Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice

Mrs. Ross stared at her in open-eyed astonishment. Lewis had laughed at first – now he was graver. Mrs. Ross, with much obstinacy of her own, was one of those people who sometimes bluster, but always yield and quail before genuine, sober firmness.

“What do you mean? What do you wish to do?” she asked, peevishly. “Dutiful, obedient! ah, I have had a good daughter in you, without doubt! You are your brother’s own sister. By all means, devote yourself to Norman. What right have I, who have only been a mother to you all your life, in comparison with this brother Norman, whom you never saw?”

Anne was already sorry for her outburst; yet, in spite of herself, felt indignant and impatient. This thraldom galled her grievously, yet she knew it to be a necessary result of her dependence.

“Stay, mother,” said Lewis, “let me be peacemaker, for once. You forget how tired I am. Postpone your discussion till after dinner. We have had civil war long enough; let us have peace now.”

Anne withdrew to her own room. So did Lewis; and the discussion was at an end.

What should she do? The few shillings in the end of her purse were all inadequate for the journey, and the expense of residing, perhaps for some considerable time, among strangers. That difficulty there was but one way of overcoming. Anne could not rely upon the generosity of Lewis, or his mother. To tell the truth, the finances of Merkland were in a state of considerable attenuation. But she could rely, without hesitation, upon Mrs. Catherine.

And there were further difficulties: how to go alone, and live alone, in the strange, unknown place: how to forsake her ordinary habits, and take to cottage visiting as indefatigably as an English Lady Bountiful. The first she was rather uneasy about; the second was a trifle. Things which were merely disagreeable, did not much distress Anne Ross: she was by no means in despair even at those which most people called impossible; but shrank with nervous delicacy from any, the very slightest, appearance of evil.

After dinner, the conversation was renewed. Lewis had been somewhat struck by Anne’s assertion of some little claim to her own judgment. He certainly did not think her so wise as himself, but he knew her quite equal to various of his friends, whose claim to independent will and action was quite indisputable. Only, she was a woman: that was all the difference. Lewis resolved to be very enlightened and liberal, to let his sister express her opinions freely, and himself to give a final and impartial deliverance upon them.

“Did I mention, in my last letter, the people who had been so intimate with Norman?” he asked, to begin.

“No,” said Anne.

“An old woman referred us to them. She said it was a sister of theirs who was the occasion of the dispute between Aytoun and Norman; a poor girl who went to visit some friends in the west, about the time of the murder, and died there of a broken heart. One believes in such things when one hears stories like these. They live alone, in a great, gaunt old house, a brother and sister.”

“And what?” said Anne, eagerly.

“Oh, nothing. I have no story to tell. We could gather nothing from them. The sister is a strange, emaciated, worn-out woman. James thought she looked agitated; but save a burst of broken praise of ‘poor Redheugh’ – I believe she even called him Norman – we elicited nothing more. The brother is an invalid and hypochondriac; we caught a glimpse of him, once or twice, wandering on the beach, but never could address him. They seemed strange people, but had nothing to tell.”

Anne did not speak. Her curiosity and interest were awakened.

“What a strange fellow,” exclaimed Lewis, “that Norman must have been!”

“Strange!” said Mrs. Ross, “Yes, indeed, I should think he was. I know we had little peace in Merkland, before he came of age.”

“How he managed to make the country people all so fond of him,” continued Lewis, disregarding his mother’s interruption, “one can’t tell. And falling in love with a girl, of quite different rank. Altogether, it’s a strange story.”

“What was their name?” said Mrs. Ross. “I thought you said they lived in an old, great house, Lewis.”

“So they do,” said Lewis. “It is not their own, though. – They pay some nominal rent, and take care of the place. Their name – what is their name? – upon my word I don’t recollect. I don’t know that I ever heard the surname. I remember the sister was called Miss Christian: but James will know.”

“And you are sure they know nothing?” said Anne.

“Yes; at least the sister gave us no information, and the brother, as I told you, is a poor ailing creature – half crazy, the people say. He had saved an old man from drowning, shortly before we reached the place, and was very much elated about it.”

“And their sister?” said Anne.

“Their sister was a very gentle, sweet girl – so runs the story – and was much attached to Norman. The news of his flight was carried to her abruptly by some officious person, and the consequence was, that the poor girl broke her heart, and died. It is a very sad story. Alice seemed to be able for nothing but crying when I told her.”

