Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice
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Anne could give no satisfactory answer, and Lilie went on.
“Jacky was to keep it for me, but I’ll give it to you, because it’s pretty, – like the Oran, in the gloaming, when the sky’s shining in the water. There’s no flower but it – no – ” said Lilie, comprehending in one vast glance the whole wide sweep of hill and valley round her – infinite as it seemed to the child’s eyes; “no in the world – only it, and folk were sleeping below it. Jacky says the angels plant them – is that true? wait till I get it.”
The child darted away, and returned in a moment, bringing a small, wild, blue violet, one of those little, shapeless flowers, whose minute, dark leaves have so exquisite a fragrance. Anne took it from her, smiling, and repeating: “It will return in spring,” offered it to Archibald. He received it with some emotion. – This sole flower in the world, as Lilie said, brought to him from the grave of father and of mother – the only spot of earth in Strathoran where he was not a stranger. He accepted the emblem, fragrant of their memories, as it seemed, fragrant of hope and life in the dreary winter-time, and, with its promise breathing from its leaves: “It will return in spring!”
They were both silent and thoughtful: Archibald absorbed with these remembrances and anticipations, while Anne, sympathizing fully with him, was yet half inclined to blame herself for her involuntary exhilaration. The weight was lifted off Anne’s heart. It was no longer a dread and horror, that secret life of Norman’s but a thing to be rejoiced in, and to draw brightest encouragement from – a very star of hope.
The sound of wheels upon the road recalled her thoughts. Mrs. Catherine’s ponies had been led away by Johnnie Halflin. It was a shabby inn-gig, driven by one of the hangers-on of the ‘Sutherland Arms,’ in Portoran, which now drove up, and took the phaeton’s place. A young man, with a pleasant, manly face, alighted, and, looking at Anne and Archibald dubiously, stood hesitating before them, and, at last, with some embarrassment, asked for Mrs. Catherine.
Jacky darted forward to show him in, and, in a few minutes, reappeared, breathless, with the stranger’s card in her hand. – Archibald had gone in – Anne had risen, and stood looking towards the little gate, waiting for Mrs. Catherine and Miss Falconer.
“Oh! if ye please, Miss Anne – ” exclaimed Jacky.
“Well, Jacky, what is it?”
Jacky held up the card – ”Mr. James Aytoun.” “If ye please, Miss Anne, I think it’ll be Miss Alice’s brother.”
Anne hastened forward to tell Mrs. Catherine, somewhat disturbed by the information. She feared for Lewis. Lewis was not so confident in the truth of these letters as she, and might, betray his doubt to Alice Aytoun’s brother, a lawyer, skilled in discerning those signs of truth in the telling of a story, which Lewis would lack in his narrative.
Jacky stole back to the library: the fire was getting low, she persuaded herself, and while she improved it, she could steal long glances at the stranger, and decide that he was “like Miss Alice, only no half so bonnie.” When the mending of the fire was complete, she slid into a corner, and began to restore various misplaced books. James watched her for a minute or two with some amusement. Alice had spoken of this dark, singular, elfin girl. She lingered so long that he forgot her. At last a voice alarmed him, close at his ear.
“If ye please – ”
He looked up – Jacky was emboldened.
“If ye please – Miss Alice – ”
“What about Miss Alice?” asked James, kindly.
“Just, is she quite well, Sir?” said Jacky, abashed.
“Quite well, I am much obliged to you,” said James.
Jacky hovered still. Somewhat startled James Aytoun would have been, had he divined the eager question hanging upon her very lips:
“Oh, if ye please, will they no let her be married on Mr. Lewis?” but Jacky restrained her interest in Alice Aytoun’s fortunes, sufficiently to say: “Mrs. Catherine is coming, Sir!” and to glide out of the room.
“James Aytoun!” exclaimed Mrs. Catherine, as Anne interrupted the indignant declamation of Marjory Falconer, to inform her of the stranger’s arrival. “Ay! that is like a man; I am pleased with that. The lad must have, both sense and spirit. – Send down to Merkland for Lewis without delay, child, and come in with me to the library; the lad’s business is with you, more than me. I like the spirit of him; there has been no milk-and-water drither, or lingering here. Come away.”
They entered the house. “Marjory Falconer,” said Mrs. Catherine, “go up the stair, and wait till we come to you. Say nothing of yon to Archie; but, be you sure, I will stand no such thing from the hands of the evil pack of them – hounds!”
