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diff --git a/old/weirh10.txt b/old/weirh10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..efd5ccf --- /dev/null +++ b/old/weirh10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4662 @@ +*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Weir of Hermiston, by Stevenson* +#11 in our Robert Louis Stevenson series + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois + Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Illinois Benedictine College". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson. 1913 Chatto and +Windus edition. Scanned and proofed by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +Weir of Hermiston + + + + +TO MY WIFE + + + + +I saw rain falling and the rainbow drawn +On Lammermuir. Hearkening I heard again +In my precipitous city beaten bells +Winnow the keen sea wind. And here afar, +Intent on my own race and place, I wrote. + Take thou the writing: thine it is. For who +Burnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal, +Held still the target higher, chary of praise +And prodigal of counsel - who but thou? +So now, in the end, if this the least be good, +If any deed be done, if any fire +Burn in the imperfect page, the praise be thine. + + + +INTRODUCTORY + + + + +IN the wild end of a moorland parish, far out of the sight of any house, +there stands a cairn among the heather, and a little by east of it, in +the going down of the 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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER I - LIFE AND DEATH OF MRS. WEIR + + + +THE Lord Justice-Clerk was a stranger in that part of the country; but +his lady wife was known there from a child, as her race had been before +her. The old "riding Rutherfords of Hermiston," of whom she was the +last descendant, had been famous men of yore, ill neighbours, ill +subjects, and ill husbands to their wives though not their properties. +Tales of them were rife for twenty miles about; and their name was even +printed in the page of our Scots histories, not always to their credit. +One bit the dust at Flodden; one was hanged at his peel door by James +the Fifth; another fell dead in a 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. + +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. + +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 APLOMB of an advocate. Being so +trenchantly opposed to all she knew, loved, or understood, he may well +have seemed to her the extreme, if scarcely the ideal, of his sex. And +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? + +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 SISTER IN +THE LORD. "O, my dear, this is the most dreidful thing that my lord can +never be contented in his own house!" she would begin; and weep and pray +with the cook; and then the cook would pray with Mrs. Weir; and the next +day's meal would never be a penny the better - and the next cook (when +she came) would be worse, if anything, but just as pious. It was often +wondered that Lord 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. + +"O, Edom!" she wailed, in a voice tragic with tears, and reaching out to +him both hands, in one of which she held a sopping pocket-handkerchief. + +He paused and looked upon her with a face of wrath, into which there +stole, as he looked, a twinkle of humour. + +"Noansense!" he said. "You and your 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 whure off the streets." And with +these words, which echoed in her tender ears like blasphemy, he had +passed on to his study and shut the door behind him. + +Such was the housewifery in George Square. It was better at Hermiston, +where Kirstie Elliott, the sister of a neighbouring bonnet-laird, and an +eighteenth cousin of the lady's, bore the charge of all, and kept a trim +house and a good country table. Kirstie was a woman in a thousand, +clean, capable, notable; once a moorland Helen, and still comely as a +blood horse and healthy as the hill wind. High in flesh and voice and +colour, she ran the house with her whole intemperate soul, in a bustle, +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. + +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 LETTERS, +Scougalls GRACE ABOUNDING, 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. PERSECUTOR was a word that knocked upon the woman's heart; +it was her highest thought of wickedness, and the mark of it was on her +house. Her great-great-grandfather had drawn the sword against the +Lord's anointed on the field of Rullion 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 PERSECUTOR that thrilled in the child's marrow; and when +one day the mob hooted and hissed them all in my lord's travelling +carriage, and cried, "Down with the persecutor! down with Hanging +Hermiston!" and mamma covered her eyes and wept, and papa let down the +glass and looked out upon the rabble with his droll formidable face, +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? + +"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. + +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 TO THE +HILLS!" she would repeat. "And O, Erchie, are nae these like the hills +of Naphtali?" and her tears would flow. + +Upon an impressionable child the effect of this continual and pretty +accompaniment to life was deep. The woman's quietism and piety passed +on to his different nature undiminished; but whereas in her it was a +native sentiment, in him it was only an implanted dogma. Nature and the +child's 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. + +"I am afraid Erchie will have been fechting with some of they blagyard +lads," said Mrs. Weir. + +My lord's voice rang out as it did seldom in the 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." + +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!" + +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. + +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? + +"I can't see it," said the little Rabbi, and wagged his head. + +Mrs. Weir abounded in commonplace replies. + +"No, I cannae see it," reiterated Archie. "And I'll tell you what, +mamma, I don't think you and me's justifeed in staying with him." + +The woman awoke to remorse, she saw herself disloyal to her man, her +sovereign and bread-winner, in whom (with what she had of worldliness) +she took a certain subdued pride. She expatiated in reply on my lord's +honour and greatness; his 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? + +"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." + +"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 YOU setting up to JUDGE? And have ye no forgot +God's plain command - the First with Promise, dear? Mind you upon the +beam and the mote!" + +Having thus carried the war into the enemy's camp, the terrified lady +breathed again. And no doubt it is easy thus to circumvent a child with +catchwords, but it may be questioned how far it is effectual. An +instinct in his breast detects the quibble, and a voice condemns it. He +will instantly submit, privately hold the same opinion. For even in +this simple and antique relation of the mother and the child, +hypocrisies are multiplied. + +When the Court rose that year and the family returned to Hermiston, it +was a common remark in all the country that the lady was sore failed. +She seemed to loose and seize again her touch with life, now sitting +inert in a sort of durable 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. + +The last night of all she was busy on some female work, and toiled upon +it with so manifest and painful a devotion that my lord (who was not +often curious) inquired as to its nature. + +She blushed to the eyes. "O, Edom, it's for you!" she said. "It's +slippers. I - I hae never made ye any." + +"Ye daft auld wife!" returned his lordship. "A bonny figure I would +be, palmering about in bauchles!" + +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. + +"She's a terrible feckless wife, the mistress!" said the one. + +"Tut," said the other, "the wumman's seeck." + +"Weel, I canna see nae differ in her," returned the first. "A +fushionless quean, a feckless carline." + +The poor creature thus discussed rambled 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. + +"Kirstie!" she began, and paused; and then with conviction, "Mr. Weir +isna speeritually minded, but he has been a good man to me." + +It was perhaps the first time since her husband's elevation that she had +forgotten the handle to his name, of which the tender, inconsistent +woman was not a little proud. And when Kirstie looked up at the +speaker's face, she was aware of a change. + +"Godsake, what's the maitter wi' ye, mem?" cried the housekeeper, +starting from the rug. + +"I do not ken," answered her mistress, shaking her head. "But he is not +speeritually minded, my dear." + +"Here, sit down