sneisty”; the sister of the gardener +who kept house for him had shown herself “upsitten”; +and she wrote to Lord Hermiston about once a year demanding the +discharge of the offenders, and justifying the demand by much +wealth of detail. For it must not be supposed that the +quarrel rested with the wife and did not take in the husband +also—or with the gardener’s sister, and did not +speedily include the gardener himself. As the upshot of all +this petty quarrelling and intemperate speech, she was +practically excluded (like a lightkeeper on his tower) from the +comforts of human association; except with her own indoor drudge, +who, being but a lassie and entirely at her mercy, must submit to +the shifty weather of “the mistress’s” moods +without complaint, and be willing to take buffets or caresses +according to the temper of the hour. To Kirstie, thus +situate and in the Indian summer of her heart, which was slow to +submit to age, the gods sent this equivocal good thing of +Archie’s presence. She had known him in the cradle +and paddled him when he misbehaved; and yet, as she had not so +much as set eyes on him since he was eleven and had his last +serious illness, the tall, slender, refined, and rather +melancholy young gentleman of twenty came upon her with the shock +of a new acquaintance. He was “Young +Hermiston,” “the laird himsel’”: he had +an air of distinctive superiority, a cold straight glance of his +black eyes, that abashed the woman’s tantrums in the +beginning, and therefore the possibility of any quarrel was +excluded. He was new, and therefore immediately aroused her +curiosity; he was reticent, and kept it awake. And lastly +he was dark and she fair, and he was male and she female, the +everlasting fountains of interest.</p> +<p>Her feeling partook of the loyalty of a clanswoman, the +hero-worship of a maiden aunt, and the idolatry due to a +god. No matter what he had asked of her, ridiculous or +tragic, she would have done it and joyed to do it. Her +passion, for it was nothing less, entirely filled her. It +was a rich physical pleasure to make his bed or light his lamp +for him when he was absent, to pull off his wet boots or wait on +him at dinner when he returned. A young man who should have +so doted on the idea, moral and physical, of any woman, might be +properly described as being in love, head and heels, and would +have behaved himself accordingly. But Kirstie—though +her heart leaped at his coming footsteps—though, when he +patted her shoulder, her face brightened for the day—had +not a hope or thought beyond the present moment and its +perpetuation to the end of time. Till the end of time she +would have had nothing altered, but still continue delightedly to +serve her idol, and be repaid (say twice in the month) with a +clap on the shoulder.</p> +<p>I have said her heart leaped—it is the accepted +phrase. But rather, when she was alone in any chamber of +the house, and heard his foot passing on the corridors, something +in her bosom rose slowly until her breath was suspended, and as +slowly fell again with a deep sigh, when the steps had passed and +she was disappointed of her eyes’ desire. This +perpetual hunger and thirst of his presence kept her all day on +the alert. When he went forth at morning, she would stand +and follow him with admiring looks. As it grew late and +drew to the time of his return, she would steal forth to a corner +of the policy wall and be seen standing there sometimes by the +hour together, gazing with shaded eyes, waiting the exquisite and +barren pleasure of his view a mile off on the mountains. +When at night she had trimmed and gathered the fire, turned down +his bed, and laid out his night-gear—when there was no more +to be done for the king’s pleasure, but to remember him +fervently in her usually very tepid prayers, and go to bed +brooding upon his perfections, his future career, and what she +should give him the next day for dinner—there still +remained before her one more opportunity; she was still to take +in the tray and say good-night. Sometimes Archie would +glance up from his book with a preoccupied nod and a perfunctory +salutation which was in truth a dismissal; sometimes—and by +degrees more often—the volume would be laid aside, he would +meet her coming with a look of relief; and the conversation would +be engaged, last out the supper, and be prolonged till the small +hours by the waning fire. It was no wonder that Archie was +fond of company after his solitary days; and Kirstie, upon her +side, exerted all the arts of her vigorous nature to ensnare his +attention. She would keep back some piece of news during +dinner to be fired off with the entrance of the supper tray, and +form as it were the <i>lever de rideau</i> of the evening’s +entertainment. Once he had heard her tongue wag, she made +sure of the result. From one subject to another she moved +by insidious transitions, fearing the least silence, fearing +almost to give him time for an answer lest it should slip into a +hint of separation. Like so many people of her class, she +was a brave narrator; her place was on the hearth-rug and she +made it a rostrum, mimeing her stories as she told them, fitting +them with vital detail, spinning them out with endless +“quo’ he’s” and “quo’ +she’s,” her voice sinking into a whisper over the +supernatural or the horrific; until she would suddenly spring up +in affected surprise, and pointing to the clock, “Mercy, +Mr. Archie!” she would say, “whatten a time o’ +night is this of it! God forgive me for a daft +wife!” So it befell, by good management, that she was +not only the first to begin these nocturnal conversations, but +invariably the first to break them off; so she managed to retire +and not to be dismissed.</p> +<h3>3. A Border Family</h3> +<p>Such an unequal intimacy has never been uncommon in Scotland, +where the clan spirit survives; where the servant tends to spend +her life in the same service, a helpmeet at first, then a tyrant, +and at last a pensioner; where, besides, she is not necessarily +destitute of the pride of birth, but is, perhaps, like Kirstie, a +connection of her master’s, and at least knows the legend +of her own family, and may count kinship with some illustrious +dead. For that is the mark of the Scot of all classes: that +he stands in an attitude towards the past unthinkable to +Englishmen, and remembers and cherishes the memory of his +forebears, good or bad; and there burns alive in him a sense of +identity with the dead even to the twentieth generation. No +more characteristic instance could be found than in the family of +Kirstie Elliott. They were all, and Kirstie the first of +all, ready and eager to pour forth the particulars of their +genealogy, embellished with every detail that memory had handed +down or fancy fabricated; and, behold! from every ramification of +that tree there dangled a halter. The Elliotts themselves +have had a chequered history; but these Elliotts deduced, +besides, from three of the most unfortunate of the border +clans—the Nicksons, the Ellwalds, and the Crozers. +One ancestor after another might be seen appearing a moment out +of the rain and the hill mist upon his furtive business, speeding +home, perhaps, with a paltry booty of lame horses and lean kine, +or squealing and dealing death in some moorland feud of the +ferrets and the wild cats. One after another closed his +obscure adventures in mid-air, triced up to the arm of the royal +gibbet or the Baron’s dule-tree. For the rusty +blunderbuss of Scots criminal justice, which usually hurt nobody +but jurymen, became a weapon of precision for the Nicksons, the +Ellwalds, and the Crozers. The exhilaration of their +exploits seemed to haunt the memories of their descendants alone, +and the shame to be forgotten. Pride glowed in their bosoms +to publish their relationship to “Andrew Ellwald of the +Laverockstanes, called ‘Unchancy Dand,’ who was +justifeed wi’ seeven mair of the same name at Jeddart in +the days of King James the Sax.” In all this tissue +of crime and misfortune, the Elliotts of Cauldstaneslap had one +boast which must appear legitimate: the males were gallows-birds, +born outlaws, petty thieves, and deadly brawlers; but, according +to the same tradition, the females were all chaste and +faithful. The power of ancestry on the character is not +limited to the inheritance of cells. If I buy ancestors by +the gross from the benevolence of Lyon King of Arms, my grandson +(if he is Scottish) will feel a quickening emulation of their +deeds. The men of the Elliotts were proud, lawless, violent +as of right, cherishing and prolonging a tradition. In like +manner with the women. And the woman, essentially +passionate and reckless, who crouched on the rug, in the shine of +the peat fire, telling these tales, had cherished through life a +wild integrity of virtue.</p> +<p>Her father Gilbert had been deeply pious, a savage +disciplinarian in the antique style, and withal a notorious +smuggler. “I mind when I was a bairn getting mony a +skelp and being shoo’d to bed like pou’try,” +she would say. “That would be when the lads and their +bit kegs were on the road. We’ve had the riffraff of +two-three counties in our kitchen, mony’s the time, +betwix’ the twelve and the three; and their lanterns would +be standing in the forecourt, ay, a score o’ them at +once. But there was nae ungodly talk permitted at +Cauldstaneslap. My faither was a consistent man in walk and +conversation; just let slip an aith, and there was the door to +ye! He had that zeal for the Lord, it was a fair wonder to +hear him pray, but the family has aye had a gift that way.” +This father was twice married, once to a dark woman of the old +Ellwald stock, by whom he had Gilbert, presently of +Cauldstaneslap; and, secondly, to the mother of Kirstie. +“He was an auld man when he married her, a fell auld man +wi’ a muckle voice—you could hear him rowting from +the top o’ the Kye-skairs,” she said; “but for +her, it appears she was a perfit wonder. It was gentle +blood she had, Mr. Archie, for it was your ain. The +country-side gaed gyte about her and her gowden hair. Mines +is no to be mentioned wi’ it, and there’s few weemen +has mair hair than what I have, or yet a bonnier colour. +Often would I tell my dear Miss Jeannie—that was your +mother, dear, she was cruel ta’en up about her hair, it was +unco’ tender, ye see—‘Houts, Miss +Jeannie,’ I would say, ‘just fling your washes and +your French dentifrishes in the back o’ the fire, for +that’s the place for them; and awa’ down to a burn +side, and wash yersel’ in cauld hill water, and dry your +bonny hair in the caller wind o’ the muirs, the way that my +mother aye washed hers, and that I have aye made it a practice to +have wishen mines—just you do what I tell ye, my dear, and +ye’ll give me news of it! Ye’ll have hair, and +routh of hair, a pigtail as thick’s my arm,’ I said, +‘and the bonniest colour like the clear gowden guineas, so +as the lads in kirk’ll no can keep their eyes off +it!’ Weel, it lasted out her time, puir thing! +I cuttit a lock of it upon her corp that was lying there sae +cauld. I’ll show it ye some of thir days if +ye’re good. But, as I was sayin’, my +mither—”</p> +<p>On the death of the father there remained golden-haired +Kirstie, who took service with her distant kinsfolk, the +Rutherfords, and black-a-vised Gilbert, twenty years older, who +farmed the Cauldstaneslap, married, and begot four sons between +1773 and 1784, and a daughter, like a postscript, in ’97, +the year of Camperdown and Cape St. Vincent. It seemed it +was a tradition in the family to wind up with a belated +girl. In 1804, at the age of sixty, Gilbert met an end that +might be called heroic. He was due home from market any +time from eight at night till five in the morning, and in any +condition from the quarrelsome to the speechless, for he +maintained to that age the goodly customs of the Scots +farmer. It was known on this occasion that he had a good +bit of money to bring home; the word had gone round +loosely. The laird had shown his guineas, and if anybody +had but noticed it, there was an ill-looking, vagabond crew, the +scum of Edinburgh, that drew out of the market long ere it was +dusk and took the hill-road by Hermiston, where it was not to be +believed that they had lawful business. One of the +country-side, one Dickieson, they took with them to be their +guide, and dear he paid for it! Of a sudden in the ford of +the Broken Dykes, this vermin clan fell on the laird, six to one, +and him three parts asleep, having drunk hard. But it is +ill to catch an Elliott. For a while, in the night and the +black water that was deep as to his saddle-girths, he wrought +with his staff like a smith at his stithy, and great was the +sound of oaths and blows. With that the ambuscade was +burst, and he rode for home with a pistol-ball in him, three +knife wounds, the loss of his front teeth, a broken rib and +bridle, and a dying horse. That was a race with death that +the laird rode! In the mirk night, with his broken bridle +and his head swimming, he dug his spurs to the rowels in the +horse’s side, and the horse, that was even worse off than +himself, the poor creature! screamed out loud like a person as he +went, so that the hills echoed with it, and the folks at +Cauldstaneslap got to their feet about the table and looked at +each other with white faces. The horse fell dead at the +yard gate, the laird won the length of the house and fell there +on the threshold. To the son that raised him he gave the +bag of money. “Hae,” said he. All the way +up the thieves had seemed to him to be at his heels, but now the +hallucination left him—he saw them again in the place of +the ambuscade—and the thirst of vengeance seized on his +dying mind. Raising himself and pointing with an imperious +finger into the black night from which he had come, he uttered +the single command, “Brocken Dykes,” and +fainted. He had never been loved, but he had been feared in +honour. At that sight, at that word, gasped out at them +from a toothless and bleeding mouth, the old Elliott spirit awoke +with a shout in the four sons. “Wanting the +hat,” continues my author, Kirstie, whom I but haltingly +follow, for she told this tale like one inspired, “wanting +guns, for there wasna twa grains o’ pouder in the house, +wi’ nae mair weepons than their sticks into their hands, +the fower o’ them took the road. Only Hob, and that +was the eldest, hunkered at the doorsill where the blood had rin, +fyled his hand wi’ it—and haddit it up to Heeven in +the way o’ the auld Border aith. ‘Hell shall +have her ain again this nicht!’ he raired, and rode forth +upon his earrand.” It was three miles to Broken +Dykes, down hill, and a sore road. Kirstie has seen men +from Edinburgh dismounting there in plain day to lead their +horses. But the four brothers rode it as if Auld Hornie +were behind and Heaven in front. Come to the ford, and +there was Dickieson. By all tales, he was not dead, but +breathed and reared upon his elbow, and cried out to them for +help. It was at a graceless face that he asked mercy. +As soon as Hob saw, by the glint of the lantern, the eyes shining +and the whiteness of the teeth in the man’s face, +“Damn you!” says he; “ye hae your teeth, hae +ye?” and rode his horse to and fro upon that human +remnant. Beyond that, Dandie must dismount with the lantern +to be their guide; he was the youngest son, scarce twenty at the +time. “A’ nicht long they gaed in the wet heath +and jennipers, and whaur they gaed they neither knew nor cared, +but just followed the bluid stains and the footprints o’ +their faither’s murderers. And a’ nicht Dandie +had his nose to the grund like a tyke, and the ithers followed +and spak’ naething, neither black nor white. There +was nae noise to be heard, but just the sough of the swalled +burns, and Hob, the dour yin, risping his teeth as he +gaed.” With the first glint of the morning they saw they +were on the drove road, and at that the four stopped and had a +dram to their breakfasts, for they knew that Dand must have +guided them right, and the rogues could be but little ahead, hot +foot for Edinburgh by the way of the Pentland Hills. By +eight o’clock they had word of them—a shepherd had +seen four men “uncoly mishandled” go by in the last +hour. “That’s yin a piece,” says Clem, +and swung his cudgel. “Five o’ them!” +says Hob. “God’s death, but the faither was a +man! And him drunk!” And then there befell them +what my author termed “a sair misbegowk,” for they +were overtaken by a posse of mounted neighbours come to aid in +the pursuit. Four sour faces looked on the +reinforcement. “The Deil’s broughten +you!” said Clem, and they rode thenceforward in the rear of +the party with hanging heads. Before ten they had found and +secured the rogues, and by three of the afternoon, as they rode +up the Vennel with their prisoners, they were aware of a +concourse of people bearing in their midst something that +dripped. “For the boady of the saxt,” pursued +Kirstie, “wi’ his head smashed like a hazelnit, had +been a’ that nicht in the chairge o’ Hermiston Water, +and it dunting it on the stanes, and grunding it on the shallows, +and flinging the deid thing heels-ower-hurdie at the Fa’s +o’ Spango; and in the first o’ the day, Tweed had got +a hold o’ him and carried him off like a wind, for it was +uncoly swalled, and raced wi’ him, bobbing under +brae-sides, and was long playing with the creature in the drumlie +lynns under the castle, and at the hinder end of all cuist him up +on the starling of Crossmichael brig. Sae there they were +a’thegither at last (for Dickieson had been brought in on a +cart long syne), and folk could see what mainner o’man my +brither had been that had held his head again sax and saved the +siller, and him drunk!” Thus died of honourable +injuries and in the savour of fame Gilbert Elliott of the +Cauldstaneslap; but his sons had scarce less glory out of the +business. Their savage haste, the skill with which Dand had +found and followed the trail, the barbarity to the wounded +Dickieson (which was like an open secret in the county), and the +doom which it was currently supposed they had intended for the +others, struck and stirred popular imagination. Some +century earlier the last of the minstrels might have fashioned +the last of the ballads out of that Homeric fight and chase; but +the spirit was dead, or had been reincarnated already in Mr. +Sheriff Scott, and the degenerate moorsmen must be content to +tell the tale in prose, and to make of the “Four Black +Brothers” a unit after the fashion of the “Twelve +Apostles” or the “Three Musketeers.”</p> +<p>Robert, Gilbert, Clement, and Andrew—in the proper +Border diminutives, Hob, Gib, Clem, and Dand Elliott—these +ballad heroes, had much in common; in particular, their high +sense of the family and the family honour; but they went diverse +ways, and prospered and failed in different businesses. +According to Kirstie, “they had a’ bees in their +bonnets but Hob.” Hob the laird was, indeed, +essentially a decent man. An elder of the Kirk, nobody had +heard an oath upon his lips, save perhaps thrice or so at the +sheep-washing, since the chase of his father’s +murderers. The figure he had shown on that eventful night +disappeared as if swallowed by a trap. He who had +ecstatically dipped his hand in the red blood, he who had ridden +down Dickieson, became, from that moment on, a stiff and rather +graceless model of the rustic proprieties; cannily profiting by +the high war prices, and yearly stowing away a little nest-egg in +the bank against calamity; approved of and sometimes consulted by +the greater lairds for the massive and placid sense of what he +said, when he could be induced to say anything; and particularly +valued by the minister, Mr. Torrance, as a right-hand man in the +parish, and a model to parents. The transfiguration had +been for the moment only; some Barbarossa, some old Adam of our +ancestors, sleeps in all of us till the fit circumstance shall +call it into action; and, for as sober as he now seemed, Hob had +given once for all the measure of the devil that haunted +him. He was married, and, by reason of the effulgence of +that legendary night, was adored by his wife. He had a mob +of little lusty, barefoot children who marched in a caravan the +long miles to school, the stages of whose pilgrimage were marked +by acts of spoliation and mischief, and who were qualified in the +country-side as “fair pests.” But in the house, +if “faither was in,” they were quiet as mice. +In short, Hob moved through life in a great peace—the +reward of any one who shall have killed his man, with any +formidable and figurative circumstance, in the midst of a country +gagged and swaddled with civilisation.