Marjory obeyed; and Mrs. Catherine and Anne entered the library. The young man and the old lady exchanged looks of mutual respect. James Aytoun’s prompt attention to this important matter, brought the full sunshine of Mrs. Catherine’s favor upon him. She received him after her kindest fashion.
“You are welcome to my house, James Aytoun; and it pleases me, that I can call a lad who give such prompt heed to the honor of this house kinsman. Are you wearied with your journey? or would you rather speak of the matter that brought you here at once?”
“Certainly,” said James, smiling in spite of himself, at this abrupt introduction of the subject, “I should much rather ascertain how this important matter stands, at once. Your letter surprised us very greatly, Mrs. Catherine; you will imagine that – and of course I feel it of the utmost consequence that I should lose no time in making myself acquainted with the particulars.”
“Wise and right,” said Mrs. Catherine, approvingly, “and spoken like a forecasting and right-minded man. Sit down upon your seat, James Aytoun, and you shall hear the story.”
James seated himself.
“Perhaps it would be well that I saw Mr. Ross?”
“I have sent for Lewis,” said Mrs. Catherine. “He will be here as soon as he is needed. This is his sister, Miss Ross, of Merkland. Anne, you are of more present use than Lewis – you will stay with us.”
They gathered round the table in silence. James Aytoun felt nervous and embarrassed – he did not know how to begin. Mrs. Catherine saved him from his difficulty.
“James Aytoun, it would be putting a slight upon the manly and straightforward purpose that brought you here, if we were going about the bush in this matter, and did not speak clearly. – Your father was murdered – shot by a coward hand behind him. The whole world has laid the act upon Norman Rutherford. I have believed the same myself for eighteen years. Listen to me! I am not given to change, nor am I like to alter my judgment lightly; but now I declare to you, James Aytoun, that, far more clearly than ever I held his guilt, do I believe, and am sure, that Norman Rutherford was not the man.”
James was uneasy under the gaze of those large, keen eyes, and did not wish either to meet the earnest look of Anne Ross, who seemed to be watching so eagerly for his opinion.
“I shall be most happy, Mrs. Catherine,” he said, “to find that you have proof – that Mr. Ross has proof – sufficient for the establishment of this. I have certainly no feelings of revenge; but the crime which deprived Alice and myself of a father must of necessity keep the two families apart. I could not consent to any further intercouse between Mr. Ross and my sister on any other terms than those you mention. But the evidence is fearfully strong, Mrs. Catherine. Since my mother received your letter, I have examined it again thoroughly, and so far as circumstantial evidence can go, it is most clear and overwhelming. I shall be most happy to be convinced that the world has judged erroneously; but you will excuse me for receiving it with caution; if this unhappy young man – I beg your pardon, Miss Ross – had been brought before any court in Scotland, with the evidence, he must infallibly have been found guilty.”
“Anne,” said Mrs. Catherine, “you have the letters.”
Anne drew them from her breast – she had a feeling of insecurity when they were not in her own immediate possession.
“Had we not better wait till Lewis comes?”
“No,” said Mrs. Catherine. “What Lewis cares for, is the winning of the bairn Alice – what you care for, first and most specially, is the clearing of your brother’s disgraced name. Norman is safest in your hands, Anne. Read the letters.”
“Mr. Aytoun,” said Anne, with nervous firmness, “we have no systematic proof to lay before you. Anything which can directly meet and overcome the evidence of which you speak, remains still to be gathered – and it is possible, that this, on which we build our hopes, may seem but a very feeble foundation to you. In law, I suppose, it could have no weight for a moment: but yet to those who knew my brother Norman, and were acquainted with his peculiar temperament and nature, it carries absolute conviction. – I scarcely hope that it can have the same power of convincing you – but I pray you to receive as certainly true, before I read this, the judgment which all his friends pronounced upon my unhappy brother, before this dishonor came upon him. They call him the most truthful and generous of men: they distinguish him for these two qualities above all his compeers. Mrs. Catherine, I speak truly?”
“Truthful as the course of nature itself, which the Almighty keeps from varying. Generous as the sun that He hath set to shine upon the just and the unjust. Do not linger, Anne: read Norman’s letter.”