Anne was ruminating in wonder and doubt – who then was the “Marion?” It was impossible that this truthful, upright Norman should have his troth plighted to two! Impossible that he could play one false! The doubt made her heart sink: the weight of one sin is so much heavier than the burden of a hundred misfortunes.

“Now Anne,” said Lewis, “what has become of your famous resolution? Has your heart failed you already? I am glad of it: better faint before you enter the wood, than when you are on the way.”

“I have no idea of fainting at all,” said Anne, “unless, indeed, when we have fairly emerged into the clear air again, with Norman honorably in his own house, and Alice at Merkland – I may have leisure for fainting then. Now, Lewis – listen to me, I beg, mother – I want you to consent that I should go to this place – to Aberford – immediately, or if not immediately, at least soon. – Let me have some one with me – May would do, or old Esther Fleming. I can take quiet lodgings and live there, professedly for the sake of sea air, if, indeed, any pretence is necessary. Once there, with no other claim on my time, and patience enough to bear any ordinary disagreeables, I may make quiet, noiseless unsuspected investigations. Let me try; the matter is of consequence to us all, and the expense will not be great. I beg that I may not be hindered from making this endeavor; it may produce something – and if it does not, there is nothing lost.”

“Upon my word you take it very coolly,” said Mrs. Ross. “I should like to know why my son’s means should be wasted in such an absurd expedition. You will never make anything of it, it is quite nonsense: besides, the idea of a girl going away from home, and living alone, engaged in such a search! – perfectly improper! I am amazed at you, Anne!”

Anne blushed deeply. It might, indeed, be called improper and indecorous, and she was not given to neglect the veriest outer garment and vesture of good fame; but for this, a matter so very dear and precious, involving so many interests, a mere punctilio might surely be disregarded – a ceremonial dispensed with.

“Mother!” she said, “if I were ill, you would not object to this: on the mere order of a doctor, you would have thought it perfectly proper to suffer me to go to the sea-side: how much more now, when interests so great are at stake – Lewis and Norman – your hope and mine! Mother! let me have your consent.”

Lewis was touched. This Norman, whom she emphatically called her hope, did not live at all in Anne’s remembrance, except in the merest shadow. He began to perceive how void of personal hopes and joys her life was. There were some – deeper, graver, more earnest than his – foremost among them, the deliverance and return of this exile brother; should he, her nearest relative, dim and darken this great hope for her? Lewis forgot himself, and his forgetfulness ennobled him.

“Anne,” he said, “let us speak of this hereafter – nay, I mean soon; but not – ” he glanced at his mother, “not to-night.”

Anne understood, and was satisfied. Lewis had turned peacemaker. Lewis was devising means to turn his mother’s ill-humor and undeserved reproofs from her. All honor and praise to that kindly household of Aytoun; the manly son, the gracious mother, the gentle little girl, Alice, who had found out for him, and brought into the pleasant air of day, the hidden heart of Lewis Ross.

The next morning, Lewis himself proposed a consultation with Mrs. Catherine. Anne consented gladly, and they set out. The Oran was frozen hard, and lay, a glittering road of ice, far below the high pathway of crisp snow they were walking on, through which the topmost branches of the buried hedge peered forth like wayside weeds. The snow lay three or four feet deep, and it was intensely cold.

They found Mrs. Catherine in her ruddy inner room, hemming fine cambric still. In the one article of linen, Archibald Sutherland was not likely to find himself deficient for years. Lewis gave in his report. Mrs. Catherine was disappointed.

“But it is no marvel to me, mind, though you yourself, Lewis, are in trouble, as I see, that your skill, and wisdom, and great experience, have failed in the first trial. Take good heart, boy; when you have come to years, you will understand that men are not wont to win the head of the contest, in the first trial. Set your breast to it, man; begin again.”

“Why, we have done everything, Mrs. Catherine,” said Lewis.

“Ay! you are a clever chield, Lewis Ross. Is it a month since the two gallants went away, Anne? Truly, I had no thought there were two such giants under my roof yon bright January day – done everything! – in four weeks! It is a comfort to folk of an older generation, that have worn out lifetimes at one labor, to hear tell of the like of that.”

Lewis did not know whether to laugh, or to be angry: acting on his new notions of manliness, he chose the former. “Of course, Mrs. Catherine, I mean everything we could do.”

“Lewis,” said Mrs. Catherine, “you are wrong; there is no man in this world – at least, I have never heard name nor fame of him – that did everything he could do in such a space of time; it is a delusion of youth. You have girded yourself for the race, and have run hard for one mile; you think ye have done all. Boy! you are neither footsore, nor weary, nor sick at heart; what ails you to go on? I have known folk struggling hard, that were all the three. Turn back, Lewis Ross, and begin again.”