with ye! Godsake, what ails the wife?" cried Kirstie, +and helped and forced her into my lord's own chair by the cheek of the +hearth. + +"Keep me, what's this?" she gasped. "Kirstie, what's this? I'm +frich'ened." + +They were her last words. + +It was the lowering nightfall when my lord returned. He had the sunset +in his back, all clouds and glory; and before him, by the wayside, spied +Kirstie Elliott waiting. She was dissolved in tears, and addressed him +in the high, false note of barbarous mourning, such as still lingers +modified among Scots heather. + +"The Lord peety ye, Hermiston! the Lord prepare ye!" she keened out. +"Weary upon me, that I should have to tell it!" + +He reined in his horse and looked upon her with the hanging face. + +"Has the French landit?" cried he. + +"Man, man," she said, "is that a' ye can think of? The Lord prepare ye: +the Lord comfort and support ye!" + +"Is onybody deid?" said his lordship. "It's no Erchie?" + +"Bethankit, no!" exclaimed the woman, startled into a more natural tone. +"Na, na, it's no sae bad as that. It's the mistress, my lord; she just +fair flittit before my e'en. She just gi'ed a sab and was by 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. + +Lord Hermiston sat in the saddle beholding her. Then he seemed to +recover command upon himself. + +"Well, it's something of the suddenest," said he. "But she was a +dwaibly body from the first." + +And he rode home at a precipitate amble with Kirstie at his horse's +heels. + +Dressed as she was for her last walk, they had laid the dead lady on her +bed. She was never 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. + +"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?" + +Kirstie had decoyed him to her room and given him "a jeely-piece." + +"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!" + +"There's naebody thinking of you, Hermiston!" cried the offended woman. +"We think of her that's out of her sorrows. And could SHE have done +waur? Tell me that, Hermiston - tell me that before her clay-cauld +corp!" + +"Weel, there's some of them gey an' ill to please," observed his +lordship. + + + +CHAPTER II - FATHER AND SON + + + +MY Lord Justice-Clerk was known to many; the man Adam Weir perhaps to +none. He had nothing to explain or to conceal; he sufficed wholly and +silently to 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. + +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. + +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. + +"And so this is your son, Hermiston?" he asked, laying his hand on +Archie's shoulder. "He's getting a big lad." + +"Hout!" said the gracious father, "just his mother over again - daurna +say boo to a goose!" + +But the stranger retained the boy, talked to him, drew him out, found in +him a taste for letters, and a fine, ardent, modest, youthful soul; and +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!" + +"You and my father are great friends, are you not?" asked Archie once. + +"There is no man that I more respect, Archie," replied Lord Glenalmond. +"He is two things of price. He is a great lawyer, and he is upright as +the day." + +"You and he are so different," said the boy, his eyes dwelling on those +of his old friend, like a lover's on his mistress's. + +"Indeed so," replied the judge; "very 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." + +"And I would sooner he were a plaided herd," cried Archie, with sudden +bitterness. + +"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!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + + + +CHAPTER III - IN THE MATTER OF THE HANGING OF DUNCAN JOPP + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Mind what ye say now, Janet," said he. "I have an e'e upon ye, I'm ill +to jest with." + +Presently, after she was tremblingly embarked on her story, "And what +made ye do this, ye auld runt?" the Court interposed. "Do ye mean to +tell me ye was the panel's mistress?" + +"If you please, ma loard," whined the female. + +"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. + +The summing up contained some jewels. + +"These two peetiable creatures seem to have made up thegither, it's not +for us to explain why." - "The 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 OBITER DICTUM: "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. + +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 aesthetics even of the slaughter- +house; and the loathsomeness of Duncan Jopp enveloped and infected the +image of his judge. + +Archie passed by his friends in the High Street with incoherent words +and gestures. He saw Holyrood in a dream, remembrance of its romance +awoke in him and faded; he had a vision of the old radiant stories, of +Queen Mary and Prince Charlie, of the hooded stag, of the splendour and +crime, the velvet and bright iron of the past; and dismissed them with a +cry of pain. He lay and moaned in the Hunter's Bog, and the heavens +were dark above him and the grass of the field an offence. "This is my +father," he said. "I draw my life from him; the flesh upon my bones is +his, the bread I am fed with is the wages of these horrors." He +recalled his mother, and ground his forehead in the earth. He thought +of flight, and where was he to flee to? of other lives, but was there +any life worth living in this den of savage and jeering animals? + +The interval before the execution was like a violent dream. He met his +father; he would not look at him, he could not speak to him. It seemed +there was no living creature but must have been swift to recognise that +imminent animosity; but the hide of the 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. + +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. + +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. + +"I will not go with you," he said. "I do not desire your company, sir; +I would be alone." + +"Here, Weir, man, don't be absurd," said Innes, keeping a tight hold +upon his sleeve. "I will not let you go until I know what you mean to +do with yourself; it's no use brandishing that staff." For indeed at +that moment Archie had made a sudden - perhaps a warlike - movement. +"This has been the most insane affair; you know it has. You know very +well that I'm playing the good Samaritan. All I wish is to keep you +quiet." + +"If quietness is what you wish, Mr. Innes," said Archie, "and you will +promise to leave me entirely to myself, I will tell you so much, that I +am going to walk in the country and admire the beauties of nature." + +"Honour bright?" asked Frank. + +"I am not in the habit of lying, Mr. Innes," retorted Archie. "I have +the honour of wishing you good-day." + +"You won't forget the Spec.?" asked Innes. + +"The Spec.?" said Archie. "O no, I won't forget the Spec." + +And the one young man carried his tortured spirit forth of the city and +all the day long, by one road and another, in an endless pilgrimage of +misery; while the other hastened smilingly to 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?" + +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. + +"Weir, man! That was an extraordinary raid of yours!" observed this +courageous member, taking him confidentially by the arm as they went +out. + +"I don't think it a raid," said Archie grimly. "More like a war. I +saw that poor brute hanged this morning, and my gorge rises at it yet." + +"Hut-tut," returned his companion, and, dropping his arm like something +hot, he sought the less tense society of others. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"Because you are looking exceedingly ill," said the doctor, "and you +very evidently want looking after, my young friend. Good folk are +scarce, you know; and it is not every one that would be quite so much +missed as yourself. It is not every one that Hermiston would miss." + +And with a nod and a smile, the doctor passed on. + +A moment after, Archie was in pursuit, and had in turn, but more +roughly, seized him by the arm. + +"What do you mean? what did you mean by saying that? What makes you +think that Hermis - my father would have missed me?" + +The doctor turned about and looked him all over with a clinical eye. A +far more stupid man than Dr. Gregory might have guessed the truth; but +ninety-nine out of a hundred, even if they had been equally inclined to +kindness, would have blundered by some touch of charitable 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. + +"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 - PERHAPS, 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It is possible that, in this sudden revulsion of hope, and before these +symptoms of impending danger, Archie might have fled. But not even that +was left to him. My lord, after hanging up his cloak and hat, turned +round in the lighted entry, and made him an imperative and silent +gesture with his thumb, and with the strange instinct