Anne lifted the letter, and glanced up at James before she began to read – his eyes were fixed upon her, his face was full of grave anxiety – convinced or unconvinced, she was sure at least of an attentive listener. She began to read – her voice trembling at first, as the quick throbbings of her heart almost choked it, but becoming hysterically strong, as she went on; her mind agitated as Norman’s was when he wrote that letter, eager like him, by what repetitions or incoherent words soever, that were strongest and most suitable for the urgent purpose, to throw off the terrible accusation under which he lay: it was like no second party reading an old letter; it was the very voice and cry of one pleading for life – for more than life – for lost good fame and honor.
James Aytoun’s eyes were steadily fixed upon her; and as she closed the letter, her whole frame vibrating, he drew a long breath – that most grateful of all sounds to the ears of a speaker who desires to move and impress his audience. Anne looked up eagerly and anxious. He had covered his face with his hand. Neither of them spoke; until, at last, James raised his head:
“May I see that letter, Miss Ross? Can you give it me?”
Anne had omitted the sentence in which Norman mentioned his escape. She folded it in, and handed him the letter. He read it again carefully, and yet again. Besides the earnest agony of its words, there was a mute eloquence about that yellow, timeworn paper. Blisters of tears were on it: tears of terrible grief – tears of tremulous hope. Its very characters, abrupt and broken as they were, spoke as with a living voice. Nothing false – nothing feigned, could be in the desperate energy of that wild cry, the burden of Norman’s self-defence: “I am innocent! I am innocent!”
“Miss Ross,” said James Aytoun, “there never was man convicted from clearer evidence than that which has persuaded the world of your brother’s guilt. I cannot comprehend it – my faith is shaken. I confess to you, that I feel this letter to be true – that I can no longer think of him as the murderer.”
Anne tried to smile – she could not. A stranger – a man prejudiced against Norman – the son of the dead. The tears came over her cheeks in a burst of joy. She thought it the voice of universal acquittal: she forgot all the difficulties that remained – Norman was saved.
The library-door opened, and Lewis entered. Mrs. Catherine rose, and presented him to James: the two young men shook hands with an involuntary cordiality, at which they were themselves astonished. Anne was conquering herself again; but joy seemed so much more difficult to keep in bounds, and restrain, than sorrow was. She had little experience of the first – much of the other. She started up, and laid her hand on Lewis’s arm.
“Lewis, Lewis! the way is clearing before us. Mr. Aytoun gives us his support. Mr. Aytoun thinks him innocent!”
CHAPTER XVI
LEWIS Ross was undergoing a process of amelioration. From his earliest days he had been taught to consider himself the person of greatest importance in Merkland; and the pernicious belief had evolved itself in a very strong and deeply-rooted selfishness, to which the final touch and consummation had been given by his foreign travel. Thrown then, with his natural abilities, always very quick and sharp, if not of the highest order, upon the noisy current of the world, with no other occupation than to take care of himself – to attend to his own comforts – to scheme and deliberate for his own enjoyments, the self-important boy had unconsciously risen into a selfish man, having no idea that a supreme regard for his own well-being and comfort was not the most reasonable and proper centre, round which his cares and hopes could revolve.
He returned home. The home routine was going on as before. The servants, his mother, Anne, all did homage to the superior importance of Lewis. He received it as his due. These were but satellites; he, himself, was the planet of their brief horizon. Little Alice helped the delusion on; her simple heart yielded with so little resistance to his fascinations.
All at once the dream was rudely broken. Anne, his quiet, serviceable sister, he suddenly found to be absorbed by the concerns of this unknown Norman, whose very name was strange to him. His own little Alice must consider the pleasure of her mother and brother before his. Lewis was suddenly stopped short in his career of complacent selfishness. The people round him were ready to risk all things for each other. Mrs. Catherine’s wealth and lands were nothing to her, as she said, in comparison with the welfare of Archibald Sutherland, who had no nearer claim upon her than that of being the son of her friend. Anne’s whole soul was engrossed with anxiety for the deliverance of Norman: her own self did not cost her a thought. Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Foreman were spending time and labor heartily in the service of the broken laird, who could make them no return: and worst of all, they expected that Lewis also should join in that Quixotry, as a necessary and unavoidable duty, without even thinking that by so doing he would deserve any particular praise. In the fastnesses of his self-content, Lewis was shaken.