</p> +<p>It was a current remark that the Elliotts were “guid and +bad, like sanguishes”; and certainly there was a curious +distinction, the men of business coming alternately with the +dreamers. The second brother, Gib, was a weaver by trade, +had gone out early into the world to Edinburgh, and come home +again with his wings singed. There was an exaltation in his +nature which had led him to embrace with enthusiasm the +principles of the French Revolution, and had ended by bringing +him under the hawse of my Lord Hermiston in that furious +onslaught of his upon the Liberals, which sent Muir and Palmer +into exile and dashed the party into chaff. It was +whispered that my lord, in his great scorn for the movement, and +prevailed upon a little by a sense of neighbourliness, had given +Gib a hint. Meeting him one day in the Potterrow, my lord +had stopped in front of him: “Gib, ye eediot,” he had +said, “what’s this I hear of you? Poalitics, +poalitics, poalitics, weaver’s poalitics, is the way of it, +I hear. If ye arena a’thegither dozened with cediocy, +ye’ll gang your ways back to Cauldstaneslap, and ca’ +your loom, and ca’ your loom, man!” And Gilbert had +taken him at the word and returned, with an expedition almost to +be called flight, to the house of his father. The clearest +of his inheritance was that family gift of prayer of which +Kirstie had boasted; and the baffled politician now turned his +attention to religious matters—or, as others said, to +heresy and schism. Every Sunday morning he was in +Crossmichael, where he had gathered together, one by one, a sect +of about a dozen persons, who called themselves +“God’s Remnant of the True Faithful,” or, for +short, “God’s Remnant.” To the profane, they +were known as “Gib’s Deils.” Bailie +Sweedie, a noted humorist in the town, vowed that the proceedings +always opened to the tune of “The Deil Fly Away with the +Exciseman,” and that the sacrament was dispensed in the +form of hot whisky-toddy; both wicked hits at the evangelist, who +had been suspected of smuggling in his youth, and had been +overtaken (as the phrase went) on the streets of Crossmichael one +Fair day. It was known that every Sunday they prayed for a +blessing on the arms of Bonaparte. For this +“God’s Remnant,” as they were +“skailing” from the cottage that did duty for a +temple, had been repeatedly stoned by the bairns, and Gib himself +hooted by a squadron of Border volunteers in which his own +brother, Dand, rode in a uniform and with a drawn sword. +The “Remnant” were believed, besides, to be +“antinomian in principle,” which might otherwise have +been a serious charge, but the way public opinion then blew it +was quite swallowed up and forgotten in the scandal about +Bonaparte. For the rest, Gilbert had set up his loom in an +outhouse at Cauldstaneslap, where he laboured assiduously six +days of the week. His brothers, appalled by his political +opinions, and willing to avoid dissension in the household, spoke +but little to him; he less to them, remaining absorbed in the +study of the Bible and almost constant prayer. The gaunt +weaver was dry-nurse at Cauldstaneslap, and the bairns loved him +dearly. Except when he was carrying an infant in his arms, +he was rarely seen to smile—as, indeed, there were few +smilers in that family. When his sister-in-law rallied him, +and proposed that he should get a wife and bairns of his own, +since he was so fond of them, “I have no clearness of mind +upon that point,” he would reply. If nobody called +him in to dinner, he stayed out. Mrs. Hob, a hard, +unsympathetic woman, once tried the experiment. He went +without food all day, but at dusk, as the light began to fail +him, he came into the house of his own accord, looking +puzzled. “I’ve had a great gale of prayer upon +my speerit,” said he. “I canna mind sae +muckle’s what I had for denner.” The creed of +God’s Remnant was justified in the life of its +founder. “And yet I dinna ken,” said +Kirstie. “He’s maybe no more stockfish than his +neeghbours! He rode wi’ the rest o’ them, and +had a good stamach to the work, by a’ that I hear! +God’s Remnant! The deil’s clavers! There +wasna muckle Christianity in the way Hob guided Johnny Dickieson, +at the least of it; but Guid kens! Is he a Christian +even? He might be a Mahommedan or a Deevil or a +Fire-worshipper, for what I ken.”</p> +<p>The third brother had his name on a door-plate, no less, in +the city of Glasgow, “Mr. Clement Elliott,” as long +as your arm. In his case, that spirit of innovation which +had shown itself timidly in the case of Hob by the admission of +new manures, and which had run to waste with Gilbert in +subversive politics and heretical religions, bore useful fruit in +many ingenious mechanical improvements. In boyhood, from +his addiction to strange devices of sticks and string, he had +been counted the most eccentric of the family. But that was +all by now; and he was a partner of his firm, and looked to die a +bailie. He too had married, and was rearing a plentiful +family in the smoke and din of Glasgow; he was wealthy, and could +have bought out his brother, the cock-laird, six times over, it +was whispered; and when he slipped away to Cauldstaneslap for a +well-earned holiday, which he did as often as he was able, he +astonished the neighbours with his broadcloth, his beaver hat, +and the ample plies of his neckcloth. Though an eminently +solid man at bottom, after the pattern of Hob, he had contracted +a certain Glasgow briskness and <i>aplomb</i> which set him +off. All the other Elliotts were as lean as a rake, but +Clement was laying on fat, and he panted sorely when he must get +into his boots. Dand said, chuckling: “Ay, Clem has +the elements of a corporation.” “A provost and +corporation,” returned Clem. And his readiness was +much admired.</p> +<p>The fourth brother, Dand, was a shepherd to his trade, and by +starts, when he could bring his mind to it, excelled in the +business. Nobody could train a dog like Dandie; nobody, +through the peril of great storms in the winter time, could do +more gallantly. But if his dexterity were exquisite, his +diligence was but fitful; and he served his brother for bed and +board, and a trifle of pocket-money when he asked for it. +He loved money well enough, knew very well how to spend it, and +could make a shrewd bargain when he liked. But he preferred +a vague knowledge that he was well to windward to any counted +coins in the pocket; he felt himself richer so. Hob would +expostulate: “I’m an amature herd.” Dand +would reply, “I’ll keep your sheep to you when +I’m so minded, but I’ll keep my liberty too. +Thir’s no man can coandescend on what I’m +worth.” Clein would expound to him the miraculous results +of compound interest, and recommend investments. “Ay, +man?” Dand would say; “and do you think, if I took +Hob’s siller, that I wouldna drink it or wear it on the +lassies? And, anyway, my kingdom is no of this world. +Either I’m a poet or else I’m nothing.” +Clem would remind him of old age. “I’ll die +young, like, Robbie Burns,” he would say stoutly. No +question but he had a certain accomplishment in minor +verse. His “Hermiston Burn,” with its pretty +refrain—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I love to gang thinking whaur ye gang +linking,<br /> + Hermiston burn, +in the howe;”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>his “Auld, auld Elliotts, clay-cauld Elliotts, dour, +bauld Elliotts of auld,” and his really fascinating piece +about the Praying Weaver’s Stone, had gained him in the +neighbourhood the reputation, still possible in Scotland, of a +local bard; and, though not printed himself, he was recognised by +others who were and who had become famous. Walter Scott +owed to Dandie the text of the “Raid of Wearie” in +the <i>Minstrelsy</i>; and made him welcome at his house, and +appreciated his talents, such as they were, with all his usual +generosity. The Ettrick Shepherd was his sworn crony; they +would meet, drink to excess, roar out their lyrics in each +other’s faces, and quarrel and make it up again till +bedtime. And besides these recognitions, almost to be +called official, Dandie was made welcome for the sake of his gift +through the farmhouses of several contiguous dales, and was thus +exposed to manifold temptations which he rather sought than +fled. He had figured on the stool of repentance, for once +fulfilling to the letter the tradition of his hero and +model. His humorous verses to Mr. Torrance on that +occasion—“Kenspeckle here my lane I +stand”—unfortunately too indelicate for further +citation, ran through the country like a fiery cross—they +were recited, quoted, paraphrased, and laughed over as far away +as Dumfries on the one hand and Dunbar on the other.</p> +<p>These four brothers were united by a close bond, the bond of +that mutual admiration—or rather mutual +hero-worship—which is so strong among the members of +secluded families who have much ability and little culture. +Even the extremes admired each other. Hob, who had as much +poetry as the tongs, professed to find pleasure in Dand’s +verses; Clem, who had no more religion than Claverhouse, +nourished a heartfelt, at least an open-mouthed, admiration of +Gib’s prayers; and Dandie followed with relish the rise of +Clem’s fortunes. Indulgence followed hard on the +heels of admiration. The laird, Clem, and Dand, who were +Tories and patriots of the hottest quality, excused to +themselves, with a certain bashfulness, the radical and +revolutionary heresies of Gib. By another division of the +family, the laird, Clem, and Gib, who were men exactly virtuous, +swallowed the dose of Dand’s irregularities as a kind of +clog or drawback in the mysterious providence of God affixed to +bards, and distinctly probative of poetical genius. To +appreciate the simplicity of their mutual admiration it was +necessary to hear Clem, arrived upon one of his visits, and +dealing in a spirit of continuous irony with the affairs and +personalities of that great city of Glasgow where he lived and +transacted business. The various personages, ministers of +the church, municipal officers, mercantile big-wigs, whom he had +occasion to introduce, were all alike denigrated, all served but +as reflectors to cast back a flattering side-light on the house +of Cauldstaneslap. The Provost, for whom Clem by exception +entertained a measure of respect, he would liken to Hob. +“He minds me o’ the laird there,” he would +say. “He has some of Hob’s grand, whunstane +sense, and the same way with him of steiking his mouth when +he’s no very pleased.” And Hob, all +unconscious, would draw down his upper lip and produce, as if for +comparison, the formidable grimace referred to. The +unsatisfactory incumbent of St. Enoch’s Kirk was thus +briefly dismissed: “If he had but twa fingers o’ +Gib’s, he would waken them up.” And Gib, honest +man! would look down and secretly smile. Clem was a spy +whom they had sent out into the world of men. He had come +back with the good news that there was nobody to compare with the +Four Black Brothers, no position that they would not adorn, no +official that it would not be well they should replace, no +interest of mankind, secular or spiritual, which would not +immediately bloom under their supervision. The excuse of +their folly is in two words: scarce the breadth of a hair divided +them from the peasantry. The measure of their sense is +this: that these symposia of rustic vanity were kept entirely +within the family, like some secret ancestral practice. To +the world their serious faces were never deformed by the +suspicion of any simper of self-contentment. Yet it was +known. “They hae a guid pride o’ +themsel’s!” was the word in the country-side.</p> +<p>Lastly, in a Border story, there should be added their +“two-names.” Hob was The Laird. +“Roy ne puis, prince ne daigne”; he was the laird of +Cauldstaneslap—say fifty +acres—<i>ipsissimus</i>. Clement was Mr. Elliott, as +upon his door-plate, the earlier Dafty having been discarded as +no longer applicable, and indeed only a reminder of misjudgment +and the imbecility of the public; and the youngest, in honour of +his perpetual wanderings, was known by the sobriquet of Randy +Dand.</p> +<p>It will be understood that not all this information was +communicated by the aunt, who had too much of the family failing +herself to appreciate it thoroughly in others. But as time +went on, Archie began to observe an omission in the family +chronicle.</p> +<p>“Is there not a girl too?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Ay: Kirstie. She was named for me, or my +grandmother at least—it’s the same thing,” +returned the aunt, and went on again about Dand, whom she +secretly preferred by reason of his gallantries.</p> +<p>“But what is your niece like?” said Archie at the +next opportunity.</p> +<p>“Her? As black’s your hat! But I dinna +suppose she would maybe be what you would ca’ +<i>ill-looked</i> a’thegither. Na, she’s a kind +of a handsome jaud—a kind o’ gipsy,” said the +aunt, who had two sets of scales for men and women—or +perhaps it would be more fair to say that she had three, and the +third and the most loaded was for girls.</p> +<p>“How comes it that I never see her in church?” +said Archie.</p> +<p>“’Deed, and I believe she’s in Glesgie with +Clem and his wife. A heap good she’s like to get of +it! I dinna say for men folk, but where weemen folk are +born, there let them bide. Glory to God, I was never +far’er from here than Crossmichael.”</p> +<p>In the meanwhile it began to strike Archie as strange, that +while she thus sang the praises of her kinsfolk, and manifestly +relished their virtues and (I may say) their vices like a thing +creditable to herself, there should appear not the least sign of +cordiality between the house of Hermiston and that of +Cauldstaneslap. Going to church of a Sunday, as the lady +housekeeper stepped with her skirts kilted, three tucks of her +white petticoat showing below, and her best India shawl upon her +back (if the day were fine) in a pattern of radiant dyes, she +would sometimes overtake her relatives preceding her more +leisurely in the same direction. Gib of course was absent: +by skreigh of day he had been gone to Crossmichael and his +fellow-heretics; but the rest of the family would be seen +marching in open order: Hob and Dand, stiff-necked, +straight-backed six-footers, with severe dark faces, and their +plaids about their shoulders; the convoy of children scattering +(in a state of high polish) on the wayside, and every now and +again collected by the shrill summons of the mother; and the +mother herself, by a suggestive circumstance which might have +afforded matter of thought to a more experienced observer than +Archie, wrapped in a shawl nearly identical with Kirstie’s, +but a thought more gaudy and conspicuously newer. At the +sight, Kirstie grew more tall—Kirstie showed her classical +profile, nose in air and nostril spread, the pure blood came in +her cheek evenly in a delicate living pink.</p> +<p>“A braw day to ye, Mistress Elliott,” said she, +and hostility and gentility were nicely mingled in her +tones. “A fine day, mem,” the laird’s +wife would reply with a miraculous curtsey, spreading the while +her plumage—setting off, in other words, and with arts +unknown to the mere man, the pattern of her India shawl. +Behind her, the whole Cauldstaneslap contingent marched in closer +order, and with an indescribable air of being in the presence of +the foe; and while Dandie saluted his aunt with a certain +familiarity as of one who was well in court, Hob marched on in +awful immobility. There appeared upon the face of this +attitude in the family the consequences of some dreadful +feud. Presumably the two women had been principals in the +original encounter, and the laird had probably been drawn into +the quarrel by the ears, too late to be included in the present +skin-deep reconciliation.</p> +<p>“Kirstie,” said Archie one day, “what is +this you have against your family?”</p> +<p>“I dinna complean,” said Kirstie, with a +flush. “I say naething.”</p> +<p>“I see you do not—not even good-day to your own +nephew,” said he.</p> +<p>“I hae naething to be ashamed of,” said she. +“I can say the Lord’s prayer with a good grace. +If Hob was ill, or in preeson or poverty, I would see to him +blithely. But for curtchying and complimenting and +colloguing, thank ye kindly!”</p> +<p>Archie had a bit of a smile: he leaned back in his +chair. “I think you and Mrs. Robert are not very good +friends,” says he slyly, “when you have your India +shawls on?”</p> +<p>She looked upon him in silence, with a sparkling eye but an +indecipherable expression; and that was all that Archie was ever +destined to learn of the battle of the India shawls.</p> +<p>“Do none of them ever come here to see you?” he +inquired.</p> +<p>“Mr. Archie,” said she, “I hope that I ken +my place better. It would be a queer thing, I think, if I +was to clamjamfry up your faither’s house—that I +should say it!—wi’ a dirty, black-a-vised clan, no +ane o’ them it was worth while to mar soap upon but just +mysel’! Na, they’re all damnifeed wi’ the +black Ellwalds. I have nae patience wi’ black +folk.” Then, with a sudden consciousness of the case of +Archie, “No that it maitters for men sae muckle,” she +made haste to add, “but there’s naebody can deny that +it’s unwomanly. Long hair is the ornament o’ +woman ony way; we’ve good warrandise for +that—it’s in the Bible—and wha can doubt that +the Apostle had some gowden-haired lassie in his +mind—Apostle and all, for what was he but just a man like +yersel’?”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI—A LEAF FROM CHRISTINA’S +PSALM-BOOK</h2> +<p>Archie was sedulous at church. Sunday after Sunday he +sat down and stood up with that small company, heard the voice of +Mr. Torrance leaping like an ill-played clarionet from key to +key, and had an opportunity to study his moth-eaten gown and the +black thread mittens that he joined together in prayer, and +lifted up with a reverent solemnity in the act of +benediction. Hermiston pew was a little square box, +dwarfish in proportion with the kirk itself, and enclosing a +table not much bigger than a footstool. There sat Archie, +an apparent prince, the only undeniable gentleman and the only +great heritor in the parish, taking his ease in the only pew, for +no other in the kirk had doors. Thence he might command an +undisturbed view of that congregation of solid plaided men, +strapping wives and daughters, oppressed children, and uneasy +sheep-dogs. It was strange how Archie missed the look of +race; except the dogs, with their refined foxy faces and +inimitably curling tails, there was no one present with the least +claim to gentility. The Cauldstaneslap party was scarcely +an exception; Dandie perhaps, as he amused himself making verses +through the interminable burden of the service, stood out a +little by the glow in his eye and a certain superior animation of +face and alertness of body; but even Dandie slouched like a +rustic. The rest of the congregation, like so many sheep, +oppressed him with a sense of hob-nailed routine, day following +day—of physical labour in the open air, oatmeal porridge, +peas bannock the somnolent fireside in the evening, and the +night-long nasal slumbers in a box-bed. Yet he knew many of +them to be shrewd and humorous, men of character, notable women, +making a bustle in the world and radiating an influence from +their low-browed doors. He knew besides they were like +other men; below the crust of custom, rapture found a way; he had +heard them beat the timbrel before Bacchus—had heard them +shout and carouse over their whisky-toddy; and not the most +Dutch-bottomed and severe faces among them all, not even the +solemn elders themselves, but were capable of singular gambols at +the voice of love. Men drawing near to an end of +life’s adventurous journey—maids thrilling with fear +and curiosity on the threshold of entrance—women who had +borne and perhaps buried children, who could remember the +clinging of the small dead hands and the patter of the little +feet now silent—he marvelled that among all those faces +there should be no face of expectation, none that was mobile, +none into which the rhythm and poetry of life had entered. +“O for a live face,” he thought; and at times he had +a memory of Lady Flora; and at times he would study the living +gallery before him with despair, and would see himself go on to +waste his days in that joyless pastoral place, and death come to +him, and his grave be dug under the rowans, and the Spirit of the +Earth laugh out in a thunder-peal at the huge fiasco.</p> +<p>On this particular Sunday, there was no doubt but that the +spring had come at last. It was warm, with a latent shiver +in the air that made the warmth only the more welcome. The +shallows of the stream glittered and tinkled among bunches of +primrose. Vagrant scents of the earth arrested Archie by +the way with moments of ethereal intoxication. The grey +Quakerish dale was still only awakened in places and patches from +the sobriety of its winter colouring; and he wondered at its +beauty; an essential beauty of the old earth it seemed to him, +not resident in particulars but breathing to him from the +whole. He surprised himself by a sudden impulse to write +poetry—he did so sometimes, loose, galloping octo-syllabics +in the vein of Scott—and when he had taken his place on a +boulder, near some fairy falls and shaded by a whip of a tree +that was already radiant with new leaves, it still more surprised +him that he should have nothing to write. His heart perhaps +beat in time to some vast indwelling rhythm of the +universe. By the time he came to a corner of the valley and +could see the kirk, he had so lingered by the way that the first +psalm was finishing. The nasal psalmody, full of turns and +trills and graceless graces, seemed the essential voice of the +kirk itself upraised in thanksgiving, “Everything’s +alive,” he said; and again cries it aloud, “thank +God, everything’s alive!” He lingered yet a +while in the kirk-yard. A tuft of primroses was blooming +hard by the leg of an old black table tombstone, and he stopped +to contemplate the random apologue. They stood forth on the +cold earth with a trenchancy of contrast; and he was struck with +a sense of incompleteness in the day, the season, and the beauty +that surrounded him—the chill there was in the warmth, the +gross black clods about the opening primroses, the damp earthy +smell that was everywhere intermingled with the scents. The +voice of the aged Torrance within rose in an ecstasy. And +he wondered if Torrance also felt in his old bones the joyous +influence of the spring morning; Torrance, or the shadow of what +once was Torrance, that must come so soon to lie outside here in +the sun and rain with all his rheumatisms, while a new minister +stood in his room and thundered from his own familiar +pulpit? The pity of it, and something of the chill of the +grave, shook him for a moment as he made haste to enter.