of obedience, +Archie followed him into the house. + +All dinner-time there reigned over the Judge's table a palpable silence, +and as soon as the solids were despatched he rose to his feet. + +"M'Killup, tak' the wine into my room," said he; and then to his son: +"Archie, you and me has to have a talk." + +It was at this sickening moment that Archie's courage, for the first and +last time, entirely deserted him. "I have an appointment," said he. + +"It'll have to be broken, then," said Hermiston, and led the way into +his study. + +The lamp was shaded, the fire trimmed to a nicety, the table covered +deep with orderly documents, the backs of law books made a frame upon +all sides that was only broken by the window and the doors. + +For a moment Hermiston warmed his hands at the fire, presenting his back +to Archie; then suddenly disclosed on him the terrors of the Hanging +Face. + +"What's this I hear of ye?" he asked. + +There was no answer possible to Archie. + +"I'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." + +"I had meant to tell you," stammered Archie. "I see you are well +informed." + +"Muckle obleeged to ye," said his lordship, and took his usual seat. +"And so you disapprove of Caapital Punishment?" he added. + +"I am sorry, sir, I do," said Archie. + +"I am sorry, too," said his lordship. "And now, if you please, we shall +approach this business with a little more parteecularity. I hear that +at the hanging of Duncan Jopp - and, man! ye had a fine client there - +in the middle of all the riff-raff of the ceety, ye thought fit to cry +out, `This is a damned murder, and my gorge rises at the man that +haangit him.' " + +"No, sir, these were not my words," cried Archie. + +"What were yer words, then?" asked the Judge. + +"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. + +"God, it would only need that of it next!" cried Hermiston. "There was +nothing about your gorge rising, then?" + +"That was afterwards, my lord, as I was leaving the Speculative. I said +I had been to see the miserable creature hanged, and my gorge rose at +it." + +"Did ye, though?" said Hermiston. "And I suppose ye knew who haangit +him?" + +"I was present at the trial, I ought to tell you that, I ought to +explain. I ask your pardon 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." + +"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." + +The ring of sarcasm had died out of his voice as he went on; the plain +words became invested with some of the dignity of the Justice-seat. + +"It would be telling you if you could say as much," the speaker resumed. +"But ye cannot. Ye've been reading some of my cases, ye say. But it +was not for the law in them, it was to spy out your faither's nakedness, +a fine employment 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?" + +"Father, let me go to the Peninsula," said Archie. "That's all I'm fit +for - to fight." + +"All? quo' he!" returned the Judge. "And it would be enough too, if I +thought it. But I'll never trust ye so near the French, you that's so +Frenchi-feed." + +"You do me injustice there, sir," said Archie. "I am loyal; I will not +boast; but any interest I may have ever felt in the French - " + +"Have ye been so loyal to me?" interrupted his father. + +There came no reply. + +"I think not," continued Hermiston. "And I would send no man to be a +servant to the King, God bless him! that has proved such a shauchling +son to his own faither. You can splairge here on Edinburgh street, and +where's the hairm? It doesna play buff on me! And if there were twenty +thousand eediots like yourself, sorrow a Duncan Jopp would hang the +fewer. But there's no splairging possible in a camp; and if 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!" + +As at the drawing of a curtain, Archie was aware of some illogicality in +his position, and stood abashed. He had a strong impression, besides, +of the essential valour of the old gentleman before him, how conveyed it +would be hard to say. + +"Well, have ye no other proposeetion?" said my lord again. + +"You have taken this so calmly, sir, that I cannot but stand ashamed," +began Archie. + +"I'm nearer voamiting, though, than you would fancy," said my lord. +The blood rose to Archie's brow. + +"I 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. + +"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." + +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. + +"I place myself in your hands without reserve," he said. + +"That's the first sensible word I've had of ye the night," said +Hermiston. "I can tell ye, that would have been the end of it, the one +way or the other; but it's better ye should come there 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 punishmeiit 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?" + +"I will do my best," said Archie. + +"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. + + + +CHAPTER IV - OPINIONS OF THE BENCH + + + +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. + +"Come in, come in," said he. "Come in and take a seat. Carstairs" (to +his servant), "make up the fire, and then you can bring a bit of +supper," and again to Archie, with a very trivial accent: "I was half +expecting you," he added. + +"No supper," said Archie. "It is impossible that I should eat." + +"Not impossible," said the tall old man, laying his hand upon his +shoulder, "and, if you will believe me, necessary." + +"You know what brings me?" said Archie, as soon as the servant had left +the room. + +"I have a guess, I have a guess," replied 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." + +"It is impossible I should eat" repeated Archie. + +"Tut, tut!" said Lord Glenalmond. "You have eaten nothing to-day, and I +venture to add, nothing yesterday. There is no case that may not be +made worse; this may be a very disagreeable business, but if you were to +fall sick and die, it would be still more so, and for all concerned - +for all concerned." + +"I see you must know all," said Archie. "Where did you hear it?" + +"In the mart of scandal, in the Parliament House," said Glenalmond. "It +runs riot below among the bar and the public, but it sifts up to us upon +the bench, and rumour has some of her voices even in the divisions." + +Carstairs returned at this moment, and rapidly laid out a little supper; +during which Lord 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. + +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?" + +"No, it was not me," said the Judge; "although - to be quite frank with +you, and after I had seen and warned you - it might have been me - I +believe it was Glenkindie." + +"That shrimp!" cried Archie. + +"As you say, that shrimp," returned my lord; "although really it is +scarce a fitting mode of 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 IN APICIBUS JURIS." + +Archie was able to endure no longer. He thrust his plate away and +interrupted the deliberate and insignificant stream of talk. "Here," he +said, "I have made a fool of myself, if I have not made something worse. +Do you judge between us - judge between a father and a son. I can speak +to you; it is not like ... I will tell you what I feel and what I mean +to do; and you shall be the judge," he repeated. + +"I decline jurisdiction," said Glenalmond, with extreme seriousness. +"But, my dear boy, if it will do you any good to talk, and if it will +interest you at all to hear what I may choose to say when I have heard +you, I am quite at your command. Let an old man say it, for once, and +not need to blush: I love you like a son." + +There came a sudden sharp sound in Archie's throat. "Ay," he cried, +"and there it is! Love! Like a son! And how do you think I love my +father?" + +"Quietly, quietly," says my lord. + +"I will be very quiet," replied Archie. "And I will be baldly frank. I +do not love my father; I wonder sometimes if I do not hate him. There's +my shame; perhaps my sin; at least, and in the sight of God, not my +fault. How was I to love him? He has never spoken to me, never smiled +upon me; I do not think he ever touched me. You know the way he talks? +You do not talk so, yet you can sit and hear him without 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." + +"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 MAJOR and SUI +JURIS, and may please himself in the matter of his conversation. And, +do you know, I wonder if he might not have as good an answer against you +and me? We say we sometimes find him COARSE, but I suspect he might +retort that he finds us always dull. Perhaps a relevant exception." + +He beamed on Archie, but no smile could be elicited. + +"And now," proceeded the Judge, "for `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. + +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. TIGRIS UT ASPERA." + +"Perhaps not a pleasant spectacle," said Glenalmond. "And yet, do you +know, I think somehow a great one." + +"I've had a long talk with him to-night," said Archie. + +"I was supposing so," said Glenalmond. + +"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 - " + +"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." + +"How do you mean?" asked Archie. + +"FAIR 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?" + +"Ah, but we do not talk of punishing the good," cried Archie. + +"No, we do not talk of it," said Glenalmond. "But I think we do it. Your +father, for instance." + +"You think I have punished him?" cried Archie. + +Lord Glenalmond bowed his head. + +"I think I have," said Archie. "And the worst is, I think he feels it! +How much, who can tell, with such a being? But I think he does." + +"And I am sure of it," said Glenalmond. + +"Has he spoken to you, then?" cried Archie. + +"O no," replied the judge. + +"I tell you honestly," said Archie, "I want to make it up to him. I +will go, I have already pledged myself to go to Hermiston. That was to +him. And now I pledge myself to you, in the sight of God, that I will +close my mouth on capital punishment and all other subjects where our +views may clash, for - how long shall I say? when shall I have sense +enough? - ten years. Is that well?" + +"It is well," said my lord. + +"As far as it goes," said Archie. "It is enough as regards myself, it +is to lay down enough of my conceit. But as regards him, whom I have +publicly insulted? What am I to do to him? How do you pay attentions +to a - an Alp like that?" + +"Only in one way," replied Glenalmond. "Only by obedience, punctual, +prompt, and scrupulous." + +"And I promise that he shall have it," answered Archie. "I offer you my +hand in pledge of it." + +"And I take your hand as a solemnity," 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." + +"No, there is one thing I must say," cried Archie. "I must say it in +justice to himself. I know - I believe faithfully, slavishly, after our +talk - he will never ask me anything unjust. I am proud to feel it, +that we have that much in common, I am proud to say it to you." + +The Judge, with shining eyes, raised his 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?" + +"The Lord Justice-Clerk, Lord Hermiston," said Archie, almost with +gaiety; and the pair drank the toast deeply. + +It was not precisely easy to re-establish, after these emotional +passages, the natural flow of 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. + +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. + +"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!" + +Archie was on his feet, flushing a little at the reappearance of his +unhappy figure of speech, but perfectly self-possessed. "My lord - and +you, Lord Glenalmond, my dear friend," he began, "this is a happy chance +for me, that I can make my confession and offer my apologies to two of +you at once." + +"Ah, but I don't know about that. Confession? It'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!" + +"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!" + +"Remember, I'll hear nothing against the macers!" put in the +incorrigible Glenkindie. + +But Archie continued as though he had not spoken. "I have played, both +yesterday and to-day, a part for which I can only offer the excuse of +youth. I was so unwise as to go to an execution; it seems I made a +scene at the gallows; not 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." . . . + + + +CHAPTER V - WINTER ON THE MOORS + + + +I. AT HERMISTON + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +2. KIRSTIE + + +Kirstie was now over fifty, and might have sat to a sculptor. Long of +limb, and still light of foot, deep-breasted, robust-loined, her golden +hair not yet mingled with any trace of silver, the years had but +caressed and embellished her. By the lines of a rich and vigorous +maternity, she seemed destined to be the bride of heroes and the mother +of their children; and behold, by the iniquity of fate, she had passed +through her youth alone, and drew near to the confines of age, a +childless woman. The tender ambitions that she had received at birth +had been, by time and disappointment, diverted into a certain barren +zeal of industry and fury of 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. + +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. + +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 LEVER DE +RIDEAU 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. + + +3. A BORDER FAMILY + + +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. + +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 - " + +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." + +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. + +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." + +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 APLOMB which set him off. All the other Elliotts were as lean as a +rake, but Clement was laying on fat, and he panted sorely when he must +get into his boots. Dand said, chuckling: "Ay, Clem has the elements of +a corporation." "A provost and corporation," returned Clem. And his +readiness was much admired. + +The fourth brother, Dand, was a shepherd to his trade, and by starts, +when he could bring his mind to it, excelled in the business. Nobody +could 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 - + + +"I love to gang thinking whaur ye gang linking, +Hermiston burn, in the howe;" + + +his "Auld, auld Elliotts, clay-cauld Elliotts, dour, bauld Elliotts of +auld," and his really fascinating piece about the Praying Weaver's +Stone, had gained him in the neighbourhood the reputation, still +possible in Scotland, of a local bard; and, though not printed himself, +he was recognised by others who were and who had become famous. Walter +Scott owed to Dandie the text of the "Raid of Wearie" in the MINSTRELSY; +and made him 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. + +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. + +Lastly, in a Border story, there should be added their "two-names." Hob +was The Laird. "Roy ne puis, prince ne daigne"; he was the laird of +Cauldstaneslap - say fifty acres - IPSISSIMUS. Clement was Mr. Elliott, +as upon his door-plate, the earlier Dafty having been discarded as no +longer applicable, and indeed only a reminder of misjudgment and the +imbecility of the public; and the youngest, in honour of his perpetual +wanderings, was known by the sobriquet of Randy Dand. + +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. + +"Is there not a girl too?" he asked. + +"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. + +"But what is your niece like?" said Archie at the next opportunity. + +"Her? As black's your hat! But I dinna suppose she would maybe be what +you would ca' ILL-LOOKED 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. + +"How comes it that I never see her in church?" said Archie. + +" 'Deed, and I believe she's in Glesgie with Clem and his wife. A heap +good she's like to get of it! I dinna say for men folk, but where +weemen folk are born, there let them bide. Glory to God, I was never +far'er from here than Crossmichael." + +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. + +"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. + +"Kirstie," said Archie one day, "what is this you have against your +family?" + +"I dinna complean," said Kirstie, with a flush. "I say naething." + +"I see you do not - not even good-day to your own nephew," said he. + +"I hae naething to be 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!" + +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?" + +She looked upon him in silence, with a sparkling eye but an +indecipherable expression; and that was all that Archie was ever +destined to learn of the battle of the India shawls. + +"Do none of them ever come here to see you?" he inquired. + +"Mr. Archie," said she, "I hope that I ken my place better. It would be +a queer thing, I think, if I was to clamjamfry up your faither's house - +that I should say it! - wi' a dirty, black-a-vised clan, no ane o' them +it was worth while to mar soap upon but just mysel'! Na, they're all +damnifeed wi' the black Ellwalds. I have nae patience wi' black folk." +Then, with a sudden consciousness of the case of Archie, "No that it +maitters for men sae muckle," she made haste to add, "but there's +naebody can deny that it's unwomanly. Long hair is the 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'?" + + + +CHAPTER VI - A LEAF FROM CHRISTINA'S PSALM-BOOK + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 DEMI- +BROQUINS 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. + +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. + +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. + +Christina was greatly relieved at first. It seemed to her that she was +clothed again. She looked back on what had passed. All would have been +right if she had not blushed, a silly fool! There was nothing to blush +at, if she HAD taken a sugar-bool. Mrs. MacTaggart, the elder's wife in +St. Enoch's, took them often. And if he had looked at her, what was +more natural than that a young gentleman should look at the best-dressed +girl in church? And at the same time, she knew far otherwise, she knew +there was nothing casual or ordinary in the look, and valued herself on +its memory like a decoration. Well, it was a blessing he had found +something else to look at! And presently she began to have other +thoughts. It was necessary, she fancied, that she should put herself +right by a repetition of the incident, better managed. If the wish was +father to the thought, she did not know or she would not recognise it. +It was simply as a manoeuvre of propriety, as something called for to +lessen the significance of what had gone before, that she should a +second time meet his eyes, and this time without blushing. 