Then came James Aytoun, the stranger, to whom this Norman, whose very name inspired Anne, was, and could be nothing, except, indeed, a detested criminal – the supposed murderer of his father. He came, he saw: and lo! he was deeper into the heart of the struggle than Lewis had ever been: believing Norman’s innocence – declaring his intention of joining Robert Ferguson immediately, and assisting in his investigations; consulting with Anne in frank confidence, and with a far more genuine sympathy than had ever been awakened in the colder heart of Lewis.
The young Laird of Merkland was overpowered: the contagion of James Aytoun’s hearty, manly feeling, of his ready and quick belief, smote Lewis with a sense of his own unenviable singularity. The cloak of self he had been wrapped in began to loosen, and drop away; he began to realise the sad lot of his exiled brother, continually waiting for the kind search, and acquitting justice, which should bring him home again; and growing sick with deferred and fainting hope, as year after year went by, and there came no kindly token over the sea. The letter, instinct now with the breath of earnest belief, which had carried it into those other hearts, began to operate upon Lewis. He sat down between James Aytoun and Anne; he took a part in their consultations; he forgot himself, in thinking of Norman. The divine rod had stricken the desert rock once more, and the freshness of new life – a life for others – a life for the world, dawned upon Lewis Ross.
Anne and James were already conversing like intimate friends. Lewis, with his natural frankness, was soon as deep in the subject as they. Anne’s face brightened as she looked upon him. Mrs. Catherine sent him now and then a word of kindly harshness, more affectionately than was her wont. Their plans were being laid.
“And I would ask of you, James Aytoun,” said Mrs. Catherine, “for what reason that ill-favored buckie of a gig is standing at my door? and what business the cripple helper from the Portoran inn has among my servants? I must take order with this.”
“The man is waiting for me,” said James. “I must return home to-morrow, Mrs. Catherine – and the day is waning. I must get into Portoran soon.”
“You must not think,” said Mrs. Catherine, “of crossing my threshold this night again. Hold your peace, young man: there is no voice lifted under this roof with authority but mine, and I will not have it. Jacky!” Jacky made her appearance at the door – ”let the man that drove Mr. Aytoun up, get his dinner, and then tell your mother he is not to wait – Mr. Aytoun does not return to-night. And now, young folk, are you nearly through with your consulting? I have a visitor waiting for me up the stair.”
“You decide to go with me to-morrow, Mr. Ross?” said James.
“Yes, certainly,” said Lewis. “I will not do much good I dare say; but I shall, at least, be on the spot.”
“You are done, are you?” said Mrs. Catherine. “James Aytoun I have another matter to speak to you about. Has a stranger in the country – the purchaser of an old estate – any shadow of a right to shut up a road which has been the property of the folk of this parish of Strathoran, since beyond the memory of man?”
“No,” said James, “no proprietor has – of however long standing he may be.”
“Not myself say you?” said Mrs. Catherine, “that is another thing, James Aytoun. My house has held this land for many generations. I have a right of service from the people; but an upstart – a laird by purchase, by purchase, said I? – by cheatry and secret theftdom, nothing better! There is a creature of this kind upon the lands of Strathoran, and the way by the waterside is blocked up this day – a kirk road! a by-way as old as the tenure of my lands! – the cattle never did a worse thing for their own peacefulness. The road shall return to the folk it rightfully belongs to, if I should have the whole reprobate pack of them before the Court of Session!”
“Who is the proprietor?” said James.
“Lord Gillravidge,” answered Lewis.
“Lord Gillravidge? Hold your peace, Lewis Ross, when folk are not speaking to you, as one of your years should. The house of Strathoran has been a sinful house, James Aytoun, and Providence has sent upon it a plague of frogs, as was sent upon Egypt in the time of Israel’s captivity – puddocks that have the gift of venom over and above the native slime of them. The proprietor is Archibald Sutherland, who is dwelling in my house at this moment; but the lad has let his possessions slip through his fingers, and the vermin are in them. I would take the law with me. What should be my first step, James Aytoun, for the recovery of the road?”
“Throw down the barricade,” said Lewis.
“Lewis Ross, I have told you to hold your peace – though I will not say but what there are glimmerings of discernment breaking through the shell; tell Alice from me, James Aytoun, that the youth, if he were once through this season of vanity, gives promise of more judgment than I looked for at his hands. It is not my wont to wait for other folk’s bidding, Lewis – the barricade is down before now; but what order is it right that I should take, if the cattle put it up again?”