</p> +<p>He went up the aisle reverently, and took his place in the pew +with lowered eyes, for he feared he had already offended the kind +old gentleman in the pulpit, and was sedulous to offend no +further. He could not follow the prayer, not even the heads +of it. Brightnesses of azure, clouds of fragrance, a tinkle +of falling water and singing birds, rose like exhalations from +some deeper, aboriginal memory, that was not his, but belonged to +the flesh on his bones. His body remembered; and it seemed +to him that his body was in no way gross, but ethereal and +perishable like a strain of music; and he felt for it an +exquisite tenderness as for a child, an innocent, full of +beautiful instincts and destined to an early death. And he +felt for old Torrance—of the many supplications, of the few +days—a pity that was near to tears. The prayer +ended. Right over him was a tablet in the wall, the only +ornament in the roughly masoned chapel—for it was no more; +the tablet commemorated, I was about to say the virtues, but +rather the existence of a former Rutherford of Hermiston; and +Archie, under that trophy of his long descent and local +greatness, leaned back in the pew and contemplated vacancy with +the shadow of a smile between playful and sad, that became him +strangely. Dandie’s sister, sitting by the side of +Clem in her new Glasgow finery, chose that moment to observe the +young laird. Aware of the stir of his entrance, the little +formalist had kept her eyes fastened and her face prettily +composed during the prayer. It was not hypocrisy, there was +no one further from a hypocrite. The girl had been taught +to behave: to look up, to look down, to look unconscious, to look +seriously impressed in church, and in every conjuncture to look +her best. That was the game of female life, and she played +it frankly. Archie was the one person in church who was of +interest, who was somebody new, reputed eccentric, known to be +young, and a laird, and still unseen by Christina. Small +wonder that, as she stood there in her attitude of pretty +decency, her mind should run upon him! If he spared a +glance in her direction, he should know she was a well-behaved +young lady who had been to Glasgow. In reason he must +admire her clothes, and it was possible that he should think her +pretty. At that her heart beat the least thing in the +world; and she proceeded, by way of a corrective, to call up and +dismiss a series of fancied pictures of the young man who should +now, by rights, be looking at her. She settled on the +plainest of them,—a pink short young man with a dish face +and no figure, at whose admiration she could afford to smile; but +for all that, the consciousness of his gaze (which was really +fixed on Torrance and his mittens) kept her in something of a +flutter till the word Amen. Even then, she was far too +well-bred to gratify her curiosity with any impatience. She +resumed her seat languidly—this was a Glasgow +touch—she composed her dress, rearranged her nosegay of +primroses, looked first in front, then behind upon the other +side, and at last allowed her eyes to move, without hurry, in the +direction of the Hermiston pew. For a moment, they were +riveted. Next she had plucked her gaze home again like a +tame bird who should have meditated flight. Possibilities +crowded on her; she hung over the future and grew dizzy; the +image of this young man, slim, graceful, dark, with the +inscrutable half-smile, attracted and repelled her like a +chasm. “I wonder, will I have met my fate?” she +thought, and her heart swelled.</p> +<p>Torrance was got some way into his first exposition, positing +a deep layer of texts as he went along, laying the foundations of +his discourse, which was to deal with a nice point in divinity, +before Archie suffered his eyes to wander. They fell first +of all on Clem, looking insupportably prosperous, and patronising +Torrance with the favour of a modified attention, as of one who +was used to better things in Glasgow. Though he had never +before set eyes on him, Archie had no difficulty in identifying +him, and no hesitation in pronouncing him vulgar, the worst of +the family. Clem was leaning lazily forward when Archie +first saw him. Presently he leaned nonchalantly back; and +that deadly instrument, the maiden, was suddenly unmasked in +profile. Though not quite in the front of the fashion (had +anybody cared!), certain artful Glasgow mantua-makers, and her +own inherent taste, had arrayed her to great advantage. Her +accoutrement was, indeed, a cause of heart-burning, and almost of +scandal, in that infinitesimal kirk company. Mrs. Hob had +said her say at Cauldstaneslap. “Daft-like!” +she had pronounced it. “A jaiket that’ll no +meet! Whaur’s the sense of a jaiket that’ll no +button upon you, if it should come to be weet? What do ye +ca’ thir things? Demmy brokens, d’ye say? +They’ll be brokens wi’ a vengeance or ye can win +back! Weel, I have nae thing to do wi’ +it—it’s no good taste.” Clem, whose purse +had thus metamorphosed his sister, and who was not insensible to +the advertisement, had come to the rescue with a “Hoot, +woman! What do you ken of good taste that has never been to +the ceety?” And Hob, looking on the girl with pleased +smiles, as she timidly displayed her finery in the midst of the +dark kitchen, had thus ended the dispute: “The cutty looks +weel,” he had said, “and it’s no very like +rain. Wear them the day, hizzie; but it’s no a thing +to make a practice o’.” In the breasts of her +rivals, coming to the kirk very conscious of white under-linen, +and their faces splendid with much soap, the sight of the toilet +had raised a storm of varying emotion, from the mere unenvious +admiration that was expressed in a long-drawn “Eh!” +to the angrier feeling that found vent in an emphatic “Set +her up!” Her frock was of straw-coloured jaconet +muslin, cut low at the bosom and short at the ankle, so as to +display her <i>demi-broquins</i> of Regency violet, crossing with +many straps upon a yellow cobweb stocking. According to the +pretty fashion in which our grandmothers did not hesitate to +appear, and our great-aunts went forth armed for the pursuit and +capture of our great-uncles, the dress was drawn up so as to +mould the contour of both breasts, and in the nook between, a +cairngorm brooch maintained it. Here, too, surely in a very +enviable position, trembled the nosegay of primroses. She +wore on her shoulders—or rather on her back and not her +shoulders, which it scarcely passed—a French coat of +sarsenet, tied in front with Margate braces, and of the same +colour with her violet shoes. About her face clustered a +disorder of dark ringlets, a little garland of yellow French +roses surmounted her brow, and the whole was crowned by a village +hat of chipped straw. Amongst all the rosy and all the +weathered faces that surrounded her in church, she glowed like an +open flower—girl and raiment, and the cairngorm that caught +the daylight and returned it in a fiery flash, and the threads of +bronze and gold that played in her hair.</p> +<p>Archie was attracted by the bright thing like a child. +He looked at her again and yet again, and their looks +crossed. The lip was lifted from her little teeth. He +saw the red blood work vividly under her tawny skin. Her +eye, which was great as a stag’s, struck and held his +gaze. He knew who she must be—Kirstie, she of the +harsh diminutive, his housekeeper’s niece, the sister of +the rustic prophet, Gib—and he found in her the answer to +his wishes.</p> +<p>Christina felt the shock of their encountering glances, and +seemed to rise, clothed in smiles, into a region of the vague and +bright. But the gratification was not more exquisite than +it was brief. She looked away abruptly, and immediately +began to blame herself for that abruptness. She knew what +she should have done, too late—turned slowly with her nose +in the air. And meantime his look was not removed, but +continued to play upon her like a battery of cannon constantly +aimed, and now seemed to isolate her alone with him, and now +seemed to uplift her, as on a pillory, before the +congregation. For Archie continued to drink her in with his +eyes, even as a wayfarer comes to a well-head on a mountain, and +stoops his face, and drinks with thirst unassuageable. In +the cleft of her little breasts the fiery eye of the topaz and +the pale florets of primrose fascinated him. He saw the +breasts heave, and the flowers shake with the heaving, and +marvelled what should so much discompose the girl. And +Christina was conscious of his gaze—saw it, perhaps, with +the dainty plaything of an ear that peeped among her ringlets; +she was conscious of changing colour, conscious of her unsteady +breath. Like a creature tracked, run down, surrounded, she +sought in a dozen ways to give herself a countenance. She +used her handkerchief—it was a really fine one—then +she desisted in a panic: “He would only think I was too +warm.” She took to reading in the metrical psalms, +and then remembered it was sermon-time. Last she put a +“sugar-bool” in her mouth, and the next moment +repented of the step. It was such a homely-like +thing! Mr. Archie would never be eating sweeties in kirk; +and, with a palpable effort, she swallowed it whole, and her +colour flamed high. At this signal of distress Archie awoke +to a sense of his ill-behaviour. What had he been +doing? He had been exquisitely rude in church to the niece +of his housekeeper; he had stared like a lackey and a libertine +at a beautiful and modest girl. It was possible, it was +even likely, he would be presented to her after service in the +kirk-yard, and then how was he to look? And there was no +excuse. He had marked the tokens of her shame, of her +increasing indignation, and he was such a fool that he had not +understood them. Shame bowed him down, and he looked +resolutely at Mr. Torrance; who little supposed, good, worthy +man, as he continued to expound justification by faith, what was +his true business: to play the part of derivative to a pair of +children at the old game of falling in love.</p> +<p>Christina was greatly relieved at first. It seemed to +her that she was clothed again. She looked back on what had +passed. All would have been right if she had not blushed, a +silly fool! There was nothing to blush at, if she +<i>had</i> taken a sugar-bool. Mrs. MacTaggart, the +elder’s wife in St. Enoch’s, took them often. +And if he had looked at her, what was more natural than that a +young gentleman should look at the best-dressed girl in +church? And at the same time, she knew far otherwise, she +knew there was nothing casual or ordinary in the look, and valued +herself on its memory like a decoration. Well, it was a +blessing he had found something else to look at! And +presently she began to have other thoughts. It was +necessary, she fancied, that she should put herself right by a +repetition of the incident, better managed. If the wish was +father to the thought, she did not know or she would not +recognise it. It was simply as a manœuvre of +propriety, as something called for to lessen the significance of +what had gone before, that she should a second time meet his +eyes, and this time without blushing. And at the memory of +the blush, she blushed again, and became one general blush +burning from head to foot. Was ever anything so indelicate, +so forward, done by a girl before? And here she was, making +an exhibition of herself before the congregation about +nothing! She stole a glance upon her neighbours, and +behold! they were steadily indifferent, and Clem had gone to +sleep. And still the one idea was becoming more and more +potent with her, that in common prudence she must look again +before the service ended. Something of the same sort was +going forward in the mind of Archie, as he struggled with the +load of penitence. So it chanced that, in the flutter of +the moment when the last psalm was given out, and Torrance was +reading the verse, and the leaves of every psalm-book in church +were rustling under busy fingers, two stealthy glances were sent +out like antennæ among the pews and on the indifferent and +absorbed occupants, and drew timidly nearer to the straight line +between Archie and Christina. They met, they lingered +together for the least fraction of time, and that was +enough. A charge as of electricity passed through +Christina, and behold! the leaf of her psalm-book was torn +across.</p> +<p>Archie was outside by the gate of the graveyard, conversing +with Hob and the minister and shaking hands all round with the +scattering congregation, when Clem and Christina were brought up +to be presented. The laird took off his hat and bowed to +her with grace and respect. Christina made her Glasgow +curtsey to the laird, and went on again up the road for Hermiston +and Cauldstaneslap, walking fast, breathing hurriedly with a +heightened colour, and in this strange frame of mind, that when +she was alone she seemed in high happiness, and when any one +addressed her she resented it like a contradiction. A part +of the way she had the company of some neighbour girls and a +loutish young man; never had they seemed so insipid, never had +she made herself so disagreeable. But these struck aside to +their various destinations or were out-walked and left behind; +and when she had driven off with sharp words the proffered convoy +of some of her nephews and nieces, she was free to go on alone up +Hermiston brae, walking on air, dwelling intoxicated among clouds +of happiness. Near to the summit she heard steps behind +her, a man’s steps, light and very rapid. She knew +the foot at once and walked the faster. “If +it’s me he’s wanting, he can run for it,” she +thought, smiling.</p> +<p>Archie overtook her like a man whose mind was made up.</p> +<p>“Miss Kirstie,” he began.</p> +<p>“Miss Christina, if you please, Mr. Weir,” she +interrupted. “I canna bear the +contraction.”</p> +<p>“You forget it has a friendly sound for me. Your +aunt is an old friend of mine, and a very good one. I hope +we shall see much of you at Hermiston?”</p> +<p>“My aunt and my sister-in-law doesna agree very +well. Not that I have much ado with it. But still +when I’m stopping in the house, if I was to be visiting my +aunt, it would not look considerate-like.”</p> +<p>“I am sorry,” said Archie.</p> +<p>“I thank you kindly, Mr. Weir,” she said. +“I whiles think myself it’s a great peety.”</p> +<p>“Ah, I am sure your voice would always be for +peace!” he cried.</p> +<p>“I wouldna be too sure of that,” she said. +“I have my days like other folk, I suppose.”</p> +<p>“Do you know, in our old kirk, among our good old grey +dames, you made an effect like sunshine.”</p> +<p>“Ah, but that would be my Glasgow clothes!”</p> +<p>“I did not think I was so much under the influence of +pretty frocks.”</p> +<p>She smiled with a half look at him. “There’s +more than you!” she said. “But you see +I’m only Cinderella. I’ll have to put all these +things by in my trunk; next Sunday I’ll be as grey as the +rest. They’re Glasgow clothes, you see, and it would +never do to make a practice of it. It would seem terrible +conspicuous.”</p> +<p>By that they were come to the place where their ways +severed. The old grey moors were all about them; in the +midst a few sheep wandered; and they could see on the one hand +the straggling caravan scaling the braes in front of them for +Cauldstaneslap, and on the other, the contingent from Hermiston +bending off and beginning to disappear by detachments into the +policy gate. It was in these circumstances that they turned +to say farewell, and deliberately exchanged a glance as they +shook hands. All passed as it should, genteelly; and in +Christina’s mind, as she mounted the first steep ascent for +Cauldstaneslap, a gratifying sense of triumph prevailed over the +recollection of minor lapses and mistakes. She had kilted +her gown, as she did usually at that rugged pass; but when she +spied Archie still standing and gazing after her, the skirts came +down again as if by enchantment. Here was a piece of nicety +for that upland parish, where the matrons marched with their +coats kilted in the rain, and the lasses walked barefoot to kirk +through the dust of summer, and went bravely down by the +burn-side, and sat on stones to make a public toilet before +entering! It was perhaps an air wafted from Glasgow; or +perhaps it marked a stage of that dizziness of gratified vanity, +in which the instinctive act passed unperceived. He was +looking after! She unloaded her bosom of a prodigious sigh +that was all pleasure, and betook herself to run. When she +had overtaken the stragglers of her family, she caught up the +niece whom she had so recently repulsed, and kissed and slapped +her, and drove her away again, and ran after her with pretty +cries and laughter. Perhaps she thought the laird might +still be looking! But it chanced the little scene came +under the view of eyes less favourable; for she overtook Mrs. Hob +marching with Clem and Dand.</p> +<p>“You’re shürely fey, lass!” quoth +Dandie.</p> +<p>“Think shame to yersel’, miss!” said the +strident Mrs. Hob. “Is this the gait to guide +yersel’ on the way hame frae kirk? You’re +shiirely no sponsible the day! And anyway I would mind my +guid claes.”</p> +<p>“Hoot!” said Christina, and went on before them +head in air, treading the rough track with the tread of a wild +doe.</p> +<p>She was in love with herself, her destiny, the air of the +hills, the benediction of the sun. All the way home, she +continued under the intoxication of these sky-scraping +spirits. At table she could talk freely of young Hermiston; +gave her opinion of him off-hand and with a loud voice, that he +was a handsome young gentleman, real well mannered and +sensible-like, but it was a pity he looked doleful. +Only—the moment after—a memory of his eyes in church +embarrassed her. But for this inconsiderable check, all +through meal-time she had a good appetite, and she kept them +laughing at table, until Gib (who had returned before them from +Crossmichael and his separative worship) reproved the whole of +them for their levity.</p> +<p>Singing “in to herself” as she went, her mind +still in the turmoil of a glad confusion, she rose and tripped +upstairs to a little loft, lighted by four panes in the gable, +where she slept with one of her nieces. The niece, who +followed her, presuming on “Auntie’s” high +spirits, was flounced out of the apartment with small ceremony, +and retired, smarting and half tearful, to bury her woes in the +byre among the hay. Still humming, Christina divested +herself of her finery, and put her treasures one by one in her +great green trunk. The last of these was the psalm-book; it +was a fine piece, the gift of Mistress Clem, in distinct +old-faced type, on paper that had begun to grow foxy in the +warehouse—not by service—and she was used to wrap it +in a handkerchief every Sunday after its period of service was +over, and bury it end-wise at the head of her trunk. As she +now took it in hand the book fell open where the leaf was torn, +and she stood and gazed upon that evidence of her bygone +discomposure. There returned again the vision of the two +brown eyes staring at her, intent and bright, out of that dark +corner of the kirk. The whole appearance and attitude, the +smile, the suggested gesture of young Hermiston came before her +in a flash at the sight of the torn page. “I was +surely fey!” she said, echoing the words of Dandie, and at +the suggested doom her high spirits deserted her. She flung +herself prone upon the bed, and lay there, holding the psalm-book +in her hands for hours, for the more part in a mere stupor of +unconsenting pleasure and unreasoning fear. The fear was +superstitious; there came up again and again in her memory +Dandie’s ill-omened words, and a hundred grisly and black +tales out of the immediate neighbourhood read her a commentary on +their force. The pleasure was never realised. You +might say the joints of her body thought and remembered, and were +gladdened, but her essential self, in the immediate theatre of +consciousness, talked feverishly of something else, like a +nervous person at a fire. The image that she most +complacently dwelt on was that of Miss Christina in her character +of the Fair Lass of Cauldstaneslap, carrying all before her in +the straw-coloured frock, the violet mantle, and the yellow +cobweb stockings. Archie’s image, on the other hand, +when it presented itself was never welcomed—far less +welcomed with any ardour, and it was exposed at times to +merciless criticism. In the long vague dialogues she held +in her mind, often with imaginary, often with unrealised +interlocutors, Archie, if he were referred to at all came in for +savage handling. He was described as “looking like a +stork,” “staring like a caulf,” “a face +like a ghaist’s.” “Do you call that +manners?” she said; or, “I soon put him in his +place.” “‘<i>Miss Christina</i>, <i>if +you please</i>, <i>Mr. Weir</i>!’ says I, and just flyped +up my skirt tails.” With gabble like this she would +entertain herself long whiles together, and then her eye would +perhaps fall on the torn leaf, and the eyes of Archie would +appear again from the darkness of the wall, and the voluble words +deserted her, and she would lie still and stupid, and think upon +nothing with devotion, and be sometimes raised by a quiet +sigh. Had a doctor of medicine come into that loft, he +would have diagnosed a healthy, well-developed, eminently +vivacious lass lying on her face in a fit of the sulks; not one +who had just contracted, or was just contracting, a mortal +sickness of the mind which should yet carry her towards death and +despair. Had it been a doctor of psychology, he might have +been pardoned for divining in the girl a passion of childish +vanity, self-love <i>in excelsis</i>, and no more. It is to +be understood that I have been painting chaos and describing the +inarticulate. Every lineament that appears is too precise, +almost every word used too strong. Take a finger-post in +the mountains on a day of rolling mists; I have but copied the +names that appear upon the pointers, the names of definite and +famous cities far distant, and now perhaps basking in sunshine; +but Christina remained all these hours, as it were, at the foot +of the post itself, not moving, and enveloped in mutable and +blinding wreaths of haze.</p> +<p>The day was growing late and the sunbeams long and level, when +she sat suddenly up, and wrapped in its handkerchief and put by +that psalm-book which had already played a part so decisive in +the first chapter of her love-story. In the absence of the +mesmerist’s eye, we are told nowadays that the head of a +bright nail may fill his place, if it be steadfastly +regarded. So that torn page had riveted her attention on +what might else have been but little, and perhaps soon forgotten; +while the ominous words of Dandie—heard, not heeded, and +still remembered—had lent to her thoughts, or rather to her +mood, a cast of solemnity, and that idea of Fate—a pagan +Fate, uncontrolled by any Christian deity, obscure, lawless, and +august—moving indissuadably in the affairs of Christian +men. Thus even that phenomenon of love at first sight, +which is so rare and seems so simple and violent, like a +disruption of life’s tissue, may be decomposed into a +sequence of accidents happily concurring.