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 antennae among the pews and on the indifferent and absorbed +occupants, and drew timidly nearer to the straight line between Archie +and Christina. They met, they lingered together for the least fraction +of time, and that was enough. A charge as of electricity passed through +Christina, and behold! the leaf of her psalm-book was torn across. + +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. + +Archie overtook her like a man whose mind was made up. + +"Miss Kirstie," he began. + +"Miss Christina, if you please, Mr. Weir," she interrupted. "I canna +bear the contraction." + +"You forget it has a friendly sound for me. Your aunt is an old friend +of mine, and a very good one. I hope we shall see much of you at +Hermiston?" + +"My aunt and my sister-in-law doesna agree very well. Not that I have +much ado with it. But still when I'm stopping in the house, if I was to +be visiting my aunt, it would not look considerate-like." + +"I am sorry," said Archie. + +"I thank you kindly, Mr. Weir," she said. "I whiles think myself it's a +great peety." + +"Ah, I am sure your voice would always be for peace!" he cried. + +"I wouldna be too sure of that," she said. "I have my days like other +folk, I suppose." + +"Do you know, in our old kirk, among our good old grey dames, you made +an effect like sunshine." + +"Ah, but that would be my Glasgow clothes!" + +"I did not think I was so much under the influence of pretty frocks." + +She smiled with a half look at him. "There's more than you!" she said. +"But you see I'm only Cinderella. I'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." + +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. + +"You're shurely fey, lass!" quoth Dandie. + +"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." + +"Hoot!" said Christina, and went on before them head in air, treading +the rough track with the tread of a wild doe. + +She was in love with herself, her destiny, the air of the hills, the +benediction of the sun. All the way home, she continued under the +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. + +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." " `MISS CHRISTINA, IF YOU PLEASE, MR. WEIR!' says I, +and just flyped up my skirt tails." With gabble like this she would +entertain herself long whiles together, and then her eye would perhaps +fall on the torn leaf, and the eyes of Archie would appear again from +the darkness of the wall, and the 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 IN EXCELSIS, 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. + +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. + +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. + +"I'm for off up the muirs, Dandie," she said. + +There was something unusually soft in her tones that made him look up. +She was pale, her eyes dark and bright; no trace remained of the levity +of the morning. + +"Ay, lass? Ye'll have yer ups and downs like me, I'm thinkin'," he +observed. + +"What for do ye say that?" she asked. + +"O, for naething," says Dand. "Only I think ye're mair like me than the +lave of them. Ye've mair of the poetic temper, tho' Guid kens little +enough of the poetic taalent. It's an ill gift at the best. Look at +yoursel'. At denner you were all sunshine and flowers and laughter, and +now you're like the star of evening on a lake." + +She drank in this hackneyed compliment like wine, and it glowed in her +veins. + +"But I'm saying, Dand" - she came nearer him - "I'm for the muirs. I +must have a braith of air. If Clem was to be speiring for me, try and +quaiet him, will ye no?" + +"What way?" said Dandie. "I ken but the ae way, and that's leein'." +I'll say ye had a sair heid, if ye like." + +"But I havena," she objected. + +"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'." + +"O, Dand, are ye a lecar?" she asked, lingering. + +"Folks say sae," replied the bard. + +"Wha says sae?" she pursued. + +"Them that should ken the best," he responded. "The lassies, for ane." + +"But, Dand, you would never lee to me?" she asked. + +"I'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!" + +But she clung to her brother's neighbourhood, she knew not why. + +"Will ye no gie's a kiss, Dand?" she said. "I aye likit ye fine." + +He kissed her and considered her a moment; he found something strange in +her. But he was a libertine through and through, nourished equal +contempt and suspicion of all womankind, and paid his way among them +habitually with idle compliments. + +"Gae wa' wi' ye!" said he. "Ye're a dentie baby, and be content wi' +that!" + +That was Dandie's way; a kiss and a comfit to Jenny - a bawbee and my +blessing to Jill - and 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 WAS coming; his hesitations had quite ceased, his step +grew firm and swift; no doubt remained; and the question loomed up +before her instant: what was she to do? It was all very well to say +that her brother was a laird himself: it was all very well to speak of +casual intermarriages and to count cousinship, like Auntie Kirstie. The +difference in their social station was trenchant; propriety, prudence, +all that 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Are ye stepping west, Hermiston?" said she, giving him his territorial +name after the fashion of the country-side. + +"I was," said he, a little hoarsely, "but I think I will be about the +end of my stroll now. Are you like me, Miss Christina? The house would +not hold me. I came here seeking air." + +He took his seat at the other end of the tombstone and studied her, +wondering what was she. There was infinite import in the question alike +for her and him. + +"Ay," she said. "I couldna bear the roof either. It's a habit of mine +to come up here about the gloaming when it's quaiet and caller." + +"It was a habit of my mother's also," he said gravely. The recollection +half startled him as he expressed it. He looked around. "I have scarce +been here since. It's peaceful," he said, with a long breath. + +"It's no like Glasgow," she replied. "A weary place, yon Glasgow! But +what a day have I had for my homecoming, and what a bonny evening!" + +"Indeed, it was a wonderful day," said Archie. "I think I will remember +it years and years until I come to die. On days like this - I do not +know if you feel as I do - but everything appears so brief, and fragile, +and exquisite, that I am afraid to touch life. We are here for so short +a time; and all the old people before us - Rutherfords of Hermiston, +Elliotts of the Cauldstaneslap - that were here but 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." + +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. + +"Have you mind of Dand's song?" she answered. "I think he'll have been +trying to say what you have been thinking." + +"No, I never heard it," he said. "Repeat it to me, can you?" + +"It's nothing wanting the tune," said Kirstie. + +"Then sing it me," said he. + +"On the Lord's Day? That would never do, Mr. Weir!" + +"I am afraid I am not so strict a keeper of the Sabbath, and there is no +one in this place to hear us, unless the poor old ancient under the +stone." + +"No that I'm thinking that really," she said. "By my way of thinking, +it's just as serious as a psalm. Will I sooth it to ye, then?" + +"If you please," said he, and, drawing near to her on the tombstone, +prepared to listen. + +She sat up as if to sing. "I'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." + +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:- + + +"O they rade in the rain, in the days that are gane, +In the rain and the wind and the lave, +They shoutit in the ha' and they routit on the hill, +But they're a' quaitit noo in the grave. +Auld, auld Elliotts, clay-cauld Elliotts, dour, bauld Elliotte of auld!" + + +All the time she sang she looked