“Had you not better try a remonstrance, Mrs. Catherine,” said James. “It may have been done in ignorance.”
“Remonstrance! a bonnie story that I should condescend to remonstrate with the hounds. Where are you going, Anne? Did I not bid ye remain with us?”
“You forget that Marjory is up stairs, Mrs. Catherine,” said Anne.
“I forget no such thing – the bairns are mad! counselling me with their wisdom in my own house – and that minds me that I am forgetting the comfort of the stranger like a self-seeking old wife as I am. James Aytoun, I will let you see your room – and you, bairns, remain where you are, and dine with him. You are like to be near kindred – it is right you should be friends.”
Mrs. Catherine led James Aytoun away, and Anne and Lewis joined Marjory in the drawing-room, where, the fumes of her indignation scarcely over, she had been firmly shutting her lips for the last hour, lest some hint of the shut-up by-way should escape them, to pain the landless Archibald.
They spent the evening pleasantly together. James Aytoun was fresh from that peculiar society of Edinburgh, whose intellectual progress is the pulse of Scotland, healthful, strong, and bold, as its beatings have been for these past centuries. His own compeers and companions were the rising generation – lawyers, physicians, clergymen, literati, whom the course of some score years would find in the highest places there. The intellectual life and activity which breathed out from his very conversation, stimulated Lewis. These pursuits of science and literature – those professional matters even, to the consideration of which intellect so elevated and acute was devoted, gave the country laird a new idea of the pleasure and dignity of life. Labor – healthful, vigorous, energetic, manly labor – not vacant ease of frivolous enjoyment, was the thing esteemed in that lettered community of beautiful Edinburgh, the names of whose toiling, daring, chivalrous, intellectual workmen, would be household words to the next wave of Scottish population – would have risen into the mental firmament ere then, stars for a world to see.
It was a particularly happy thing for Lewis at this especial time, his encounter with James Aytoun; the unselfish breadth of his good mind and heart, the generous start to exertion, the clear health and readiness of all his well cultured faculties, and his frank and instinctive energy, carried with them all the better part of Lewis Ross’s nature. Their visitor, with his intelligent conversation, and well-cultivated mind, pleased and made friends of them all; but conferred especial benefit and invigoration upon Lewis.
The next day they left the Tower together. Lewis, with his old self-confidence, believing himself sure to help on the search mightily by his presence; but yet so much more earnest and unselfish in his desire to see the truth established, that Anne’s heart rejoiced within her. Mrs. Ross was sulkily reconciling herself to the obvious necessity. She was by no means interested in the result of the investigation, and was inclined to hope that it would be unsuccessful, and that Lewis might be released from his engagement, yet, nevertheless, prepared herself, with much sullenness and ill-humor, for “the worst.”
Anne accompanied Lewis, in the morning, to the Tower, to bid James good-by, and charge him with various kindly messages, and some little tokens of sisterly good-will for Alice. At Mrs. Catherine’s desire she remained. Mrs. Catherine had already despatched Andrew with the following missive to Strathoran:
“Mrs. Catherine Douglas, of the Tower, desires that Lord Gillravidge will explain to her, at his earliest leisure, his motive for shutting up the by-way upon Oranside – a thing both unreasonable and unlawful, and which she has no thought of submitting to for a day. The path belongs to the people of the parish, who had dwelt upon the land for centuries, before ever it passed into Lord Gillravidge’s tenantcy. Mrs. Catherine Douglas desires Lord Gillravidge to know that he has done what is contrary to the law of the land, and expects to have an immediate reason rendered to her, for the insult and hardship inflicted upon her people and parish, by the closing of a known kirk road, and public way.”
Mrs. Catherine and her household were busied in preparation for Archibald’s departure. Mrs. Catherine herself was hemming with a very fine needle, and almost invisible thread, breadths of transparent cambric, for the shirts which her three generations of domestics, Mrs. Elspat Henderson, Mrs. Euphan Morison, and Jacky, were occupied in making.
“And child,” said Mrs. Catherine, “I like not idle greives. If you are not pleased with Jacky’s stitching, take the other breast yourself – there is plenty to hold you all busy. I have no brood of young folk, sitting with their hands before them. What did you get clear eyesight and quick fingers for?”