</p> +<p>She put on a grey frock and a pink kerchief, looked at herself +a moment with approval in the small square of glass that served +her for a toilet mirror, and went softly downstairs through the +sleeping house that resounded with the sound of afternoon +snoring. Just outside the door, Dandie was sitting with a +book in his hand, not reading, only honouring the Sabbath by a +sacred vacancy of mind. She came near him and stood +still.</p> +<p>“I’m for off up the muirs, Dandie,” she +said.</p> +<p>There was something unusually soft in her tones that made him +look up. She was pale, her eyes dark and bright; no trace +remained of the levity of the morning.</p> +<p>“Ay, lass? Ye’ll have yer ups and downs like +me, I’m thinkin’,” he observed.</p> +<p>“What for do ye say that?” she asked.</p> +<p>“O, for naething,” says Dand. “Only I +think ye’re mair like me than the lave of them. +Ye’ve mair of the poetic temper, tho’ Guid kens +little enough of the poetic taalent. It’s an ill gift +at the best. Look at yoursel’. At denner you +were all sunshine and flowers and laughter, and now you’re +like the star of evening on a lake.”</p> +<p>She drank in this hackneyed compliment like wine, and it +glowed in her veins.</p> +<p>“But I’m saying, Dand”—she came nearer +him—“I’m for the muirs. I must have a +braith of air. If Clem was to be speiring for me, try and +quaiet him, will ye no?”</p> +<p>“What way?” said Dandie. “I ken but +the ae way, and that’s leein’. I’ll say +ye had a sair heid, if ye like.”</p> +<p>“But I havena,” she objected.</p> +<p>“I daursay no,” he returned. “I said I +would say ye had; and if ye like to nay-say me when ye come back, +it’ll no mateerially maitter, for my +chara’ter’s clean gane a’ready past +reca’.”</p> +<p>“O, Dand, are ye a lecar?” she asked, +lingering.</p> +<p>“Folks say sae,” replied the bard.</p> +<p>“Wha says sae?” she pursued.</p> +<p>“Them that should ken the best,” he +responded. “The lassies, for ane.”</p> +<p>“But, Dand, you would never lee to me?” she +asked.</p> +<p>“I’ll leave that for your pairt of it, ye +girzie,” said he. “Ye’ll lee to me fast +eneuch, when ye hae gotten a jo. I’m tellin’ ye +and it’s true; when you have a jo, Miss Kirstie, +it’ll be for guid and ill. I ken: I was made that way +mysel’, but the deil was in my luck! Here, gang awa +wi’ ye to your muirs, and let me be; I’m in an hour +of inspiraution, ye upsetting tawpie!”</p> +<p>But she clung to her brother’s neighbourhood, she knew +not why.</p> +<p>“Will ye no gie’s a kiss, Dand?” she +said. “I aye likit ye fine.”</p> +<p>He kissed her and considered her a moment; he found something +strange in her. But he was a libertine through and through, +nourished equal contempt and suspicion of all womankind, and paid +his way among them habitually with idle compliments.</p> +<p>“Gae wa’ wi’ ye!” said he. +“Ye’re a dentie baby, and be content wi’ +that!”</p> +<p>That was Dandie’s way; a kiss and a comfit to +Jenny—a bawbee and my blessing to Jill—and goodnight +to the whole clan of ye, my dears! When anything approached the +serious, it became a matter for men, he both thought and +said. Women, when they did not absorb, were only children +to be shoo’d away. Merely in his character of +connoisseur, however, Dandie glanced carelessly after his sister +as she crossed the meadow. “The brat’s no that +bad!” he thought with surprise, for though he had just been +paying her compliments, he had not really looked at her. +“Hey! what’s yon?” For the grey dress was +cut with short sleeves and skirts, and displayed her trim strong +legs clad in pink stockings of the same shade as the kerchief she +wore round her shoulders, and that shimmered as she went. +This was not her way in undress; he knew her ways and the ways of +the whole sex in the country-side, no one better; when they did +not go barefoot, they wore stout “rig and furrow” +woollen hose of an invisible blue mostly, when they were not +black outright; and Dandie, at sight of this daintiness, put two +and two together. It was a silk handkerchief, then they +would be silken hose; they matched—then the whole outfit +was a present of Clem’s, a costly present, and not +something to be worn through bog and briar, or on a late +afternoon of Sunday. He whistled. “My denty +May, either your heid’s fair turned, or there’s some +ongoings!” he observed, and dismissed the subject.</p> +<p>She went slowly at first, but ever straighter and faster for +the Cauldstaneslap, a pass among the hills to which the farm owed +its name. The Slap opened like a doorway between two +rounded hillocks; and through this ran the short cut to +Hermiston. Immediately on the other side it went down +through the Deil’s Hags, a considerable marshy hollow of +the hill tops, full of springs, and crouching junipers, and pools +where the black peat-water slumbered. There was no view +from here. A man might have sat upon the Praying +Weaver’s stone a half century, and seen none but the +Cauldstaneslap children twice in the twenty-four hours on their +way to the school and back again, an occasional shepherd, the +irruption of a clan of sheep, or the birds who haunted about the +springs, drinking and shrilly piping. So, when she had once +passed the Slap, Kirstie was received into seclusion. She +looked back a last time at the farm. It still lay deserted +except for the figure of Dandie, who was now seen to be +scribbling in his lap, the hour of expected inspiration having +come to him at last. Thence she passed rapidly through the +morass, and came to the farther end of it, where a sluggish burn +discharges, and the path for Hermiston accompanies it on the +beginning of its downward path. From this corner a wide +view was opened to her of the whole stretch of braes upon the +other side, still sallow and in places rusty with the winter, +with the path marked boldly, here and there by the burn-side a +tuft of birches, and—two miles off as the crow +flies—from its enclosures and young plantations, the +windows of Hermiston glittering in the western sun.</p> +<p>Here she sat down and waited, and looked for a long time at +these far-away bright panes of glass. It amused her to have +so extended a view, she thought. It amused her to see the +house of Hermiston—to see “folk”; and there was +an indistinguishable human unit, perhaps the gardener, visibly +sauntering on the gravel paths.</p> +<p>By the time the sun was down and all the easterly braes lay +plunged in clear shadow, she was aware of another figure coming +up the path at a most unequal rate of approach, now half running, +now pausing and seeming to hesitate. She watched him at +first with a total suspension of thought. She held her +thought as a person holds his breathing. Then she consented +to recognise him. “He’ll no be coming here, he +canna be; it’s no possible.” And there began to +grow upon her a subdued choking suspense. He <i>was</i> +coming; his hesitations had quite ceased, his step grew firm and +swift; no doubt remained; and the question loomed up before her +instant: what was she to do? It was all very well to say +that her brother was a laird himself: it was all very well to +speak of casual intermarriages and to count cousinship, like +Auntie Kirstie. The difference in their social station was +trenchant; propriety, prudence, all that she had ever learned, +all that she knew, bade her flee. But on the other hand the +cup of life now offered to her was too enchanting. For one +moment, she saw the question clearly, and definitely made her +choice. She stood up and showed herself an instant in the +gap relieved upon the sky line; and the next, fled trembling and +sat down glowing with excitement on the Weaver’s +stone. She shut her eyes, seeking, praying for +composure. Her hand shook in her lap, and her mind was full +of incongruous and futile speeches. What was there to make +a work about? She could take care of herself, she +supposed! There was no harm in seeing the laird. It +was the best thing that could happen. She would mark a +proper distance to him once and for all. Gradually the +wheels of her nature ceased to go round so madly, and she sat in +passive expectation, a quiet, solitary figure in the midst of the +grey moss. I have said she was no hypocrite, but here I am +at fault. She never admitted to herself that she had come +up the hill to look for Archie. And perhaps after all she +did not know, perhaps came as a stone falls. For the steps +of love in the young, and especially in girls, are instinctive +and unconscious.</p> +<p>In the meantime Archie was drawing rapidly near, and he at +least was consciously seeking her neighbourhood. The +afternoon had turned to ashes in his mouth; the memory of the +girl had kept him from reading and drawn him as with cords; and +at last, as the cool of the evening began to come on, he had +taken his hat and set forth, with a smothered ejaculation, by the +moor path to Cauldstaneslap. He had no hope to find her; he +took the off chance without expectation of result and to relieve +his uneasiness. The greater was his surprise, as he +surmounted the slope and came into the hollow of the Deil’s +Hags, to see there, like an answer to his wishes, the little +womanly figure in the grey dress and the pink kerchief sitting +little, and low, and lost, and acutely solitary, in these +desolate surroundings and on the weather-beaten stone of the dead +weaver. Those things that still smacked of winter were all +rusty about her, and those things that already relished of the +spring had put forth the tender and lively colours of the +season. Even in the unchanging face of the death-stone, +changes were to be remarked; and in the channeled lettering, the +moss began to renew itself in jewels of green. By an +afterthought that was a stroke of art, she had turned up over her +head the back of the kerchief; so that it now framed becomingly +her vivacious and yet pensive face. Her feet were gathered +under her on the one side, and she leaned on her bare arm, which +showed out strong and round, tapered to a slim wrist, and +shimmered in the fading light.</p> +<p>Young Hermiston was struck with a certain chill. He was +reminded that he now dealt in serious matters of life and +death. This was a grown woman he was approaching, endowed +with her mysterious potencies and attractions, the treasury of +the continued race, and he was neither better nor worse than the +average of his sex and age. He had a certain delicacy which +had preserved him hitherto unspotted, and which (had either of +them guessed it) made him a more dangerous companion when his +heart should be really stirred. His throat was dry as he +came near; but the appealing sweetness of her smile stood between +them like a guardian angel.</p> +<p>For she turned to him and smiled, though without rising. +There was a shade in this cavalier greeting that neither of them +perceived; neither he, who simply thought it gracious and +charming as herself; nor yet she, who did not observe (quick as +she was) the difference between rising to meet the laird, and +remaining seated to receive the expected admirer.</p> +<p>“Are ye stepping west, Hermiston?” said she, +giving him his territorial name after the fashion of the +country-side.</p> +<p>“I was,” said he, a little hoarsely, “but I +think I will be about the end of my stroll now. Are you +like me, Miss Christina? The house would not hold me. +I came here seeking air.”</p> +<p>He took his seat at the other end of the tombstone and studied +her, wondering what was she. There was infinite import in +the question alike for her and him.</p> +<p>“Ay,” she said. “I couldna bear the +roof either. It’s a habit of mine to come up here +about the gloaming when it’s quaiet and caller.”</p> +<p>“It was a habit of my mother’s also,” he +said gravely. The recollection half startled him as he +expressed it. He looked around. “I have scarce +been here since. It’s peaceful,” he said, with +a long breath.</p> +<p>“It’s no like Glasgow,” she replied. +“A weary place, yon Glasgow! But what a day have I +had for my homecoming, and what a bonny evening!”</p> +<p>“Indeed, it was a wonderful day,” said +Archie. “I think I will remember it years and years +until I come to die. On days like this—I do not know +if you feel as I do—but everything appears so brief, and +fragile, and exquisite, that I am afraid to touch life. We +are here for so short a time; and all the old people before +us—Rutherfords of Hermiston, Elliotts of the +Cauldstaneslap—that were here but a while since riding +about and keeping up a great noise in this quiet +corner—making love too, and marrying—why, where are +they now? It’s deadly commonplace, but, after all, +the commonplaces are the great poetic truths.”</p> +<p>He was sounding her, semi-consciously, to see if she could +understand him; to learn if she were only an animal the colour of +flowers, or had a soul in her to keep her sweet. She, on +her part, her means well in hand, watched, womanlike, for any +opportunity to shine, to abound in his humour, whatever that +might be. The dramatic artist, that lies dormant or only +half awake in most human beings, had in her sprung to his feet in +a divine fury, and chance had served her well. She looked +upon him with a subdued twilight look that became the hour of the +day and the train of thought; earnestness shone through her like +stars in the purple west; and from the great but controlled +upheaval of her whole nature there passed into her voice, and +rang in her lightest words, a thrill of emotion.</p> +<p>“Have you mind of Dand’s song?” she +answered. “I think he’ll have been trying to +say what you have been thinking.”</p> +<p>“No, I never heard it,” he said. +“Repeat it to me, can you?”</p> +<p>“It’s nothing wanting the tune,” said +Kirstie.</p> +<p>“Then sing it me,” said he.</p> +<p>“On the Lord’s Day? That would never do, Mr. +Weir!”</p> +<p>“I am afraid I am not so strict a keeper of the Sabbath, +and there is no one in this place to hear us, unless the poor old +ancient under the stone.”</p> +<p>“No that I’m thinking that really,” she +said. “By my way of thinking, it’s just as +serious as a psalm. Will I sooth it to ye, then?”</p> +<p>“If you please,” said he, and, drawing near to her +on the tombstone, prepared to listen.</p> +<p>She sat up as if to sing. “I’ll only can +sooth it to ye,” she explained. “I wouldna like +to sing out loud on the Sabbath. I think the birds would +carry news of it to Gilbert,” and she smiled. +“It’s about the Elliotts,” she continued, +“and I think there’s few bonnier bits in the +book-poets, though Dand has never got printed yet.”</p> +<p>And she began, in the low, clear tones of her half voice, now +sinking almost to a whisper, now rising to a particular note +which was her best, and which Archie learned to wait for with +growing emotion:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“O they rade in the rain, in the days that +are gane,<br /> + In the rain and the wind and the lave,<br /> +They shoutit in the ha’ and they routit on the hill,<br /> + But they’re a’ quaitit noo in the +grave.<br /> +Auld, auld Elliotts, clay-cauld Elliotts, dour, bauld Elliotte of +auld!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>All the time she sang she looked steadfastly before her, her +knees straight, her hands upon her knee, her head cast back and +up. The expression was admirable throughout, for had she +not learned it from the lips and under the criticism of the +author? When it was done, she turned upon Archie a face +softly bright, and eyes gently suffused and shining in the +twilight, and his heart rose and went out to her with boundless +pity and sympathy. His question was answered. She was +a human being tuned to a sense of the tragedy of life; there were +pathos and music and a great heart in the girl.</p> +<p>He arose instinctively, she also; for she saw she had gained a +point, and scored the impression deeper, and she had wit enough +left to flee upon a victory. They were but commonplaces +that remained to be exchanged, but the low, moved voices in which +they passed made them sacred in the memory. In the falling +greyness of the evening he watched her figure winding through the +morass, saw it turn a last time and wave a hand, and then pass +through the Slap; and it seemed to him as if something went along +with her out of the deepest of his heart. And something +surely had come, and come to dwell there. He had retained +from childhood a picture, now half obliterated by the passage of +time and the multitude of fresh impressions, of his mother +telling him, with the fluttered earnestness of her voice, and +often with dropping tears, the tale of the “Praying +Weaver,” on the very scene of his brief tragedy and long +repose. And now there was a companion piece; and he beheld, +and he should behold for ever, Christina perched on the same +tomb, in the grey colours of the evening, gracious, dainty, +perfect as a flower, and she also singing—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Of old, unhappy far off things,<br /> +And battles long ago,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>of their common ancestors now dead, of their rude wars +composed, their weapons buried with them, and of these strange +changelings, their descendants, who lingered a little in their +places, and would soon be gone also, and perhaps sung of by +others at the gloaming hour. By one of the unconscious arts +of tenderness the two women were enshrined together in his +memory. Tears, in that hour of sensibility, came into his +eyes indifferently at the thought of either; and the girl, from +being something merely bright and shapely, was caught up into the +zone of things serious as life and death and his dead +mother. So that in all ways and on either side, Fate played +his game artfully with this poor pair of children. The +generations were prepared, the pangs were made ready, before the +curtain rose on the dark drama.</p> +<p>In the same moment of time that she disappeared from Archie, +there opened before Kirstie’s eyes the cup-like hollow in +which the farm lay. She saw, some five hundred feet below +her, the house making itself bright with candles, and this was a +broad hint to her to hurry. For they were only kindled on a +Sabbath night with a view to that family worship which rounded in +the incomparable tedium of the day and brought on the relaxation +of supper. Already she knew that Robert must be +within-sides at the head of the table, “waling the +portions”; for it was Robert in his quality of family +priest and judge, not the gifted Gilbert, who officiated. +She made good time accordingly down the steep ascent, and came up +to the door panting as the three younger brothers, all roused at +last from slumber, stood together in the cool and the dark of the +evening with a fry of nephews and nieces about them, chatting and +awaiting the expected signal. She stood back; she had no +mind to direct attention to her late arrival or to her labouring +breath.</p> +<p>“Kirstie, ye have shaved it this time, my lass?” +said Clem. “Whaur were ye?”</p> +<p>“O, just taking a dander by mysel’,” said +Kirstie.</p> +<p>And the talk continued on the subject of the American War, +without further reference to the truant who stood by them in the +covert of the dusk, thrilling with happiness and the sense of +guilt.</p> +<p>The signal was given, and the brothers began to go in one +after another, amid the jostle and throng of Hob’s +children.</p> +<p>Only Dandie, waiting till the last, caught Kirstie by the +arm. “When did ye begin to dander in pink hosen, +Mistress Elliott?” he whispered slyly.</p> +<p>She looked down; she was one blush. “I maun have +forgotten to change them,” said she; and went into prayers +in her turn with a troubled mind, between anxiety as to whether +Dand should have observed her yellow stockings at church, and +should thus detect her in a palpable falsehood, and shame that +she had already made good his prophecy. She remembered the +words of it, how it was to be when she had gotten a jo, and that +that would be for good and evil. “Will I have gotten +my jo now?” she thought with a secret rapture.</p> +<p>And all through prayers, where it was her principal business +to conceal the pink stockings from the eyes of the indifferent +Mrs. Hob—and all through supper, as she made a feint of +eating and sat at the table radiant and constrained—and +again when she had left them and come into her chamber, and was +alone with her sleeping niece, and could at last lay aside the +armour of society—the same words sounded within her, the +same profound note of happiness, of a world all changed and +renewed, of a day that had been passed in Paradise, and of a +night that was to be heaven opened. All night she seemed to +be conveyed smoothly upon a shallow stream of sleep and waking, +and through the bowers of Beulah; all night she cherished to her +heart that exquisite hope; and if, towards morning, she forgot it +a while in a more profound unconsciousness, it was to catch again +the rainbow thought with her first moment of awaking.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII—ENTER MEPHISTOPHELES</h2> +<p>Two days later a gig from Crossmichael deposited Frank Innes +at the doors of Hermiston. Once in a way, during the past +winter, Archie, in some acute phase of boredom, had written him a +letter. It had contained something in the nature of an +invitation or a reference to an invitation—precisely what, +neither of them now remembered. When Innes had received it, +there had been nothing further from his mind than to bury himself +in the moors with Archie; but not even the most acute political +heads are guided through the steps of life with unerring +directness. That would require a gift of prophecy which has +been denied to man. For instance, who could have imagined +that, not a month after he had received the letter, and turned it +into mockery, and put off answering it, and in the end lost it, +misfortunes of a gloomy cast should begin to thicken over +Frank’s career? His case may be briefly stated. +His father, a small Morayshire laird with a large family, became +recalcitrant and cut off the supplies; he had fitted himself out +with the beginnings of quite a good law library, which, upon some +sudden losses on the turf, he had been obliged to sell before +they were paid for; and his bookseller, hearing some rumour of +the event, took out a warrant for his arrest. Innes had +early word of it, and was able to take precautions. In this +immediate welter of his affairs, with an unpleasant charge +hanging over him, he had judged it the part of prudence to be off +instantly, had written a fervid letter to his father at +Inverauld, and put himself in the coach for Crossmichael. +Any port in a storm! He was manfully turning his back on +the Parliament House and its gay babble, on porter and oysters, +the race-course and the ring; and manfully prepared, until these +clouds should have blown by, to share a living grave with Archie +Weir at Hermiston.