steadfastly before her, her knees +straight, her hands upon her knee, her head cast back and up. The +expression was admirable throughout, for had she not learned it from the +lips and under the criticism of the author? When it was done, she +turned upon Archie a face softly bright, and eyes gently 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. + +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- + + +"Of old, unhappy far off things, +And battles long ago," + + +of their common ancestors now dead, of their rude wars composed, their +weapons buried with them, and of these strange changelings, their +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. + +In the same moment of time that she disappeared from Archie, there +opened before Kirstie's eyes the cup-like hollow in which the farm lay. +She saw, some five hundred feet below her, the house making itself +bright with candles, and this was a broad hint to her to hurry. For +they were only kindled on a Sabbath night with a view to that family +worship which rounded in the incomparable tedium of the day and brought +on the relaxation of supper. Already she knew that Robert must be +within-sides at the head of the table, "waling the portions"; for it was +Robert in his quality of family priest and judge, not the gifted +Gilbert, who officiated. She made good time accordingly down the steep +ascent, and came up to the door panting as the three younger brothers, +all roused at last from slumber, stood together in the cool and the dark +of the evening with a fry of nephews and nieces about them, chatting and +awaiting the expected signal. She stood back; she had no mind to direct +attention to her late arrival or to her labouring breath. + +"Kirstie, ye have shaved it this time, my lass?" said Clem. "Whaur were +ye?" + +"O, just taking a dander by mysel'," said Kirstie. + +And the talk continued on the subject of the American War, without +further reference to the truant who stood by them in the covert of the +dusk, thrilling with happiness and the sense of guilt. + +The signal was given, and the brothers began to go in one after another, +amid the jostle and throng of Hob's children. + +Only Dandie, waiting till the last, caught Kirstie by the arm. "When +did ye begin to dander in pink hosen, Mistress Elliott?" he whispered +slyly. + +She looked down; she was one blush. "I maun have forgotten to change +them," said she; and went 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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER VII - ENTER MEPHISTOPHELES + + + +TWO days later a gig from Crossmichael deposited Frank Innes at the +doors of Hermiston. Once in a way, during the past winter, Archie, in +some acute phase of 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. + +To do him justice, he was no less surprised to be going than Archie was +to see him come; and he carried off his wonder with an infinitely better +grace. + +"Well, here 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." + +"I am very glad to see you, of course," said Archie. "I make you +heartily welcome, of course. But you surely have not come to stay, with +the Courts still sitting; is that not most unwise?" + +"Damn the Courts!" says Frank. "What are the Courts to friendship and a +little fishing?" + +And so it was agreed that he was to stay, with no term to the visit but +the term which he had 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. + +"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. + +"I suppose it will be business, sir," replied the housekeeper drily, +measuring his distance off to him by an indicated curtsy. + +"But I can't imagine what business!" he reiterated. + +"I suppose it will be HIS business," retorted the austere Kirstie. + +He turned to her with that happy brightness that made the charm of his +disposition, and broke into a peal of healthy and natural laughter. + +"Well played, Mrs. Elliott!" he cried; and the housekeeper's face +relaxed into the shadow of an iron smile. "Well played indeed!" said +he. "But you must not be making a stranger of me like that. Why, +Archie and I were at the High School 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!" + +"They're no mines, it was the lassie made them," said Kirstie; "and, +saving your presence, there's little sense in taking the Lord's name in +vain about idle vivers that you fill your kyte wi'." + +"I 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 - " + +"If you'll excuse me, Mr. Innes, I think the lass is crying on me," said +Kirstie, and flounced from the room. + +"The damned, cross-grained, old broomstick!" ejaculated Innes. + +In the meantime, Kirstie had escaped into the kitchen, and before her +vassal gave vent to her feelings. + +"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. + +TANTAENE IRAE? 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. + +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. + +Nor was Frank more successful when he went farther afield. To the Four +Black Brothers, for instance, he was antipathetic in the highest degree. +Hob thought him too light, Gib too profane. Clem, who saw him but for a +day or two before he went to Glasgow, wanted to know what the fule's +business was, and whether he meant to stay here all session time! +"Yon's a drone," he pronounced. As for Dand, it will be enough to +describe their first meeting, when Frank had been whipping a river and +the rustic celebrity chanced to come along the path. + +"I'm told you're quite a poet," Frank had said. + +"Wha tell't ye that, mannie?" had been the unconciliating answer. + +"O, everybody!" says Frank. + +"God! Here's fame!" said the sardonic poet, and he had passed on his +way. + +Come to think of it, we have here perhaps a truer explanation of Frank's +failures. Had he met Mr. Sheriff Scott he could have turned a neater +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. + +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. + +"How's all with your Recluse to-day?" people would ask. + +"O, reclusing away!" Innes would declare, with his bright air of saying +something witty; and immediately interrupt the general laughter which he +had provoked much more by his air than his words, "Mind you, it's all +very well laughing, but I'm not very well pleased. Poor Archie is a +good fellow, an excellent fellow, a fellow I always liked. I think it +small of him to take his little disgrace so hard, and shut himself up. +'Grant that it is a 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." + +"I would if I were you," some of his auditors would say, shaking the +head, sitting bewildered and confused at this new view of the matter, so +deftly indicated by a single word. "A capital idea!" they would add, +and wonder at the APLOMB and position of this young man, who talked as a +matter of course of writing to Hermiston and correcting him upon his +private affairs. + +And Frank would proceed, sweetly confidential: "I'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. + +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." + +"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 MY +good word, for one thing." + +"Well," Frank would continue, "candidly, I don't say it's pleasant. He +has a very rough way with him; his father's son, you know. I don't say +he's rude - of course, I 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. + +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! + +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. + +"Well, good-bye," said he. "I have something to do. See you at +dinner." + +"Don't be in such a hurry," cries Frank. "Hold on till I get my rod up. +I'll go with you; I'm sick of flogging this ditch." + +And he began to reel up his line. + +Archie stood speechless. He took a long while to recover his wits under +this direct attack; but by the time he was ready with his answer, and +the angle was almost packed up, he had become 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. + +"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." + +"O!" cries Frank, "you don't want my company, don't you?" + +"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 - " + +"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. + +"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 OBSTO +PRINCIPIIS. I wager you five pounds you'll end by seeing that I mean +friendliness, and I assure you, Francie, I do," he added, relenting. + +Bursting with anger, but incapable of speech, Innes shouldered his rod, +made a gesture of 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. + +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. + +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. + +"Mighty attractive milkmaid," he observed, on the way home. + +"Who?" said Archie. + +"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!" + +"Very humorous, I am sure," said