</p> +<p>To do him justice, he was no less surprised to be going than +Archie was to see him come; and he carried off his wonder with an +infinitely better grace.</p> +<p>“Well, here I am!” said he, as he alighted. +“Pylades has come to Orestes at last. By the way, did +you get my answer? No? How very provoking! +Well, here I am to answer for myself, and that’s better +still.”</p> +<p>“I am very glad to see you, of course,” said +Archie. “I make you heartily welcome, of +course. But you surely have not come to stay, with the +Courts still sitting; is that not most unwise?”</p> +<p>“Damn the Courts!” says Frank. “What +are the Courts to friendship and a little fishing?”</p> +<p>And so it was agreed that he was to stay, with no term to the +visit but the term which he had privily set to it +himself—the day, namely, when his father should have come +down with the dust, and he should be able to pacify the +bookseller. On such vague conditions there began for these +two young men (who were not even friends) a life of great +familiarity and, as the days drew on, less and less +intimacy. They were together at meal times, together +o’ nights when the hour had come for whisky-toddy; but it +might have been noticed (had there been any one to pay heed) that +they were rarely so much together by day. Archie had +Hermiston to attend to, multifarious activities in the hills, in +which he did not require, and had even refused, Frank’s +escort. He would be off sometimes in the morning and leave +only a note on the breakfast table to announce the fact; and +sometimes, with no notice at all, he would not return for dinner +until the hour was long past. Innes groaned under these +desertions; it required all his philosophy to sit down to a +solitary breakfast with composure, and all his unaffected +good-nature to be able to greet Archie with friendliness on the +more rare occasions when he came home late for dinner.</p> +<p>“I wonder what on earth he finds to do, Mrs. +Elliott?” said he one morning, after he had just read the +hasty billet and sat down to table.</p> +<p>“I suppose it will be business, sir,” replied the +housekeeper drily, measuring his distance off to him by an +indicated curtsy.</p> +<p>“But I can’t imagine what business!” he +reiterated.</p> +<p>“I suppose it will be <i>his</i> business,” +retorted the austere Kirstie.</p> +<p>He turned to her with that happy brightness that made the +charm of his disposition, and broke into a peal of healthy and +natural laughter.</p> +<p>“Well played, Mrs. Elliott!” he cried; and the +housekeeper’s face relaxed into the shadow of an iron +smile. “Well played indeed!” said he. +“But you must not be making a stranger of me like +that. Why, Archie and I were at the High School together, +and we’ve been to college together, and we were going to +the Bar together, when—you know! Dear, dear me! what +a pity that was! A life spoiled, a fine young fellow as +good as buried here in the wilderness with rustics; and all for +what? A frolic, silly, if you like, but no more. God, +how good your scones are, Mrs. Elliott!”</p> +<p>“They’re no mines, it was the lassie made +them,” said Kirstie; “and, saving your presence, +there’s little sense in taking the Lord’s name in +vain about idle vivers that you fill your kyte +wi’.”</p> +<p>“I daresay you’re perfectly right, +ma’am,” quoth the imperturbable Frank. +“But as I was saying, this is a pitiable business, this +about poor Archie; and you and I might do worse than put our +heads together, like a couple of sensible people, and bring it to +an end. Let me tell you, ma’am, that Archie is really +quite a promising young man, and in my opinion he would do well +at the Bar. As for his father, no one can deny his ability, +and I don’t fancy any one would care to deny that he has +the deil’s own temper—”</p> +<p>“If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Innes, I think the lass +is crying on me,” said Kirstie, and flounced from the +room.</p> +<p>“The damned, cross-grained, old broomstick!” +ejaculated Innes.</p> +<p>In the meantime, Kirstie had escaped into the kitchen, and +before her vassal gave vent to her feelings.</p> +<p>“Here, ettercap! Ye’ll have to wait on yon +Innes! I canna haud myself in. ‘Puir +Erchie!’ I’d ‘puir Erchie’ him, if +I had my way! And Hermiston with the deil’s ain +temper! God, let him take Hermiston’s scones out of +his mouth first. There’s no a hair on ayther o’ +the Weirs that hasna mair spunk and dirdum to it than what he has +in his hale dwaibly body! Settin’ up his snash to +me! Let him gang to the black toon where he’s mebbe +wantit—birling in a curricle—wi’ pimatum on his +heid—making a mess o’ himsel’ wi’ nesty +hizzies—a fair disgrace!” It was impossible to +hear without admiration Kirstie’s graduated disgust, as she +brought forth, one after another, these somewhat baseless +charges. Then she remembered her immediate purpose, and +turned again on her fascinated auditor. “Do ye no +hear me, tawpie? Do ye no hear what I’m tellin’ +ye? Will I have to shoo ye in to him? If I come to attend +to ye, mistress!” And the maid fled the kitchen, which had +become practically dangerous, to attend on Innes’ wants in +the front parlour.</p> +<p><i>Tantaene irae</i>? Has the reader perceived the +reason? Since Frank’s coming there were no more hours +of gossip over the supper tray! All his blandishments were +in vain; he had started handicapped on the race for Mrs. +Elliott’s favour.</p> +<p>But it was a strange thing how misfortune dogged him in his +efforts to be genial. I must guard the reader against +accepting Kirstie’s epithets as evidence; she was more +concerned for their vigour than for their accuracy. +Dwaibly, for instance; nothing could be more calumnious. +Frank was the very picture of good looks, good humour, and manly +youth. He had bright eyes with a sparkle and a dance to +them, curly hair, a charming smile, brilliant teeth, an admirable +carriage of the head, the look of a gentleman, the address of one +accustomed to please at first sight and to improve the +impression. And with all these advantages, he failed with +every one about Hermiston; with the silent shepherd, with the +obsequious grieve, with the groom who was also the ploughman, +with the gardener and the gardener’s sister—a pious, +down-hearted woman with a shawl over her ears—he failed +equally and flatly. They did not like him, and they showed +it. The little maid, indeed, was an exception; she admired +him devoutly, probably dreamed of him in her private hours; but +she was accustomed to play the part of silent auditor to +Kirstie’s tirades and silent recipient of Kirstie’s +buffets, and she had learned not only to be a very capable girl +of her years, but a very secret and prudent one besides. +Frank was thus conscious that he had one ally and sympathiser in +the midst of that general union of disfavour that surrounded, +watched, and waited on him in the house of Hermiston; but he had +little comfort or society from that alliance, and the demure +little maid (twelve on her last birthday) preserved her own +counsel, and tripped on his service, brisk, dumbly responsive, +but inexorably unconversational. For the others, they were +beyond hope and beyond endurance. Never had a young Apollo +been cast among such rustic barbarians. But perhaps the +cause of his ill-success lay in one trait which was habitual and +unconscious with him, yet diagnostic of the man. It was his +practice to approach any one person at the expense of some one +else. He offered you an alliance against the some one else; +he flattered you by slighting him; you were drawn into a small +intrigue against him before you knew how. Wonderful are the +virtues of this process generally; but Frank’s mistake was +in the choice of the some one else. He was not politic in +that; he listened to the voice of irritation. Archie had +offended him at first by what he had felt to be rather a dry +reception, had offended him since by his frequent absences. +He was besides the one figure continually present in +Frank’s eye; and it was to his immediate dependants that +Frank could offer the snare of his sympathy. Now the truth +is that the Weirs, father and son, were surrounded by a posse of +strenuous loyalists. Of my lord they were vastly +proud. It was a distinction in itself to be one of the +vassals of the “Hanging Judge,” and his gross, +formidable joviality was far from unpopular in the neighbourhood +of his home. For Archie they had, one and all, a sensitive +affection and respect which recoiled from a word of +belittlement.</p> +<p>Nor was Frank more successful when he went farther +afield. To the Four Black Brothers, for instance, he was +antipathetic in the highest degree. Hob thought him too +light, Gib too profane. Clem, who saw him but for a day or +two before he went to Glasgow, wanted to know what the +fule’s business was, and whether he meant to stay here all +session time! “Yon’s a drone,” he +pronounced. As for Dand, it will be enough to describe +their first meeting, when Frank had been whipping a river and the +rustic celebrity chanced to come along the path.</p> +<p>“I’m told you’re quite a poet,” Frank +had said.</p> +<p>“Wha tell’t ye that, mannie?” had been the +unconciliating answer.</p> +<p>“O, everybody!” says Frank.</p> +<p>“God! Here’s fame!” said the sardonic +poet, and he had passed on his way.</p> +<p>Come to think of it, we have here perhaps a truer explanation +of Frank’s failures. Had he met Mr. Sheriff Scott he +could have turned a neater compliment, because Mr. Scott would +have been a friend worth making. Dand, on the other hand, +he did not value sixpence, and he showed it even while he tried +to flatter. Condescension is an excellent thing, but it is +strange how one-sided the pleasure of it is! He who goes +fishing among the Scots peasantry with condescension for a bait +will have an empty basket by evening.</p> +<p>In proof of this theory Frank made a great success of it at +the Crossmichael Club, to which Archie took him immediately on +his arrival; his own last appearance on that scene of +gaiety. Frank was made welcome there at once, continued to +go regularly, and had attended a meeting (as the members ever +after loved to tell) on the evening before his death. Young +Hay and young Pringle appeared again. There was another +supper at Windiclaws, another dinner at Driffel; and it resulted +in Frank being taken to the bosom of the county people as +unreservedly as he had been repudiated by the country folk. +He occupied Hermiston after the manner of an invader in a +conquered capital. He was perpetually issuing from it, as +from a base, to toddy parties, fishing parties, and dinner +parties, to which Archie was not invited, or to which Archie +would not go. It was now that the name of The Recluse +became general for the young man. Some say that Innes +invented it; Innes, at least, spread it abroad.</p> +<p>“How’s all with your Recluse to-day?” people +would ask.</p> +<p>“O, reclusing away!” Innes would declare, with his +bright air of saying something witty; and immediately interrupt +the general laughter which he had provoked much more by his air +than his words, “Mind you, it’s all very well +laughing, but I’m not very well pleased. Poor Archie +is a good fellow, an excellent fellow, a fellow I always +liked. I think it small of him to take his little disgrace +so hard, and shut himself up. ‘Grant that it is a +ridiculous story, painfully ridiculous,’ I keep telling +him. ‘Be a man! Live it down, man!’ +But not he. Of course, it’s just solitude, and shame, +and all that. But I confess I’m beginning to fear the +result. It would be all the pities in the world if a really +promising fellow like Weir was to end ill. I’m +seriously tempted to write to Lord Hermiston, and put it plainly +to him.”</p> +<p>“I would if I were you,” some of his auditors +would say, shaking the head, sitting bewildered and confused at +this new view of the matter, so deftly indicated by a single +word. “A capital idea!” they would add, and +wonder at the <i>aplomb</i> and position of this young man, who +talked as a matter of course of writing to Hermiston and +correcting him upon his private affairs.</p> +<p>And Frank would proceed, sweetly confidential: +“I’ll give you an idea, now. He’s +actually sore about the way that I’m received and +he’s left out in the county—actually jealous and +sore. I’ve rallied him and I’ve reasoned with +him, told him that every one was most kindly inclined towards +him, told him even that I was received merely because I was his +guest. But it’s no use. He will neither accept +the invitations he gets, nor stop brooding about the ones where +he’s left out. What I’m afraid of is that the +wound’s ulcerating. He had always one of those dark, +secret, angry natures—a little underhand and plenty of +bile—you know the sort. He must have inherited it +from the Weirs, whom I suspect to have been a worthy family of +weavers somewhere; what’s the cant phrase?—sedentary +occupation. It’s precisely the kind of character to +go wrong in a false position like what his father’s made +for him, or he’s making for himself, whichever you like to +call it. And for my part, I think it a disgrace,” +Frank would say generously.</p> +<p>Presently the sorrow and anxiety of this disinterested friend +took shape. He began in private, in conversations of two, +to talk vaguely of bad habits and low habits. “I must +say I’m afraid he’s going wrong altogether,” he +would say. “I’ll tell you plainly, and between +ourselves, I scarcely like to stay there any longer; only, man, +I’m positively afraid to leave him alone. +You’ll see, I shall be blamed for it later on. +I’m staying at a great sacrifice. I’m hindering +my chances at the Bar, and I can’t blind my eyes to +it. And what I’m afraid of is that I’m going to +get kicked for it all round before all’s done. You +see, nobody believes in friendship nowadays.”</p> +<p>“Well, Innes,” his interlocutor would reply, +“it’s very good of you, I must say that. If +there’s any blame going, you’ll always be sure of +<i>my</i> good word, for one thing.”</p> +<p>“Well,” Frank would continue, “candidly, I +don’t say it’s pleasant. He has a very rough +way with him; his father’s son, you know. I +don’t say he’s rude—of course, I couldn’t +be expected to stand that—but he steers very near the +wind. No, it’s not pleasant; but I tell ye, man, in +conscience I don’t think it would be fair to leave +him. Mind you, I don’t say there’s anything +actually wrong. What I say is that I don’t like the +looks of it, man!” and he would press the arm of his +momentary confidant.</p> +<p>In the early stages I am persuaded there was no malice. +He talked but for the pleasure of airing himself. He was +essentially glib, as becomes the young advocate, and essentially +careless of the truth, which is the mark of the young ass; and so +he talked at random. There was no particular bias, but that +one which is indigenous and universal, to flatter himself and to +please and interest the present friend. And by thus milling +air out of his mouth, he had presently built up a presentation of +Archie which was known and talked of in all corners of the +county. Wherever there was a residential house and a walled +garden, wherever there was a dwarfish castle and a park, wherever +a quadruple cottage by the ruins of a peel-tower showed an old +family going down, and wherever a handsome villa with a carriage +approach and a shrubbery marked the coming up of a new +one—probably on the wheels of machinery—Archie began +to be regarded in the light of a dark, perhaps a vicious mystery, +and the future developments of his career to be looked for with +uneasiness and confidential whispering. He had done +something disgraceful, my dear. What, was not precisely +known, and that good kind young man, Mr. Innes, did his best to +make light of it. But there it was. And Mr. Innes was +very anxious about him now; he was really uneasy, my dear; he was +positively wrecking his own prospects because he dared not leave +him alone. How wholly we all lie at the mercy of a single +prater, not needfully with any malign purpose! And if a man +but talks of himself in the right spirit, refers to his virtuous +actions by the way, and never applies to them the name of virtue, +how easily his evidence is accepted in the court of public +opinion!</p> +<p>All this while, however, there was a more poisonous ferment at +work between the two lads, which came late indeed to the surface, +but had modified and magnified their dissensions from the +first. To an idle, shallow, easy-going customer like Frank, +the smell of a mystery was attractive. It gave his mind +something to play with, like a new toy to a child; and it took +him on the weak side, for like many young men coming to the Bar, +and before they had been tried and found wanting, he flattered +himself he was a fellow of unusual quickness and +penetration. They knew nothing of Sherlock Holmes in those +days, but there was a good deal said of Talleyrand. And if +you could have caught Frank off his guard, he would have +confessed with a smirk that, if he resembled any one, it was the +Marquis de Talleyrand-Perigord. It was on the occasion of +Archie’s first absence that this interest took root. +It was vastly deepened when Kirstie resented his curiosity at +breakfast, and that same afternoon there occurred another scene +which clinched the business. He was fishing Swingleburn, +Archie accompanying him, when the latter looked at his watch.</p> +<p>“Well, good-bye,” said he. “I have +something to do. See you at dinner.”</p> +<p>“Don’t be in such a hurry,” cries +Frank. “Hold on till I get my rod up. +I’ll go with you; I’m sick of flogging this +ditch.”</p> +<p>And he began to reel up his line.</p> +<p>Archie stood speechless. He took a long while to recover +his wits under this direct attack; but by the time he was ready +with his answer, and the angle was almost packed up, he had +become completely Weir, and the hanging face gloomed on his young +shoulders. He spoke with a laboured composure, a laboured +kindness even; but a child could see that his mind was made +up.</p> +<p>“I beg your pardon, Innes; I don’t want to be +disagreeable, but let us understand one another from the +beginning. When I want your company, I’ll let you +know.”</p> +<p>“O!” cries Frank, “you don’t want my +company, don’t you?”</p> +<p>“Apparently not just now,” replied Archie. +“I even indicated to you when I did, if you’ll +remember—and that was at dinner. If we two fellows +are to live together pleasantly—and I see no reason why we +should not—it can only be by respecting each other’s +privacy. If we begin intruding—”</p> +<p>“O, come! I’ll take this at no man’s +hands. Is this the way you treat a guest and an old +friend?” cried Innes.</p> +<p>“Just go home and think over what I said by +yourself,” continued Archie, “whether it’s +reasonable, or whether it’s really offensive or not; and +let’s meet at dinner as though nothing had happened, +I’ll put it this way, if you like—that I know my own +character, that I’m looking forward (with great pleasure, I +assure you) to a long visit from you, and that I’m taking +precautions at the first. I see the thing that +we—that I, if you like—might fall out upon, and I +step in and <i>obsto principiis</i>. I wager you five +pounds you’ll end by seeing that I mean friendliness, and I +assure you, Francie, I do,” he added, relenting.</p> +<p>Bursting with anger, but incapable of speech, Innes shouldered +his rod, made a gesture of farewell, and strode off down the +burn-side. Archie watched him go without moving. He +was sorry, but quite unashamed. He hated to be +inhospitable, but in one thing he was his father’s +son. He had a strong sense that his house was his own and +no man else’s; and to lie at a guest’s mercy was what +he refused. He hated to seem harsh. But that was +Frank’s lookout. If Frank had been commonly discreet, +he would have been decently courteous. And there was +another consideration. The secret he was protecting was not +his own merely; it was hers: it belonged to that inexpressible +she who was fast taking possession of his soul, and whom he would +soon have defended at the cost of burning cities. By the +time he had watched Frank as far as the Swingleburn-foot, +appearing and disappearing in the tarnished heather, still +stalking at a fierce gait but already dwindled in the distance +into less than the smallness of Lilliput, he could afford to +smile at the occurrence. Either Frank would go, and that +would be a relief—or he would continue to stay, and his +host must continue to endure him. And Archie was now +free—by devious paths, behind hillocks and in the hollow of +burns—to make for the trysting-place where Kirstie, cried +about by the curlew and the plover, waited and burned for his +coming by the Covenanter’s stone.</p> +<p>Innes went off down-hill in a passion of resentment, easy to +be understood, but which yielded progressively to the needs of +his situation. He cursed Archie for a cold-hearted, +unfriendly, rude, rude dog; and himself still more passionately +for a fool in having come to Hermiston when he might have sought +refuge in almost any other house in Scotland. But the step +once taken, was practically irretrievable. He had no more +ready money to go anywhere else; he would have to borrow from +Archie the next club-night; and ill as he thought of his +host’s manners, he was sure of his practical +generosity. Frank’s resemblance to Talleyrand strikes +me as imaginary; but at least not Talleyrand himself could have +more obediently taken his lesson from the facts. He met +Archie at dinner without resentment, almost with +cordiality. You must take your friends as you find them, he +would have said. Archie couldn’t help being his +father’s son, or his grandfather’s, the hypothetical +weaver’s, grandson. The son of a hunks, he was still +a hunks at heart, incapable of true generosity and consideration; +but he had other qualities with which Frank could divert himself +in the meanwhile, and to enjoy which it was necessary that Frank +should keep his temper.</p> +<p>So excellently was it controlled that he awoke next morning +with his head full of a different, though a cognate +subject. What was Archie’s little game? Why did +he shun Frank’s company? What was he keeping +secret? Was he keeping tryst with somebody, and was it a +woman? It would be a good joke and a fair revenge to +discover. To that task he set himself with a great deal of +patience, which might have surprised his friends, for he had been +always credited not with patience so much as brilliancy; and +little by little, from one point to another, he at last succeeded +in piecing out the situation. First he remarked that, +although Archie set out in all the directions of the compass, he +always came home again from some point between the south and +west. From the study of a map, and in consideration of the +great expanse of untenanted moorland running in that direction +towards the sources of the Clyde, he laid his finger on +Cauldstaneslap and two other neighbouring farms, Kingsmuirs and +Polintarf. But it was difficult to advance farther. +With his rod for a pretext, he vainly visited each of them in +turn; nothing was to be seen suspicious about this trinity of +moorland settlements. He would have tried to follow Archie, +had it been the least possible, but the nature of the land +precluded the idea. He did the next best, ensconced himself +in a quiet corner, and pursued his movements with a +telescope. It was equally in vain, and he soon wearied of +his futile vigilance, left the telescope at home, and had almost +given the matter up in despair, when, on the twenty-seventh day +of his visit, he was suddenly confronted with the person whom he +sought. The first Sunday Kirstie had managed to stay away +from kirk on some pretext of indisposition, which was more truly +modesty; the pleasure of beholding Archie seeming too sacred, too +vivid for that public place. On the two following, Frank +had himself been absent on some of his excursions among the +neighbouring families. It was not until the fourth, +accordingly, that Frank had occasion to set eyes on the +enchantress. With the first look, all hesitation was +over. She came with the Cauldstaneslap party; then she +lived at Cauldstaneslap. Here was Archie’s secret, +here was the woman, and more than that—though I have need +here of every manageable attenuation of language—with the +first look, he had already entered himself as rival. It was +a good deal in pique, it was a little in revenge, it was much in +genuine admiration: the devil may decide the proportions! I +cannot, and it is very likely that Frank could not.</p> +<p>“Mighty attractive milkmaid,” he observed, on the +way home.</p> +<p>“Who?” said Archie.</p> +<p>“O, the girl you’re looking at—aren’t +you? Forward there on the road. She came attended by +the rustic bard; presumably, therefore, belongs to his exalted +family. The single objection! for the four black brothers +are awkward customers. If anything were to go wrong, Gib +would gibber, and Clem would prove inclement; and Dand fly in +danders, and Hob blow up in gobbets. It would be a Helliott +of a business!”</p> +<p>“Very humorous, I am sure,” said Archie.</p> +<p>“Well, I am trying to be so,” said Frank. +“It’s none too easy in this place, and with your +solemn society, my dear fellow. But confess that the +milkmaid has found favour in your eyes, or resign all claim to be +a man of taste.”</p> +<p>“It is no matter,” returned Archie.</p> +<p>But the other continued to look at him, steadily and +quizzically, and his colour slowly rose and deepened under the +glance, until not impudence itself could have denied that he was +blushing. And at this Archie lost some of his +control. He changed his stick from one hand to the other, +and—“O, for God’s sake, don’t be an +ass!” he cried.</p> +<p>“Ass? That’s the retort delicate without +doubt,” says Frank. “Beware of the homespun +brothers, dear. If they come into the dance, you’ll +see who’s an ass. Think now, if they only applied +(say) a quarter as much talent as I have applied to the question +of what Mr. Archie does with his evening hours, and why he is so +unaffectedly nasty when the subject’s touched +on—”</p> +<p>“You are touching on it now,” interrupted Archie +with a wince.</p> +<p>“Thank you. That was all I wanted, an articulate +confession,” said Frank.</p> +<p>“I beg to remind you—” began Archie.</p> +<p>But he was interrupted in turn. “My dear fellow, +don’t. It’s quite needless. The +subject’s dead and buried.”</p> +<p>And Frank began to talk hastily on other matters, an art in +which he was an adept, for it was his gift to be fluent on +anything or nothing. But although Archie had the grace or +the timidity to suffer him to rattle on, he was by no means done +with the subject. When he came home to dinner, he was +greeted with a sly demand, how things were looking +“Cauldstaneslap ways.” Frank took his first +glass of port out after dinner to the toast of Kirstie, and later +in the evening he returned to the charge again.</p> +<p>“I say, Weir, you’ll excuse me for returning again +to this affair. I’ve been thinking it over, and I +wish to beg you very seriously to be more careful. +It’s not a safe business. Not safe, my boy,” +said he.</p> +<p>“What?” said Archie.</p> +<p>“Well, it’s your own fault if I must put a name on +the thing; but really, as a friend, I cannot stand by and see you +rushing head down into these dangers. My dear boy,” +said he, holding up a warning cigar, “consider! What +is to be the end of it?”</p> +<p>“The end of what?”—Archie, helpless with +irritation, persisted in this dangerous and ungracious guard.</p> +<p>“Well, the end of the milkmaid; or, to speak more by the +card, the end of Miss Christina Elliott of the +Cauldstaneslap.”</p> +<p>“I assure you,” Archie broke out, “this is +all a figment of your imagination. There is nothing to be +said against that young lady; you have no right to introduce her +name into the conversation.”</p> +<p>“I’ll make a note of it,” said Frank. +“She shall henceforth be nameless, nameless, nameless, +Grigalach! I make a note besides of your valuable testimony +to her character. I only want to look at this thing as a +man of the world. Admitted she’s an angel—but, +my good fellow, is she a lady?”</p> +<p>This was torture to Archie. “I beg your +pardon,” he said, struggling to be composed, “but +because you have wormed yourself into my +confidence—”</p> +<p>“O, come!” cried Frank. “Your +confidence? It was rosy but unconsenting. Your +confidence, indeed? Now, look! This is what I must +say, Weir, for it concerns your safety and good character, and +therefore my honour as your friend. You say I wormed myself +into your confidence. Wormed is good. But what have I +done? I have put two and two together, just as the parish +will be doing tomorrow, and the whole of Tweeddale in two weeks, +and the black brothers—well, I won’t put a date on +that; it will be a dark and stormy morning! Your secret, in +other words, is poor Poll’s. And I want to ask of you +as a friend whether you like the prospect? There are two +horns to your dilemma, and I must say for myself I should look +mighty ruefully on either. Do you see yourself explaining +to the four Black Brothers? or do you see yourself presenting the +milkmaid to papa as the future lady of Hermiston? Do +you? I tell you plainly, I don’t!”</p> +<p>Archie rose. “I will hear no more of this,” +he said, in a trembling voice.</p> +<p>But Frank again held up his cigar. “Tell me one +thing first. Tell me if this is not a friend’s part +that I am playing?”</p> +<p>“I believe you think it so,” replied Archle. +“I can go as far as that. I can do so much justice to +your motives. But I will hear no more of it. I am +going to bed.”</p> +<p>“That’s right, Weir,” said Frank +heartily. “Go to bed and think over it; and I say, +man, don’t forget your prayers! I don’t often +do the moral—don’t go in for that sort of +thing—but when I do there’s one thing sure, that I +mean it.”</p> +<p>So Archie marched off to bed, and Frank sat alone by the table +for another hour or so, smiling to himself richly. There +was nothing vindictive in his nature; but, if revenge came in his +way, it might as well be good, and the thought of Archie’s +pillow reflections that night was indescribably sweet to +him. He felt a pleasant sense of power. He looked +down on Archie as on a very little boy whose strings he +pulled—as on a horse whom he had backed and bridled by +sheer power of intelligence, and whom he might ride to glory or +the grave at pleasure. Which was it to be? He +lingered long, relishing the details of schemes that he was too +idle to pursue. Poor cork upon a torrent, he tasted that +night the sweets of omnipotence, and brooded like a deity over +the strands of that intrigue which was to shatter him before the +summer waned.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII—A NOCTURNAL VISIT</h2> +<p>Kirstie had many causes of distress. More and more as we +grow old—and yet more and more as we grow old and are +women, frozen by the fear of age—we come to rely on the +voice as the single outlet of the soul. Only thus, in the +curtailment of our means, can we relieve the straitened cry of +the passion within us; only thus, in the bitter and sensitive +shyness of advancing years, can we maintain relations with those +vivacious figures of the young that still show before us and tend +daily to become no more than the moving wall-paper of life. +Talk is the last link, the last relation. But with the end +of the conversation, when the voice stops and the bright face of +the listener is turned away, solitude falls again on the bruised +heart. Kirstie had lost her “cannie hour at +e’en”; she could no more wander with Archie, a ghost +if you will, but a happy ghost, in fields Elysian. And to +her it was as if the whole world had fallen silent; to him, but +an unremarkable change of amusements. And she raged to know +it. The effervescency of her passionate and irritable +nature rose within her at times to bursting point.</p> +<p>This is the price paid by age for unseasonable ardours of +feeling. It must have been so for Kirstie at any time when +the occasion chanced; but it so fell out that she was deprived of +this delight in the hour when she had most need of it, when she +had most to say, most to ask, and when she trembled to recognise +her sovereignty not merely in abeyance but annulled. For, +with the clairvoyance of a genuine love, she had pierced the +mystery that had so long embarrassed Frank. She was +conscious, even before it was carried out, even on that Sunday +night when it began, of an invasion of her rights; and a voice +told her the invader’s name. Since then, by arts, by +accident, by small things observed, and by the general drift of +Archie’s humour, she had passed beyond all possibility of +doubt. With a sense of justice that Lord Hermiston might +have envied, she had that day in church considered and admitted +the attractions of the younger Kirstie; and with the profound +humanity and sentimentality of her nature, she had recognised the +coming of fate. Not thus would she have chosen. She +had seen, in imagination, Archie wedded to some tall, powerful, +and rosy heroine of the golden locks, made in her own image, for +whom she would have strewed the bride-bed with delight; and now +she could have wept to see the ambition falsified. But the +gods had pronounced, and her doom was otherwise.</p> +<p>She lay tossing in bed that night, besieged with feverish +thoughts. There were dangerous matters pending, a battle +was toward, over the fate of which she hung in jealousy, +sympathy, fear, and alternate loyalty and disloyalty to either +side. Now she was reincarnated in her niece, and now in +Archie. Now she saw, through the girl’s eyes, the +youth on his knees to her, heard his persuasive instances with a +deadly weakness, and received his overmastering caresses. +Anon, with a revulsion, her temper raged to see such utmost +favours of fortune and love squandered on a brat of a girl, one +of her own house, using her own name—a deadly +ingredient—and that “didna ken her ain mind an’ +was as black’s your hat.” Now she trembled lest +her deity should plead in vain, loving the idea of success for +him like a triumph of nature; anon, with returning loyalty to her +own family and sex, she trembled for Kirstie and the credit of +the Elliotts. And again she had a vision of herself, the +day over for her old-world tales and local gossip, bidding +farewell to her last link with life and brightness and love; and +behind and beyond, she saw but the blank butt-end where she must +crawl to die. Had she then come to the lees? she, so great, +so beautiful, with a heart as fresh as a girl’s and strong +as womanhood? It could not be, and yet it was so; and for a +moment her bed was horrible to her as the sides of the +grave. And she looked forward over a waste of hours, and +saw herself go on to rage, and tremble, and be softened, and rage +again, until the day came and the labours of the day must be +renewed.</p> +<p>Suddenly she heard feet on the stairs—his feet, and soon +after the sound of a window-sash flung open. She sat up +with her heart beating. He had gone to his room alone, and +he had not gone to bed. She might again have one of her +night cracks; and at the entrancing prospect, a change came over +her mind; with the approach of this hope of pleasure, all the +baser metal became immediately obliterated from her +thoughts. She rose, all woman, and all the best of woman, +tender, pitiful, hating the wrong, loyal to her own sex—and +all the weakest of that dear miscellany, nourishing, cherishing +next her soft heart, voicelessly flattering, hopes that she would +have died sooner than have acknowledged. She tore off her +nightcap, and her hair fell about her shoulders in +profusion. Undying coquetry awoke. By the faint light +of her nocturnal rush, she stood before the looking-glass, +carried her shapely arms above her head, and gathered up the +treasures of her tresses. She was never backward to admire +herself; that kind of modesty was a stranger to her nature; and +she paused, struck with a pleased wonder at the sight. +“Ye daft auld wife!” she said, answering a thought +that was not; and she blushed with the innocent consciousness of +a child. Hastily she did up the massive and shining coils, +hastily donned a wrapper, and with the rushlight in her hand, +stole into the hall. Below stairs she heard the clock +ticking the deliberate seconds, and Frank jingling with the +decanters in the dining-room. Aversion rose in her, bitter +and momentary. “Nesty, tippling puggy!” she +thought; and the next moment she had knocked guardedly at +Archie’s door and was bidden enter.</p> +<p>Archie had been looking out into the ancient blackness, +pierced here and there with a rayless star; taking the sweet air +of the moors and the night into his bosom deeply; seeking, +perhaps finding, peace after the manner of the unhappy. He +turned round as she came in, and showed her a pale face against +the window-frame.</p> +<p>“Is that you, Kirstie?” he asked. +“Come in!”</p> +<p>“It’s unco late, my dear,” said Kirstie, +affecting unwillingness.</p> +<p>“No, no,” he answered, “not at all. +Come in, if you want a crack. I am not sleepy, God +knows!”</p> +<p>She advanced, took a chair by the toilet table and the candle, +and set the rushlight at her foot. Something—it might +be in the comparative disorder of her dress, it might be the +emotion that now welled in her bosom—had touched her with a +wand of transformation, and she seemed young with the youth of +goddesses.</p> +<p>“Mr. Erchie,” she began, “what’s this +that’s come to ye?”</p> +<p>“I am not aware of anything that has come,” said +Archie, and blushed, and repented bitterly that he had let her +in.</p> +<p>“O, my dear, that’ll no dae!” said +Kirstie. “It’s ill to blend the eyes of +love. O, Mr. Erchie, tak a thocht ere it’s ower +late. Ye shouldna be impatient o’ the braws o’ +life, they’ll a’ come in their saison, like the sun +and the rain. Ye’re young yet; ye’ve mony +cantie years afore ye. See and dinna wreck yersel’ at +the outset like sae mony ithers! Hae patience—they telled +me aye that was the owercome o’ life—hae patience, +there’s a braw day coming yet. Gude kens it never cam +to me; and here I am, wi’ nayther man nor bairn to +ca’ my ain, wearying a’ folks wi’ my ill +tongue, and you just the first, Mr. Erchie!”</p> +<p>“I have a difficulty in knowing what you mean,” +said Archie.</p> +<p>“Weel, and I’ll tell ye,” she said. +“It’s just this, that I’m feared. +I’m feared for ye, my dear. Remember, your faither is +a hard man, reaping where he hasna sowed and gaithering where he +hasna strawed. It’s easy speakin’, but +mind! Ye’ll have to look in the gurly face o’m, +where it’s ill to look, and vain to look for mercy. +Ye mind me o’ a bonny ship pitten oot into the black and +gowsty seas—ye’re a’ safe still, sittin’ +quait and crackin’ wi’ Kirstie in your lown chalmer; +but whaur will ye be the morn, and in whatten horror o’ the +fearsome tempest, cryin’ on the hills to cover +ye?”</p> +<p>“Why, Kirstie, you’re very enigmatical +to-night—and very eloquent,” Archie put in.</p> +<p>“And, my dear Mr. Erchie,” she continued, with a +change of voice, “ye mauna think that I canna sympathise +wi’ ye. Ye mauna think that I havena been young +mysel’. Lang syne, when I was a bit lassie, no twenty +yet—” She paused and sighed. “Clean +and caller, wi’ a fit like the hinney bee,” she +continned. “I was aye big and buirdly, ye maun +understand; a bonny figure o’ a woman, though I say it that +suldna—built to rear bairns—braw bairns they suld hae +been, and grand I would hae likit it! But I was young, +dear, wi’ the bonny glint o’ youth in my e’en, +and little I dreamed I’d ever be tellin’ ye this, an +auld, lanely, rudas wife! Weel, Mr. Erchie, there was a lad +cam’ courtin’ me, as was but naetural. Mony had +come before, and I would nane o’ them. But this yin +had a tongue to wile the birds frae the lift and the bees frae +the foxglove bells. Deary me, but it’s lang +syne! Folk have dee’d sinsyne and been buried, and +are forgotten, and bairns been born and got merrit and got bairns +o’ their ain. Sinsyne woods have been plantit, and +have grawn up and are bonny trees, and the joes sit in their +shadow, and sinsyne auld estates have changed hands, and there +have been wars and rumours of wars on the face of the +earth. And here I’m still—like an auld droopit +craw—lookin’ on and craikin’! But, Mr. +Erchie, do ye no think that I have mind o’ it a’ +still? I was dwalling then in my faither’s house; and +it’s a curious thing that we were whiles trysted in the +Deil’s Hags. And do ye no think that I have mind of +the bonny simmer days, the lang miles o’ the bluid-red +heather, the cryin’ of the whaups, and the lad and the +lassie that was trysted? Do ye no think that I mind how the +hilly sweetness ran about my hairt? Ay, Mr. Erchie, I ken +the way o’ it—fine do I ken the way—how the +grace o’ God takes them, like Paul of Tarsus, when they +think it least, and drives the pair o’ them into a land +which is like a dream, and the world and the folks +in’t’ are nae mair than clouds to the puir lassie, +and heeven nae mair than windle-straes, if she can but pleesure +him! Until Tam dee’d—that was my story,” +she broke off to say, “he dee’d, and I wasna at the +buryin’. But while he was here, I could take care +o’ mysel’. And can yon puir lassie?”</p> +<p>Kirstie, her eyes shining with unshed tears, stretched out her +hand towards him appealingly; the bright and the dull gold of her +hair flashed and smouldered in the coils behind her comely head, +like the rays of an eternal youth; the pure colour had risen in +her face; and Archie was abashed alike by her beauty and her +story. He came towards her slowly from the window, took up +her hand in his and kissed it.</p> +<p>“Kirstie,” he said hoarsely, “you have +misjudged me sorely. I have always thought of her, I +wouldna harm her for the universe, my woman!”</p> +<p>“Eh, lad, and that’s easy sayin’,” +cried Kirstie, “but it’s nane sae easy +doin’! Man, do ye no comprehend that it’s +God’s wull we should be blendit and glamoured, and have nae +command over our ain members at a time like that? My +bairn,” she cried, still holding his hand, “think +o’ the puir lass! have pity upon her, Erchie! and O, be +wise for twa! Think o’ the risk she rins! I have seen +ye, and what’s to prevent ithers! I saw ye once in +the Hags, in my ain howl, and I was wae to see ye there—in +pairt for the omen, for I think there’s a weird on the +place—and in pairt for pure nakit envy and bitterness +o’ hairt. It’s strange ye should forgather +there tae! God! but yon puir, thrawn, auld +Covenanter’s seen a heap o’ human natur since he +lookit his last on the musket barrels, if he never saw nane +afore,” she added, with a kind of wonder in her eyes.</p> +<p>“I swear by my honour I have done her no wrong,” +said Archie. “I swear by my honour and the redemption +of my soul that there shall none be done her. I have heard +of this before. I have been foolish, Kirstie, not unkind, +and, above all, not base.”</p> +<p>“There’s my bairn!” said Kirstie, +rising. “I’ll can trust ye noo, I’ll can +gang to my bed wi’ an easy hairt.” And then she +saw in a flash how barren had been her triumph. Archie had +promised to spare the girl, and he would keep it; but who had +promised to spare Archie? What was to be the end of +it? Over a maze of difficulties she glanced, and saw, at +the end of every passage, the flinty countenance of +Hermiston. And a kind of horror fell upon her at what she +had done. She wore a tragic mask. “Erchie, the +Lord peety you, dear, and peety me! I have buildit on this +foundation”—laying her hand heavily on his +shoulder—“and buildit hie, and pit my hairt in the +buildin’ of it. If the hale hypothec were to +fa’, I think, laddie, I would dee! Excuse a daft wife +that loves ye, and that kenned your mither. And for His +name’s sake keep yersel’ frae inordinate desires; +haud your heart in baith your hands, carry it canny and laigh; +dinna send it up like a hairn’s kite into the collieshangic +o’ the wunds! Mind, Maister Erchie dear, that this +life’s a’ disappointment, and a mouthfu’ +o’ mools is the appointed end.”