Archie. + +"Well, I am trying to be so," said Frank. "It's none too easy in this +place, and with your solemn society, my dear fellow. But confess that +the milkmaid has found favour in your eyes, or resign all claim to be a +man of taste." + +"It is no matter," returned Archie. + +But the other continued to look at him, steadily and quizzically, and +his colour slowly rose and deepened under the glance, until not +impudence itself could have denied that he was blushing. And at this +Archie lost some of his control. He changed his stick from one hand to +the other, and - "O, for God's sake, don't be an ass!" he cried. + +"Ass? That's the retort delicate without doubt," says Frank. "Beware +of the homespun brothers, dear. If they come into the dance, you'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 - " + +"You are touching on it now," interrupted Archie with a wince. + +"Thank you. That was all I wanted, an articulate confession," said +Frank. + +"I beg to remind you - " began Archie. + +But he was interrupted in turn. "My dear fellow, don't. It's quite +needless. The subject's dead and buried." + +And Frank began to talk hastily on other matters, an art in which he was +an adept, for it was his gift to be fluent on anything or nothing. But +although Archie had the grace or the timidity to suffer him to rattle +on, he was by no means done with the subject. When he came home to +dinner, he was greeted with a sly demand, how things were 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. + +"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. + +"What?" said Archie. + +"Well, it's your own fault if I must put a name on the thing; but +really, as a friend, I cannot stand by and see you rushing head down +into these dangers. My dear boy," said he, holding up a warning cigar, +"consider! What is to be the end of it?" + +"The end of what?" - Archie, helpless with irritation, persisted in this +dangerous and ungracious guard. + +"Well, the end of the milkmaid; or, to speak more by the card, the end +of Miss Christina Elliott of the Cauldstaneslap." + +"I assure you," Archie broke out, "this is all a figment of your +imagination. There is nothing to be said against that young lady; you +have no right to introduce her name into the conversation." + +"I'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?" + +This was torture to Archie. "I beg your pardon," he said, struggling to +be composed, "but because you have wormed yourself into my confidence - " + +"O, come!" cried Frank. "Your confidence? It was rosy but +unconsenting. Your confidence, indeed? Now, look! This is what I must +say, Weir, for it concerns your safety and good 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!" + +Archie rose. "I will hear no more of this," he said, in a trembling +voice. + +But Frank again held up his cigar. "Tell me one thing first. Tell me +if this is not a friend's part that I am playing?" + +"I believe you think it so," replied 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." + +"That's right, Weir," said Frank heartily. "Go to bed and think over +it; and I say, man, don't forget your prayers! I don't often do the +moral - don't go in for that sort of thing - but when I do there's one +thing sure, that I mean it." + +So Archie marched off to bed, and Frank sat alone by the table for +another hour or so, smiling to himself richly. There was nothing +vindictive in his nature; but, if revenge came in his way, it might as +well be good, and the thought of Archie's pillow reflections that night +was 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. + + + +CHAPTER VIII - A NOCTURNAL VISIT + + + +KIRSTIE had many causes of distress. More and more as we grow old - and +yet more and more as we grow old and are women, frozen by the fear of +age - we come to rely on the voice as the single outlet of the soul. +Only thus, in the curtailment of our means, can we relieve the +straitened cry of the passion within us; only thus, in the bitter and +sensitive shyness of advancing years, can we maintain 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Is that you, Kirstie?" he asked. "Come in!" + +"It's unco late, my dear," said Kirstie, affecting unwillingness. + +"No, no," he answered, "not at all. Come in, if you want a crack. I am +not sleepy, God knows!" + +She advanced, took a chair by the toilet table and the candle, and set +the 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. + +"Mr. Erchie," she began, "what's this that's come to ye?" + +"I am not aware of anything that has come," said Archie, and blushed, +and repented bitterly that he had let her in. + +"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!" + +"I have a difficulty in knowing what you mean," said Archie. + +"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?" + +"Why, Kirstie, you're very enigmatical to-night - and very eloquent," +Archie put in. + +"And, my dear Mr. Erchie," she continued, with a change of voice, "ye +mauna think that I canna sympathise wi' ye. Ye mauna think that I +havena been young mysel'. 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?" + +Kirstie, her eyes shining with unshed tears, stretched out her hand +towards him appealingly; the bright and the dull gold of her hair +flashed and smouldered in the coils behind her comely head, like the +rays of an eternal youth; the pure colour had risen in her face; and +Archie was abashed alike by her beauty and her story. He came towards +her slowly from the window, took up her hand in his and kissed it. + +"Kirstie," he said hoarsely, "you have misjudged me sorely. I have +always thought of her, I wouldna harm her for the universe, my woman!" + +"Eh, lad, and that's easy sayin'," cried Kirstie, "but it's nane sae +easy doin'! Man, do ye no comprehend that it's God's wull we should be +blendit and glamoured, and have nae command over our ain members at a +time like that? My bairn," she cried, still holding his hand, "think o' +the puir lass! have pity upon her, Erchie! and O, be wise for twa! +Think o' the risk she rins! I have seen ye, and what's to prevent +ithers! I saw ye once in the Hags, in my ain howl, and I was wae to see +ye there - in pairt for the omen, for I think there's a weird on the +place - and in 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. + +"I swear by my honour I have done her no wrong," said Archie. "I swear +by my honour and the redemption of my soul that there shall none be done +her. I have heard of this before. I have been foolish, Kirstie, not +unkind, and, above all, not base." + +"There's my bairn!" said Kirstie, rising. "I'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." + +"Ay, but Kirstie, my woman, you're asking me ower much at last," said +Archie, profoundly moved, and lapsing into the broad Scots. "Ye're +asking what nae man can grant ye, what only the Lord of heaven can grant +ye if He see fit. Ay! And can even He! I can promise ye what I shall +do, and you can depend on that. But how I shall feel - my woman, that +is long past thinking of!" + +They were both standing by now opposite each other. The face of Archie +wore the wretched semblance of a smile; hers was convulsed for a moment. + +"Promise me ae thing," she cried in a sharp voice. "Promise me ye'll +never do naething without telling me." + +"No, Kirstie, I canna promise ye that," he replied. "I have promised +enough, God kens!" + +"May the blessing of God lift and rest upon ye dear!" she said. + +"God bless ye, my old friend," said he. + + + +CHAPTER IX - AT THE WEAVER'S STONE + + + +IT was late in the afternoon when Archie drew near by the hill path to +the Praying Weaver's stone. The Hags were in shadow. But still, +through the gate of the Slap, the sun shot a last arrow, which 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. + +"No, Christina, not to-day," he said. "To-day I have to talk to you +seriously. Sit ye down, please, there where you were. Please!" he +repeated. + +The revulsion of feeling in Christina's heart was violent. To have +longed and waited these weary hours for him, rehearsing her endearments +- to have seen him at last come - to have been ready there, breathless, +wholly passive, his to do what he would with - and suddenly to have +found herself confronted with a grey-faced, harsh 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. + +He stood before her some way off. "Kirstie, there's been too much of +this. We've seen too much of each other." She looked up quickly and +her eyes contracted. "There's no good ever comes of these secret +meetings. They're not frank, not honest truly, and I ought to have seen +it. People have begun to talk; and it's not right of me. Do you see?" + +"I see somebody will have been talking to ye," she said sullenly. + +"They have, more than one of them," replied Archie. + +"And whae were they?" she cried. "And what kind o' love do ye