</p> +<p>“Ay, but Kirstie, my woman, you’re asking me ower +much at last,” said Archie, profoundly moved, and lapsing +into the broad Scots. “Ye’re asking what nae +man can grant ye, what only the Lord of heaven can grant ye if He +see fit. Ay! And can even He! I can promise ye +what I shall do, and you can depend on that. But how I +shall feel—my woman, that is long past thinking +of!”</p> +<p>They were both standing by now opposite each other. The +face of Archie wore the wretched semblance of a smile; hers was +convulsed for a moment.</p> +<p>“Promise me ae thing,” she cried in a sharp +voice. “Promise me ye’ll never do naething +without telling me.”</p> +<p>“No, Kirstie, I canna promise ye that,” he +replied. “I have promised enough, God +kens!”</p> +<p>“May the blessing of God lift and rest upon ye +dear!” she said.</p> +<p>“God bless ye, my old friend,” said he.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX—AT THE WEAVER’S STONE</h2> +<p>It was late in the afternoon when Archie drew near by the hill +path to the Praying Weaver’s stone. The Hags were in +shadow. But still, through the gate of the Slap, the sun +shot a last arrow, which sped far and straight across the surface +of the moss, here and there touching and shining on a tussock, +and lighted at length on the gravestone and the small figure +awaiting him there. The emptiness and solitude of the great +moors seemed to be concentrated there, and Kirstie pointed out by +that figure of sunshine for the only inhabitant. His first +sight of her was thus excruciatingly sad, like a glimpse of a +world from which all light, comfort, and society were on the +point of vanishing. And the next moment, when she had +turned her face to him and the quick smile had enlightened it, +the whole face of nature smiled upon him in her smile of +welcome. Archie’s slow pace was quickened; his legs +hasted to her though his heart was hanging back. The girl, +upon her side, drew herself together slowly and stood up, +expectant; she was all languor, her face was gone white; her arms +ached for him, her soul was on tip-toes. But he deceived +her, pausing a few steps away, not less white than herself, and +holding up his hand with a gesture of denial.</p> +<p>“No, Christina, not to-day,” he said. +“To-day I have to talk to you seriously. Sit ye down, +please, there where you were. Please!” he +repeated.</p> +<p>The revulsion of feeling in Christina’s heart was +violent. To have longed and waited these weary hours for +him, rehearsing her endearments—to have seen him at last +come—to have been ready there, breathless, wholly passive, +his to do what he would with—and suddenly to have found +herself confronted with a grey-faced, harsh schoolmaster—it +was too rude a shock. She could have wept, but pride +withheld her. She sat down on the stone, from which she had +arisen, part with the instinct of obedience, part as though she +had been thrust there. What was this? Why was she +rejected? Had she ceased to please? She stood here +offering her wares, and he would none of them! And yet they +were all his! His to take and keep, not his to refuse +though! In her quick petulant nature, a moment ago on fire +with hope, thwarted love and wounded vanity wrought. The +schoolmaster that there is in all men, to the despair of all +girls and most women, was now completely in possession of +Archie. He had passed a night of sermons, a day of +reflection; he had come wound up to do his duty; and the set +mouth, which in him only betrayed the effort of his will, to her +seemed the expression of an averted heart. It was the same +with his constrained voice and embarrassed utterance; and if +so—if it was all over—the pang of the thought took +away from her the power of thinking.</p> +<p>He stood before her some way off. “Kirstie, +there’s been too much of this. We’ve seen too +much of each other.” She looked up quickly and her +eyes contracted. “There’s no good ever comes of +these secret meetings. They’re not frank, not honest +truly, and I ought to have seen it. People have begun to +talk; and it’s not right of me. Do you +see?”</p> +<p>“I see somebody will have been talking to ye,” she +said sullenly.</p> +<p>“They have, more than one of them,” replied +Archie.</p> +<p>“And whae were they?” she cried. “And +what kind o’ love do ye ca’ that, that’s ready +to gang round like a whirligig at folk talking? Do ye think +they havena talked to me?”</p> +<p>“Have they indeed?” said Archie, with a quick +breath. “That is what I feared. Who were +they? Who has dared—?”</p> +<p>Archie was on the point of losing his temper.</p> +<p>As a matter of fact, not any one had talked to Christina on +the matter; and she strenuously repeated her own first question +in a panic of self-defence.</p> +<p>“Ah, well! what does it matter?” he said. +“They were good folk that wished well to us, and the great +affair is that there are people talking. My dear girl, we +have to be wise. We must not wreck our lives at the +outset. They may be long and happy yet, and we must see to +it, Kirstie, like God’s rational creatures and not like +fool children. There is one thing we must see to before +all. You’re worth waiting for, Kirstie! worth waiting +for a generation; it would be enough reward.”—And +here he remembered the schoolmaster again, and very unwisely took +to following wisdom. “The first thing that we must +see to, is that there shall be no scandal about for my +father’s sake. That would ruin all; do ye no see +that?”</p> +<p>Kirstie was a little pleased, there had been some show of +warmth of sentiment in what Archie had said last. But the +dull irritation still persisted in her bosom; with the aboriginal +instinct, having suffered herself, she wished to make Archie +suffer.</p> +<p>And besides, there had come out the word she had always feared +to hear from his lips, the name of his father. It is not to +be supposed that, during so many days with a love avowed between +them, some reference had not been made to their conjoint +future. It had in fact been often touched upon, and from +the first had been the sore point. Kirstie had wilfully +closed the eye of thought; she would not argue even with herself; +gallant, desperate little heart, she had accepted the command of +that supreme attraction like the call of fate and marched +blindfold on her doom. But Archie, with his masculine sense +of responsibility, must reason; he must dwell on some future +good, when the present good was all in all to Kirstie; he must +talk—and talk lamely, as necessity drove him—of what +was to be. Again and again he had touched on marriage; +again and again been driven back into indistinctness by a memory +of Lord Hermiston. And Kirstie had been swift to understand +and quick to choke down and smother the understanding; swift to +leap up in flame at a mention of that hope, which spoke volumes +to her vanity and her love, that she might one day be Mrs. Weir +of Hermiston; swift, also, to recognise in his stumbling or +throttled utterance the death-knell of these expectations, and +constant, poor girl! in her large-minded madness, to go on and to +reck nothing of the future. But these unfinished +references, these blinks in which his heart spoke, and his memory +and reason rose up to silence it before the words were well +uttered, gave her unqualifiable agony. She was raised up +and dashed down again bleeding. The recurrence of the +subject forced her, for however short a time, to open her eyes on +what she did not wish to see; and it had invariably ended in +another disappointment. So now again, at the mere wind of +its coming, at the mere mention of his father’s +name—who might seem indeed to have accompanied them in +their whole moorland courtship, an awful figure in a wig with an +ironical and bitter smile, present to guilty +consciousness—she fled from it head down.</p> +<p>“Ye havena told me yet,” she said, “who was +it spoke?”</p> +<p>“Your aunt for one,” said Archie.</p> +<p>“Auntie Kirstie?” she cried. “And what +do I care for my Auntie Kirstie?”</p> +<p>“She cares a great deal for her niece,” replied +Archie, in kind reproof.</p> +<p>“Troth, and it’s the first I’ve heard of +it,” retorted the girl.</p> +<p>“The question here is not who it is, but what they say, +what they have noticed,” pursued the lucid +schoolmaster. “That is what we have to think of in +self-defence.”</p> +<p>“Auntie Kirstie, indeed! A bitter, thrawn auld +maid that’s fomented trouble in the country before I was +born, and will be doing it still, I daur say, when I’m +deid! It’s in her nature; it’s as natural for +her as it’s for a sheep to eat.”</p> +<p>“Pardon me, Kirstie, she was not the only one,” +interposed Archie. “I had two warnings, two sermons, +last night, both most kind and considerate. Had you been +there, I promise you you would have grat, my dear! And they +opened my eyes. I saw we were going a wrong way.”</p> +<p>“Who was the other one?” Kirstie demanded.</p> +<p>By this time Archie was in the condition of a hunted +beast. He had come, braced and resolute; he was to trace +out a line of conduct for the pair of them in a few cold, +convincing sentences; he had now been there some time, and he was +still staggering round the outworks and undergoing what he felt +to be a savage cross-examination.</p> +<p>“Mr. Frank!” she cried. “What +nex’, I would like to ken?”</p> +<p>“He spoke most kindly and truly.”</p> +<p>“What like did he say?”</p> +<p>“I am not going to tell you; you have nothing to do with +that,” cried Archie, startled to find he had admitted so +much.</p> +<p>“O, I have naething to do with it!” she repeated, +springing to her feet. “A’body at +Hermiston’s free to pass their opinions upon me, but I have +naething to do wi’ it! Was this at prayers +like? Did ye ca’ the grieve into the +consultation? Little wonder if a’body’s +talking, when ye make a’body yer confidants! But as +you say, Mr. Weir,—most kindly, most considerately, most +truly, I’m sure,—I have naething to do with it. +And I think I’ll better be going. I’ll be +wishing you good evening, Mr. Weir.” And she made him +a stately curtsey, shaking as she did so from head to foot, with +the barren ecstasy of temper.</p> +<p>Poor Archie stood dumbfounded. She had moved some steps +away from him before he recovered the gift of articulate +speech.</p> +<p>“Kirstie!” he cried. “O, Kirstie +woman!”</p> +<p>There was in his voice a ring of appeal, a clang of mere +astonishment that showed the schoolmaster was vanquished.</p> +<p>She turned round on him. “What do ye Kirstie me +for?” she retorted. “What have ye to do +wi’ me! Gang to your ain freends and deave +them!”</p> +<p>He could only repeat the appealing “Kirstie!”</p> +<p>“Kirstie, indeed!” cried the girl, her eyes +blazing in her white face. “My name is Miss Christina +Elliott, I would have ye to ken, and I daur ye to ca’ me +out of it. If I canna get love, I’ll have respect, +Mr. Weir. I’m come of decent people, and I’ll +have respect. What have I done that ye should lightly +me? What have I done? What have I done? O, what have +I done?” and her voice rose upon the third +repetition. “I thocht—I thocht—I thocht I +was sae happy!” and the first sob broke from her like the +paroxysm of some mortal sickness.</p> +<p>Archie ran to her. He took the poor child in his arms, +and she nestled to his breast as to a mother’s, and clasped +him in hands that were strong like vices. He felt her whole +body shaken by the throes of distress, and had pity upon her +beyond speech. Pity, and at the same time a bewildered fear +of this explosive engine in his arms, whose works he did not +understand, and yet had been tampering with. There arose +from before him the curtains of boyhood, and he saw for the first +time the ambiguous face of woman as she is. In vain he +looked back over the interview; he saw not where he had +offended. It seemed unprovoked, a wilful convulsion of +brute nature. . . .</p> +<h2><!-- page 168--><a name="page168"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 168</span>EDITORIAL NOTE</h2> +<p>With the words last printed, “a wilful convulsion of +brute nature,” the romance of <i>Weir of Hermiston</i> +breaks off. They were dictated, I believe, on the very +morning of the writer’s sudden seizure and death. +<i>Weir of Hermiston</i> thus remains in the work of Stevenson +what <i>Edwin Droid</i> is in the work of Dickens or <i>Denis +Duval</i> in that of Thackeray: or rather it remains relatively +more, for if each of those fragments holds an honourable place +among its author’s writings, among Stevenson’s the +fragment of <i>Weir</i> holds certainly the highest.</p> +<p>Readers may be divided in opinion on the question whether they +would or they would not wish to hear more of the intended course +of the story and destinies of the characters. To some, +silence may seem best, and that the mind should be left to its +own conjectures as to the sequel, with the help of such +indications as the text affords. I confess that this is the +view which has my sympathy. But since others, and those +almost certainly a majority, are anxious to be told all they can, +and since editors and publishers join in the request, I can +scarce do otherwise than comply. The intended argument, +then, so far as it was known at the time of the writer’s +death to his step-daughter and devoted amanuensis, Mrs. Strong, +was nearly as follows:—</p> +<p>Archie persists in his good resolution of avoiding further +conduct compromising to young Kirstie’s good <!-- page +169--><a name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +169</span>name. Taking advantage of the situation thus +created, and of the girl’s unhappiness and wounded vanity, +Frank Innes pursues his purpose of seduction; and Kirstie, though +still caring for Archie in her heart, allows herself to become +Frank’s victim. Old Kirstie is the first to perceive +something amiss with her, and believing Archie to be the culprit, +accuses him, thus making him aware for the first time that +mischief has happened. He does not at once deny the charge, +but seeks out and questions young Kirstie, who confesses the +truth to him; and he, still loving her, promises to protect and +defend her in her trouble. He then has an interview with +Frank Innes on the moor, which ends in a quarrel, and in Archie +killing Frank beside the Weaver’s Stone. Meanwhile +the Four Black Brothers, having become aware of their +sister’s betrayal, are bent on vengeance against Archie as +her supposed seducer. They are about to close in upon him +with this purpose when he is arrested by the officers of the law +for the murder of Frank. He is tried before his own father, +the Lord Justice-Clerk, found guilty, and condemned to +death. Meanwhile the elder Kirstie, having discovered from +the girl how matters really stand, informs her nephews of the +truth; and they, in a great revulsion of feeling in +Archie’s favour, determine on an action after the ancient +manner of their house. They gather a following, and after a +great fight break the prison where Archie lies confined, and +rescue him. He and young Kirstie thereafter escape to +America. But the ordeal of taking part in the trial of his +own son has been too much for the Lord Justice-Clerk, who dies of +the shock. “I do not know,” adds the +amanuensis, “what becomes of old Kirstie, but that +character grew and strengthened so in the writing that I am sure +he had some dramatic destiny for her.”</p> +<p><!-- page 170--><a name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +170</span>The plan of every imaginative work is subject, of +course, to change under the artist’s hand as he carries it +out; and not merely the character of the elder Kirstie, but other +elements of the design no less, might well have deviated from the +lines originally traced. It seems certain, however, that +the next stage in the relations of Archie and the younger Kirstie +would have been as above foreshadowed; and this conception of the +lover’s unconventional chivalry and unshaken devotion to +his mistress after her fault is very characteristic of the +writer’s mind. The vengeance to be taken on the +seducer beside the Weaver’s Stone is prepared for in the +first words of the Introduction; while the situation and fate of +the judge, confronting like a Brutus, but unable to survive, the +duty of sending his own son to the gallows, seem clearly to have +been destined to furnish the climax and essential tragedy of the +tale.</p> +<p>How this last circumstance was to have been brought about, +within the limits of legal usage and possibility, seems hard to +conjecture; but it was a point to which the author had evidently +given careful consideration. Mrs. Strong says simply that +the Lord Justice-Clerk, like an old Roman, condemns his son to +death; but I am assured on the best legal authority of Scotland +that no judge, however powerful either by character or office, +could have insisted on presiding at the trial of a near kinsman +of his own. The Lord Justice-Clerk was head of the criminal +justiciary of the country; he might have insisted on his right of +being present on the bench when his son was tried: but he would +never have been allowed to preside or to pass sentence. Now +in a letter of Stevenson’s to Mr. Baxter, of October 1892, +I find him asking for materials in terms which seem to indicate +that he knew this quite well:—“I wish +Pitcairn’s ‘Criminal Trials,’ <i>quam +primum</i>. Also an absolutely correct text <!-- page +171--><a name="page171"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 171</span>of +the Scots judiciary oath. Also, in case Pitcairn does not +come down late enough, I wish as full a report as possible of a +Scots murder trial between 1790–1820. Understand the +<i>fullest possible</i>. Is there any book which would +guide me to the following facts? The Justice-Clerk tries +some people capitally on circuit. Certain evidence cropping +up, the charge is transferred to the Justice-Clerk’s own +son. Of course in the next trial the Justice-Clerk is +excluded, and the case is called before the Lord +Justice-General. Where would this trial have to be? I +fear in Edinburgh, which would not suit my view. Could it +be again at the circuit town?” The point was referred +to a quondam fellow-member with Stevenson of the Edinburgh +Speculative Society, Mr. Graham Murray, the present +Solicitor-General for Scotland; whose reply was to the effect +that there would be no difficulty in making the new trial take +place at the circuit town; that it would have to be held there in +spring or autumn, before two Lords of Justiciary; and that the +Lord Justice-General would have nothing to do with it, this title +being at the date in question only a nominal one held by a layman +(which is no longer the case). On this Stevenson writes, +“Graham Murray’s note <i>re</i> the venue was highly +satisfactory, and did me all the good in the world.” +The terms of his inquiry seem to imply that he intended other +persons, before Archie, to have fallen first under suspicion of +the murder; and also—doubtless in order to make the rescue +by the Black Brothers possible—that he wanted Archie to be +imprisoned not in Edinburgh but in the circuit town. But +they do not show how he meant to get over the main difficulty, +which at the same time he fully recognises. Can it have +been that Lord Hermiston’s part was to have been limited to +presiding at the <i>first</i> trial, where the evidence +incriminating Archie was unexpectedly <!-- page 172--><a +name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 172</span>brought +forward, and to directing that the law should take its +course?</p> +<p>Whether the final escape and union of Archie and Christina +would have proved equally essential to the plot may perhaps to +some readers seem questionable. They may rather feel that a +tragic destiny is foreshadowed from the beginning for all +concerned, and is inherent in the very conditions of the +tale. But on this point, and other matters of general +criticism connected with it, I find an interesting discussion by +the author himself in his correspondence. Writing to Mr. J. +M. Barrie, under date November 1, 1892, and criticising that +author’s famous story of <i>The Little Minister</i>, +Stevenson says:—</p> +<p>“Your descriptions of your dealings with Lord Rintoul +are frightfully unconscientious. . . . The <i>Little +Minister</i> ought to have ended badly; we all know it +<i>did</i>, and we are infinitely grateful to you for the grace +and good feeling with which you have lied about it. If you +had told the truth, I for one could never have forgiven +you. As you had conceived and written the earlier parts, +the truth about the end, though indisputably true to fact, would +have been a lie, or what is worse, a discord, in art. If +you are going to make a book end badly, it must end badly from +the beginning. Now, your book began to end well. You +let yourself fall in love with, and fondle, and smile at your +puppets. Once you had done that, your honour was +committed—at the cost of truth to life you were bound to +save them. It is the blot on <i>Richard Feverel</i> for +instance, that it begins to end well; and then tricks you and +ends ill. But in this case, there is worse behind, for the +ill ending does not inherently issue from the plot—the +story had, in fact, ended well after the great last interview +between Richard and Lucy—and the blind, illogical bullet +which smashes all has no more to do between the boards than a fly +has to do with a room <!-- page 173--><a name="page173"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 173</span>into whose open window it comes +buzzing. It might have so happened; it needed not; and +unless needs must, we have no right to pain our readers. I +have had a heavy case of conscience of the same kind about my +Braxfield story. Braxfield—only his name is +Hermiston—has a son who is condemned to death; plainly +there is a fine tempting fitness about this—and I meant he +was to hang. But on considering my minor characters, I saw +there were five people who would—in a sense, who +must—break prison and attempt his rescue. They are +capable hardy folks too, who might very well succeed. Why +should they not then? Why should not young Hermiston escape +clear out of the country? and be happy, if he could, with +his—but soft! I will not betray my secret nor my +heroine. . . .”