ca' that, +that's ready to gang round like a whirligig at folk talking? Do ye +think they havena talked to me?" + +"Have they indeed?" said Archie, with a quick breath. "That is what I +feared. Who were they? Who has dared - ?" + +Archie was on the point of losing his temper. + +As a matter of fact, not any one had talked to Christina on the matter; +and she strenuously repeated her own first question in a panic of self- +defence. + +"Ah, well! what does it matter?" he said. "They were good folk that +wished well to us, and the great affair is that there are people +talking. My dear girl, we have to be wise. We must not wreck our lives +at the outset. They may be long and happy yet, and we must see to it, +Kirstie, like God's rational creatures and not like fool children. +There is one thing we must see to before all. You're worth waiting for, +Kirstie! worth waiting for a generation; it would be enough reward." - +And here he remembered the schoolmaster again, and very unwisely took to +following wisdom. "The first thing that we must see to, is that there +shall be no scandal about for my father's sake. That would ruin all; do +ye no see that?" + +Kirstie was a little pleased, there had been some show of warmth of +sentiment in what Archie had said last. But the dull irritation still +persisted in her bosom; with the aboriginal instinct, having suffered +herself, she wished to make Archie suffer. + +And besides, there had come out the word she had always feared to hear +from his lips, the name of his father. It is not to be supposed that, +during so many days with a love avowed between them, some reference had +not been made to their 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. + +"Ye havena told me yet," she said, "who was it spoke?" + +"Your aunt for one," said Archie. + +"Auntie Kirstie?" she cried. "And what do I care for my Auntie +Kirstie?" + +"She cares a great deal for her niece," replied Archie, in kind reproof. + +"Troth, and it's the first I've heard of it," retorted the girl. + +"The question here is not who it is, but what they say, what they have +noticed," pursued the lucid schoolmaster. "That is what we have to +think of in self-defence." + +"Auntie Kirstie, indeed! A bitter, thrawn auld maid that's fomented +trouble in the country 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." + +"Pardon me, Kirstie, she was not the only one," interposed Archie. "I +had two warnings, two sermons, last night, both most kind and +considerate. Had you been there, I promise you you would have grat, my +dear! And they opened my eyes. I saw we were going a wrong way." + +"Who was the other one?" Kirstie demanded. + +By this time Archie was in the condition of a hunted beast. He had +come, braced and 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. + +"Mr. Frank!" she cried. "What nex', I would like to ken?" + +"He spoke most kindly and truly." + +"What like did he say?" + +"I am not going to tell you; you have nothing to do with that," cried +Archie, startled to find he had admitted so much. + +"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. + +Poor Archie stood dumbfounded. She had moved some steps away from him +before he recovered the gift of articulate speech. + +"Kirstie!" he cried. "O, Kirstie woman!" + +There was in his voice a ring of appeal, a clang of mere astonishment +that showed the schoolmaster was vanquished. + +She turned round on him. "What do ye Kirstie me for?" she retorted. +"What have ye to do wi' me! Gang to your ain freends and deave them!" + +He could only repeat the appealing "Kirstie!" + +"Kirstie, indeed!" cried the girl, her eyes 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. + +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. . . . + + + + +GLOSSARY + + + + +Ae, one. +Antinomian, one of a sect which holds that under the gospel dispensation +the moral law is not obligatory. +Auld Hornie, the Devil. + +Ballant, ballad. +Bauchles, brogues, old shoes. +Bauld, bold. +Bees in their bonnet, eccentricities. +Birling, whirling. +Black-a-vised, dark-complexioned. +Bonnet-laird, small landed proprietor, yeoman. +Bool, ball. +Brae, rising ground. +Brig, bridge. +Buff, play buff on, to make a fool of, to deceive. +Burn, stream. +Butt end, end of a cottage. +Byre, cow-house. + +Ca', drive. +Caller, fresh. +Canna, cannot. +Canny, careful, shrewd. +Cantie, cheerful. +Carline, old woman. +Cauld, cold. +Chalmer, chamber. +Claes, clothes. +Clamjamfry, crowd. +Clavers, idle talk. +Cock-laird. See Bonnet-laird. +Collieshangie, turmoil. +Crack, to converse. +Cuist, cast. +Cuddy, donkey. +Cutty, jade, also used playfully = brat. + +Daft, mad, frolicsome. +Dander, to saunter. +Danders, cinders. +Daurna, dare not. +Deave, to deafen. +Denty, dainty. +Dirdum, vigour. +Disjaskit, worn out, disreputable-looking. +Doer, law agent. +Dour, hard. +Drumlie, dark. +Dunting, knocking. +Dwaibly, infirm, rickety. +Dule-tree, the tree of lamentation, the hanging-tree. + +Earrand, errand. +Ettercap, vixen. + +Fechting, fighting. +Feck, quantity, portion. +Feckless, feeble, powerless. +Fell, strong and fiery. +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. +Fit, foot. +Flit, to depart. +Flyped, turned up, turned in-side out. +Forbye, in addition to. +Forgather, to fall in with. +Fower, four. +Fushionless, pithless, weak. +Fyle, to soil, to defile. +Fylement, obloquy, defilement. + +Gaed, Went. +Gang, to go. +Gey an', very. +Gigot, leg of mutton. +Girzie, lit. diminutive of Grizel, here a playful nickname. +Glaur, mud. +Glint, glance, sparkle. +Gloaming, twilight. +Glower, to scowl. +Gobbets, small lumps. +Gowden, golden. +Gowsty, gusty. +Grat, wept. +Grieve, land-steward. +Guddle, to catch fish with the hands by groping under the stones or +banks. +Gumption, common sense, judgment. +Guid, good. +Gurley, stormy, surly. +Gyte, beside itself. + +Hae, have, take. +Haddit, held. +Hale, whole. +Heels-ower-hurdie, heels over head. +Hinney, honey. +Hirstle, to bustle. +Hizzie, wench. +Howe, hollow. +Howl, hovel. +Hunkered, crouched. +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." + +Idleset, idleness. +Infeftment, a term in Scots law originally synonymous with investiture. + +Jaud, jade. +Jeely-piece, a slice of bread and jelly. +Jennipers, juniper. + +Jo, sweetheart. +Justifeed, executed, made the victim of justice. +Jyle, jail + +Kebbuck, cheese. +Ken, to know. +Kenspeckle, conspicuous. +Kilted, tucked up. +Kyte, belly. + +Laigh, low. +Laird, landed proprietor. +Lane, alone. +Lave, rest, remainder. +Linking, tripping. +Lown, lonely, still. +Lynn, cataract. +Lyon King of Arms, the chief of the Court of Heraldry in Scotland. + +Macers, offiers of the supreme court. [Cf. Guy Mannering, last +chapter.] +Maun, must. +Menseful, of good manners. +Mirk, dark. +Misbegowk, deception, disappointment. +Mools, mould, earth. +Muckle, much, great, big. +My lane, by myself. + +Nowt, black cattle. + +Palmering, walking infirmly. +Panel, in Scots law, the accused person in a criminal action, the +prisoner. +Peel, fortified watch-tower. +Plew-stilts, plough-handles. +Policy, ornamental grounds of a country mansion. +Puddock, frog. + +Quean, wench. + +Rair, to roar. +Riff-raff, rabble. +Risping, grating. +Rout, rowt, to roar, to rant. +Rowth, abundance. +Rudas, haggard old woman. +Runt, an old cow past breeding; opprobriously, an old woman. + +Sab, sob. +Sanguishes, sandwiches. +Sasine, in Scots law, the act of giving legal possession of feudal +property, or, colloquially, the deed by which that possession is proved. +Sclamber, to scramble. +Sculduddery, impropriety, grossness. +Session, the Court of Session, the supreme court of Scotland. +Shauchling, shuffling, slipshod. +Shoo, to chase gently. +Siller, money. +Sinsyne, since then. +Skailing, dispersing. +Skelp, slap. +Skirling, screaming. +Skriegh-o'day, daybreak. +Snash, abuse. +Sneisty, supercilious. +Sooth, to hum. +Sough, sound, murmur. +Spec, The Speculative Society, a debating Society connected with +Edingburgh University. +Speir, to ask. +Speldering, sprawling. +Splairge, to splash. +Spunk, spirit, fire. +Steik, to shut. +Stockfish, hard, savourless. +Suger-bool, suger-plum. +Syne, since, then. + +Tawpie, a slow foolish slut, also used playfully = monkey. +Telling you, a good thing for you. +Thir, these. +Thrawn, cross-grained. +Toon, town. +Two-names, local soubriquets in addition to patronymic. +Tyke, dog. + +Unchancy, unlucky. +Unco, strange, extraordinary, very. +Upsitten, impertinent. + +Vennel, alley, lane. The Vennel, a narrow lane in Edingburgh, running +out of the Grassmarket. +Vivers, victuals. + +Wae, sad, unhappy. +Waling, choosing. +Warrandise, warranty. +Waur, worse. +Weird, destiny. +Whammle, to upset. +Whaup, curlew. +Whiles, sometimes. +Windlestae, crested dog's-tail, grass. +Wund, wind. + +Yin, one. + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Weir of Hermiston + |