</p> +<p>To pass, now, from the question how the story would have ended +to the question how it originated and grew in the writer’s +mind. The character of the hero, Weir of Hermiston, is +avowedly suggested by the historical personality of Robert +Macqueen, Lord Braxfield. This famous judge has been for +generations the subject of a hundred Edinburgh tales and +anecdotes. Readers of Stevenson’s essay on the +Raeburn exhibition, in <i>Virginibus Puerisque</i>, will remember +how he is fascinated by Raeburn’s portrait of Braxfield, +even as Lockhart had been fascinated by a different portrait of +the same worthy sixty years before (see <i>Peter’s Letters +to his Kinsfolk</i>); nor did his interest in the character +diminish in later life. Again, the case of a judge involved +by the exigencies of his office in a strong conflict between +public duty and private interest or affection, was one which had +always attracted and exercised Stevenson’s +imagination. In the days when he and Mr. Henley were +collaborating with a view to the stage, Mr. Henley once proposed +a plot founded on the story of Mr. Justice Harbottle in Sheridan +<!-- page 174--><a name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +174</span>Le Fanu’s <i>In a Glass Darkly</i>, in which the +wicked judge goes headlong <i>per fas et nefas</i> to his object +of getting the husband of his mistress hanged. Some time +later Stevenson and his wife together wrote a play called <i>The +Hanging Judge</i>. In this, the title character is tempted +for the first time in his life to tamper with the course of +justice, in order to shield his wife from persecution by a former +husband who reappears after being supposed dead. +Bulwer’s novel of <i>Paul Clifford</i>, with its final +situation of the worldly-minded judge, Sir William Brandon, +learning that the highwayman whom he is in the act of sentencing +is his own son, and dying of the knowledge, was also well known +to Stevenson, and no doubt counted for something in the +suggestion of the present story.</p> +<p>Once more, the difficulties often attending the relation of +father and son in actual life had pressed heavily on +Stevenson’s mind and conscience from the days of his youth, +when in obeying the law of his own nature he had been constrained +to disappoint, distress, and for a time to be much misunderstood +by, a father whom he justly loved and admired with all his +heart. Difficulties of this kind he had already handled in +a lighter vein once or twice in fiction—as for instance in +the <i>Story of a Lie</i> and in <i>The Wrecker</i>—before +he grappled with them in the acute and tragic phase in which they +occur in the present story.</p> +<p>These three elements, then, the interest of the historical +personality of Lord Braxfield, the problems and emotions arising +from a violent conflict between duty and nature in a judge, and +the difficulties due to incompatibility and misunderstanding +between father and son, lie at the foundations of the present +story. To touch on minor matters, it is perhaps worth +notice, as Mr. Henley reminds me, that the name of Weir had from +of old a special <!-- page 175--><a name="page175"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 175</span>significance for Stevenson’s +imagination, from the traditional fame in Edinburgh of Major +Weir, burned as a warlock, together with his sister, under +circumstances of peculiar atrocity. Another name, that of +the episodical personage of Mr. Torrance the minister, is +borrowed direct from life, as indeed are the whole figure and its +surroundings—kirkyard, kirk, and manse—down even to +the black thread mittens: witness the following passage from a +letter of the early seventies:—“I’ve been to +church and am not depressed—a great step. It was at +that beautiful church” [of Glencorse in the Pentlands, +three miles from his father’s country house at +Swanston]. “It is a little cruciform place, with a +steep slate roof. The small kirkyard is full of old +grave-stones; one of a Frenchman from Dunkerque, I suppose he +died prisoner in the military prison hard by. And one, the +most pathetic memorial I ever saw: a poor school-slate, in a +wooden frame, with the inscription cut into it evidently by the +father’s own hand. In church, old Mr. Torrance +preached, over eighty and a relic of times forgotten, with his +black thread gloves and mild old face.” A side hint +for a particular trait in the character of Mrs. Weir we can trace +in some family traditions concerning the writer’s own +grandmother, who is reported to have valued piety much more than +efficiency in her domestic servants. The other women +characters seem, so far at least as I know, to have been pure +creation, and especially that new and admirable incarnation of +the eternal feminine in the elder Kirstie. The little that +he says about her himself is in a letter written a few days +before his death to Mr. Gosse. The allusions are to the +various moods and attitudes of people in regard to middle age, +and are suggested by Mr. Gosse’s volume of poems, <i>In +Russet and Silver</i>. “It seems rather funny,” +he writes, “that this matter should come up just now, as I +am at present <!-- page 176--><a name="page176"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 176</span>engaged in treating a severe case of +middle age in one of my stories, <i>The Justice-Clerk</i>. +The case is that of a woman, and I think I am doing her +justice. You will be interested, I believe, to see the +difference in our treatments. <i>Secreta Vitæ</i> +[the title of one of Mr. Gosse’s poems] comes nearer to the +case of my poor Kirstie.” From the wonderful midnight +scene between her and Archie, we may judge what we have lost in +those later scenes where she was to have taxed him with the fault +that was not his—to have presently learned his innocence +from the lips of his supposed victim—to have then +vindicated him to her kinsmen and fired them to the action of his +rescue. The scene of the prison-breaking here planned by +Stevenson would have gained interest (as will already have +occurred to readers) from comparison with the two famous +precedents in Scott, the Porteous mob and the breaking of +Portanferry jail.</p> +<p>The best account of Stevenson’s methods of imaginative +work is in the following sentences from a letter of his own to +Mr. W. Craibe Angus of Glasgow:—“I am still ‘a +slow study,’ and sit for a long while silent on my +eggs. Unconscious thought, there is the only method: +macerate your subject, let it boil slow, then take the lid off +and look in—and there your stuff is—good or +bad.” The several elements above noted having been +left to work for many years in his mind, it was in the autumn of +1892 that he was moved to “take the lid off and look +in,”—under the influence, it would seem, of a special +and overmastering wave of that feeling for the romance of +Scottish scenery and character which was at all times so strong +in him, and which his exile did so much to intensify. I +quote again from his letter to Mr. Barrie on November 1st in that +year:—“It is a singular thing that I should live here +in the South Seas under conditions so new and so striking, and +yet my imagination so continually inhabit the cold <!-- page +177--><a name="page177"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +177</span>old huddle of grey hills from which we come. I +have finished <i>David Balfour</i>, I have another book on the +stocks, <i>The Young Chevalier</i>, which is to be part in France +and part in Scotland, and to deal with Prince Charlie about the +year 1749; and now what have I done but begun a third, which is +to be all moorland together, and is to have for a centre-piece a +figure that I think you will appreciate—that of the +immortal Braxfield. Braxfield himself is my grand +premier—or since you are so much involved in the British +drama, let me say my heavy lead.” Writing to me at +the same date he makes the same announcement more briefly, with a +list of the characters and an indication of the scene and date of +the story. To Mr. Baxter he writes a month later, “I +have a novel on the stocks to be called <i>The +Justice-Clerk</i>. It is pretty Scotch; the grand premier +is taken from Braxfield (O, by the by, send me Cockburn’s +<i>Memorials</i>), and some of the story is, well, queer. +The heroine is seduced by one man, and finally disappears with +the other man who shot him. . . . Mind you, I expect <i>The +Justice-Clerk</i> to be my masterpiece. My Braxfield is +already a thing of beauty and a joy for ever, and so far as he +has gone, far my best character.” From the last +extract it appears that he had already at this date drafted some +of the earlier chapters of the book. He also about the same +time composed the dedication to his wife, who found it pinned to +her bed-curtains one morning on awaking. It was always his +habit to keep several books in progress at the same time, turning +from one to another as the fancy took him, and finding relief in +the change of labour; and for many months after the date of this +letter, first illness,—then a voyage to +Auckland,—then work on the <i>Ebb-Tide</i>, on a new tale +called <i>St. Ives</i>, which was begun during an attack of +influenza, and on his projected book of family +history,—prevented his making any continuous progress <!-- +page 178--><a name="page178"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +178</span>with <i>Weir</i>. In August 1893 he says he has +been recasting the beginning. A year later, still only the +first four or five chapters had been drafted. Then, in the +last weeks of his life, he attacked the task again, in a sudden +heat of inspiration, and worked at it ardently and without +interruption until the end came. No wonder if during these +weeks he was sometimes aware of a tension of the spirit difficult +to sustain. “How can I keep this pitch?” he is +reported to have said after finishing one of the chapters; and +all the world knows how that frail organism in fact betrayed him +in mid effort. The greatness of the loss to his +country’s letters can for the first time be fully measured +from the foregoing pages.</p> +<p>There remains one more point to be mentioned, as to the speech +and manners of the Hanging Judge himself. That these are +not a whit exaggerated, in comparison with what is recorded of +his historic prototype, Lord Braxfield, is certain. The +<i>locus classicus</i> in regard to this personage is in Lord +Cockburn’s <i>Memorials of his Time</i>. +“Strong built and dark, with rough eyebrows, powerful eyes, +threatening lips, and a low growling voice, he was like a +formidable blacksmith. His accent and dialect were +exaggerated Scotch; his language, like his thoughts, short, +strong, and conclusive. Illiterate and without any taste +for any refined enjoyment, strength of understanding, which gave +him power without cultivation, only encouraged him to a more +contemptuous disdain of all natures less coarse than his +own. It may be doubted if he was ever so much in his +element as when tauntingly repelling the last despairing claim of +a wretched culprit, and sending him to Botany Bay or the gallows +with an insulting jest. Yet this was not from cruelty, for +which he was too strong and too jovial, but from cherished +coarseness.” Readers, nevertheless, who are at all +acquainted with the social history of Scotland will hardly <!-- +page 179--><a name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +179</span>have failed to make the observation that +Braxfield’s is an extreme case of eighteenth-century +manners, as he himself was an eighteenth-century personage (he +died in 1799, in his seventy-eighth year); and that for the date +in which the story is cast (1814) such manners are somewhat of an +anachronism. During the generation contemporary with the +French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars—or to put it +another way, the generation that elapsed between the days when +Scott roamed the country as a High School and University student +and those when he settled in the fulness of fame and prosperity +at Abbotsford,—or again (the allusions will appeal to +readers of the admirable Galt) during the interval between the +first and the last provostry of Bailie Pawkie in the borough of +Gudetown, or between the earlier and the final ministrations of +Mr. Balwhidder in the parish of Dalmailing,—during this +period a great softening had taken place in Scottish manners +generally, and in those of the Bar and Bench not least. +“Since the death of Lord Justice-Clerk Macqueen of +Braxfield,” says Lockhart, writing about 1817, “the +whole exterior of judicial deportment has been quite +altered.” A similar criticism may probably hold good +on the picture of border life contained in the chapter concerning +the Four Black Brothers of Cauldstaneslap, namely, that it rather +suggests the ways of an earlier generation; nor have I any clue +to the reasons which led Stevenson to choose this particular +date, in the year preceding Waterloo, for a story which, in +regard to some of its features at least, might seem more +naturally placed some twenty-five or thirty years before.</p> +<p>If the reader seeks, further, to know whether the scenery of +Hermiston can be identified with any one special place familiar +to the writer’s early experience, the answer, I think, must +be in the negative. Rather it is distilled from a number of +different haunts and associations among the <!-- page 180--><a +name="page180"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 180</span>moorlands +of southern Scotland. In the dedication and in a letter to +me he indicates the Lammermuirs as the scene of his +tragedy. And Mrs. Stevenson (his mother) tells me that she +thinks he was inspired by recollections of a visit paid in +boyhood to an uncle living at a remote farmhouse in that district +called Overshiels, in the parish of Stow. But though he may +have thought of the Lammermuirs in the first instance, we have +already found him drawing his description of the kirk and manse +from another haunt of his youth, namely, Glencorse in the +Pentlands; while passages in chapters v. and viii. point +explicitly to a third district, that is, Upper Tweeddale, with +the country stretching thence towards the wells of Clyde. +With this country also holiday rides and excursions from Peebles +had made him familiar as a boy: and this seems certainly the most +natural scene of the story, if only from its proximity to the +proper home of the Elliotts, which of course is in the heart of +the Border, especially Teviotdale and Ettrick. Some of the +geographical names mentioned are clearly not meant to furnish +literal indications. The Spango, for instance, is a water +running, I believe, not into the Tweed but into the Nith, and +Crossmichael as the name of a town is borrowed from Galloway.</p> +<p>But it is with the general and essential that the artist +deals, and questions of strict historical perspective or local +definition are beside the mark in considering his work. Nor +will any reader expect, or be grateful for, comment in this place +on matters which are more properly to the point—on the +seizing and penetrating power of the author’s ripened art +as exhibited in the foregoing pages, the wide range of character +and emotion over which he sweeps with so assured a hand, his +vital poetry of vision and magic of presentment. Surely no +son of Scotland has died leaving with his last breath a worthier +tribute to the land he loved.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">S. C.</p> +<h2>GLOSSARY</h2> +<p>Ae, one.</p> +<p>Antinomian, one of a sect which holds that under the gospel +dispensation the moral law is not obligatory.</p> +<p>Auld Hornie, the Devil.</p> +<p>Ballant, ballad.</p> +<p>Bauchles, brogues, old shoes.</p> +<p>Bauld, bold.</p> +<p>Bees in their bonnet, eccentricities.</p> +<p>Birling, whirling.</p> +<p>Black-a-vised, dark-complexioned.</p> +<p>Bonnet-laird, small landed proprietor, yeoman.</p> +<p>Bool, ball.</p> +<p>Brae, rising ground.</p> +<p>Brig, bridge.</p> +<p>Buff, play buff on, to make a fool of, to deceive.</p> +<p>Burn, stream.</p> +<p>Butt end, end of a cottage.</p> +<p>Byre, cow-house.</p> +<p>Ca’, drive.</p> +<p>Caller, fresh.</p> +<p>Canna, cannot.</p> +<p>Canny, careful, shrewd.</p> +<p>Cantie, cheerful.</p> +<p>Carline, old woman.</p> +<p>Cauld, cold.</p> +<p>Chalmer, chamber.</p> +<p>Claes, clothes.</p> +<p>Clamjamfry, crowd.</p> +<p>Clavers, idle talk.</p> +<p>Cock-laird. See Bonnet-laird.</p> +<p>Collieshangie, turmoil.</p> +<p>Crack, to converse.</p> +<p>Cuist, cast.</p> +<p>Cuddy, donkey.</p> +<p>Cutty, jade, also used playfully = brat.</p> +<p>Daft, mad, frolicsome.</p> +<p>Dander, to saunter.</p> +<p>Danders, cinders.</p> +<p>Daurna, dare not.</p> +<p>Deave, to deafen.</p> +<p>Denty, dainty.</p> +<p>Dirdum, vigour.</p> +<p>Disjaskit, worn out, disreputable-looking.</p> +<p>Doer, law agent.</p> +<p>Dour, hard.</p> +<p>Drumlie, dark.</p> +<p>Dunting, knocking.</p> +<p>Dwaibly, infirm, rickety.</p> +<p>Dule-tree, the tree of lamentation, the hanging-tree.</p> +<p>Earrand, errand.</p> +<p>Ettercap, vixen.</p> +<p>Fechting, fighting.</p> +<p>Feck, quantity, portion.</p> +<p>Feckless, feeble, powerless.</p> +<p>Fell, strong and fiery.</p> +<p>Fey, unlike yourself, strange, as if urged on by fate, or as +persons are observed to be in the hour of approaching death or +disaster.</p> +<p>Fit, foot.</p> +<p>Flit, to depart.</p> +<p>Flyped, turned up, turned in-side out.</p> +<p>Forbye, in addition to.</p> +<p>Forgather, to fall in with.</p> +<p>Fower, four.</p> +<p>Fushionless, pithless, weak.</p> +<p>Fyle, to soil, to defile.</p> +<p>Fylement, obloquy, defilement.</p> +<p>Gaed, Went.</p> +<p>Gang, to go.</p> +<p>Gey an’, very.</p> +<p>Gigot, leg of mutton.</p> +<p>Girzie, lit. diminutive of Grizel, here a playful +nickname.</p> +<p>Glaur, mud.</p> +<p>Glint, glance, sparkle.</p> +<p>Gloaming, twilight.</p> +<p>Glower, to scowl.</p> +<p>Gobbets, small lumps.</p> +<p>Gowden, golden.</p> +<p>Gowsty, gusty.</p> +<p>Grat, wept.</p> +<p>Grieve, land-steward.</p> +<p>Guddle, to catch fish with the hands by groping under the +stones or banks.</p> +<p>Gumption, common sense, judgment.</p> +<p>Guid, good.</p> +<p>Gurley, stormy, surly.</p> +<p>Gyte, beside itself.</p> +<p>Hae, have, take.</p> +<p>Haddit, held.</p> +<p>Hale, whole.</p> +<p>Heels-ower-hurdie, heels over head.</p> +<p>Hinney, honey.</p> +<p>Hirstle, to bustle.</p> +<p>Hizzie, wench.</p> +<p>Howe, hollow.</p> +<p>Howl, hovel.</p> +<p>Hunkered, crouched.</p> +<p>Hypothec, lit. in Scots law the furnishings of a house, and +formerly the produce and stock of a farm hypothecated by law to +the landlord as security for rent; colloquially “the whole +structure,” “the whole concern.”</p> +<p>Idleset, idleness.</p> +<p>Infeftment, a term in Scots law originally synonymous with +investiture.</p> +<p>Jaud, jade.</p> +<p>Jeely-piece, a slice of bread and jelly.</p> +<p>Jennipers, juniper.</p> +<p>Jo, sweetheart.</p> +<p>Justifeed, executed, made the victim of justice.</p> +<p>Jyle, jail</p> +<p>Kebbuck, cheese.</p> +<p>Ken, to know.</p> +<p>Kenspeckle, conspicuous.</p> +<p>Kilted, tucked up.</p> +<p>Kyte, belly.</p> +<p>Laigh, low.</p> +<p>Laird, landed proprietor.</p> +<p>Lane, alone.</p> +<p>Lave, rest, remainder.</p> +<p>Linking, tripping.</p> +<p>Lown, lonely, still.</p> +<p>Lynn, cataract.</p> +<p>Lyon King of Arms, the chief of the Court of Heraldry in +Scotland.</p> +<p>Macers, offiers of the supreme court. [Cf. Guy +Mannering, last chapter.]</p> +<p>Maun, must.</p> +<p>Menseful, of good manners.</p> +<p>Mirk, dark.</p> +<p>Misbegowk, deception, disappointment.</p> +<p>Mools, mould, earth.</p> +<p>Muckle, much, great, big.</p> +<p>My lane, by myself.</p> +<p>Nowt, black cattle.</p> +<p>Palmering, walking infirmly.</p> +<p>Panel, in Scots law, the accused person in a criminal action, +the prisoner.</p> +<p>Peel, fortified watch-tower.</p> +<p>Plew-stilts, plough-handles.</p> +<p>Policy, ornamental grounds of a country mansion.</p> +<p>Puddock, frog.</p> +<p>Quean, wench.</p> +<p>Rair, to roar.</p> +<p>Riff-raff, rabble.</p> +<p>Risping, grating.</p> +<p>Rout, rowt, to roar, to rant.</p> +<p>Rowth, abundance.</p> +<p>Rudas, haggard old woman.</p> +<p>Runt, an old cow past breeding; opprobriously, an old +woman.</p> +<p>Sab, sob.</p> +<p>Sanguishes, sandwiches.</p> +<p>Sasine, in Scots law, the act of giving legal possession of +feudal property, or, colloquially, the deed by which that +possession is proved.</p> +<p>Sclamber, to scramble.</p> +<p>Sculduddery, impropriety, grossness.</p> +<p>Session, the Court of Session, the supreme court of +Scotland.</p> +<p>Shauchling, shuffling, slipshod.</p> +<p>Shoo, to chase gently.</p> +<p>Siller, money.</p> +<p>Sinsyne, since then.</p> +<p>Skailing, dispersing.</p> +<p>Skelp, slap.</p> +<p>Skirling, screaming.</p> +<p>Skriegh-o’day, daybreak.</p> +<p>Snash, abuse.</p> +<p>Sneisty, supercilious.</p> +<p>Sooth, to hum.</p> +<p>Sough, sound, murmur.</p> +<p>Spec, The Speculative Society, a debating Society connected +with Edingburgh University.</p> +<p>Speir, to ask.</p> +<p>Speldering, sprawling.</p> +<p>Splairge, to splash.</p> +<p>Spunk, spirit, fire.</p> +<p>Steik, to shut.</p> +<p>Stockfish, hard, savourless.</p> +<p>Suger-bool, suger-plum.</p> +<p>Syne, since, then.</p> +<p>Tawpie, a slow foolish slut, also used playfully = monkey.</p> +<p>Telling you, a good thing for you.</p> +<p>Thir, these.</p> +<p>Thrawn, cross-grained.</p> +<p>Toon, town.</p> +<p>Two-names, local soubriquets in addition to patronymic.</p> +<p>Tyke, dog.</p> +<p>Unchancy, unlucky.</p> +<p>Unco, strange, extraordinary, very.</p> +<p>Upsitten, impertinent.</p> +<p>Vennel, alley, lane. The Vennel, a narrow lane in +Edingburgh, running out of the Grassmarket.</p> +<p>Vivers, victuals.</p> +<p>Wae, sad, unhappy.</p> +<p>Waling, choosing.</p> +<p>Warrandise, warranty.</p> +<p>Waur, worse.</p> +<p>Weird, destiny.</p> +<p>Whammle, to upset.</p> +<p>Whaup, curlew.</p> +<p>Whiles, sometimes.</p> +<p>Windlestae, crested dog’s-tail, grass.</p> +<p>Wund, wind.</p> +<p>Yin, one.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEIR OF HERMISTON***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 380-h.htm or 380-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/8/380 + + + +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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