“Mrs. Catherine,” said Anne, “if Lewis returned, it would excite curiosity; their investigations have aroused attention already. I think it would not be wise. We came to consult you on a plan of mine. Mrs. Catherine, they say, despairing men venture on forlorn hopes often. I am not despairing, I am only useless; but I want Lewis to entrust this forlorn hope to me.”

“And I,” said Lewis, “think it is a very foolish idea; but yet have no reasonable defence to offer against it.”

Mrs. Catherine looked at Anne earnestly.

“Are you able? that you would endeavor this I never doubted – have you strength for it?”

“I? I am strong,” said Anne, “you know that, Mrs. Catherine. I scarcely know what sickness is.”

Mrs. Catherine touched, with her fingers, the smooth, clear cheek, which testified the firm and elastic health, both physical and mental, of its owner, and yet was so far removed from robustness.

“Anne, I believe you are able; you have my full consent, and God-speed. Mind you, what I have said to Lewis; it’s no one trial, or two, or three – time and patience, thought and labor; you must grudge none of them all. Tell me your plan.”

“Must we submit?” said Lewis. “Anne, is Mrs. Catherine’s judgment final? is there no appeal?”

“Silence!” said Mrs. Catherine, peremptorily; “who was speaking of appeal or judgment? There is a work to do, Lewis Ross; the thing is to get the fittest workman, and beware how we hinder him of his labor. We have tarried long enough; this is no a time to put further barriers in the road. Child, your plan?”

“I propose going to Aberford,” said Anne; “taking some trusty person with me, Mrs. Catherine. It is common, I hear, for people to go there, who seek sea air. I shall attract no attention; it does not matter much how long I stay. I can establish myself under the wing of some matron, and so escape the charge of impropriety. Then I shall go about the district, make acquaintance with every one to whom I can have access, and inquire with all zeal and all quietness. While questions from Lewis, and a lawyer-like person, like James Aytoun, might confuse the people, they will speak frankly to me. I will gossip with them, play with their children; get all possible scraps of recollectings and imaginings, and, perhaps, when the heap is winnowed, something worth going for.”

Mrs. Catherine bent her head gravely, and asked: “When?”

“Immediately,” said Anne; “at least, I should desire so. We have lost much time already.”

Mrs. Catherine rose, and went to the window. The sky was heavy and dark, lowering like some great gloomy forehead. It was laden with snow – large, dilated flakes, like those of fire upon Dante’s burning sand were falling one by one, upon the white earth. It was a feeding storm.

“Bonnie weather for the sea-side,” said Mrs. Catherine, returning to her seat. “You must go with a good excuse, child, not with an apparent falsehood on your tongue. ‘February fills the dyke, either with black or white.’ We are getting both of them this month. March is a blustering, wintry time, when there is little to be seen or heard tell of about the coast but shipwreck and disaster. April is pleasant in a landward place. You may go in April; it is too soon, but for the necessity’s sake you may go then – not a day sooner, at your peril. You are able and well? I understand your look, child – hold your peace. I would give a good year of my life – and I have few of them to spare, seeing I am trysted to abide in my present tabernacle, if the Lord will tell Archie Sutherland has won back his land – to see Norman Rutherford a free man on Oranside again; but I will not consent to put you in peril, child, for any prospective good. I say you shall go in April. I put my interdict upon you venturing before. I will give you your freedom in the last blast of the borrowing days. Not an hour sooner. Now, will you abide by my judgment, or will you not?”

Anne looked out uneasily. The heavy sky slowly beginning to discharge its load – the earth everywhere covered with that white, warm mantle – the gradually increasing storm. She submitted. Now, at least, it was impossible to go.

Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Catherine took her into another room, and interrogated her concerning her pecuniary arrangements for the journey. Anne evaded the question, laughed at the scanty family of shillings in her own purse, and spoke of Lewis.

“Child, you are a gowk after all,” said Mrs. Catherine. “The lad needs all his siller for himself. If there is anything to spare, let him use it on bonnie dies to dress his little bride withal – though the bairn Alison has a natural grace, and needs them less than most. But if you say a word about siller to Lewis, you shall never enter my door again. Mind! It is my wont to keep my word.”

Within a week after this conversation, the last half of Mrs. Catherine’s prodigal outfit was hurriedly sent to Glasgow, where Archibald Sutherland had made his first beginning with success and honor. The cold lodging, to whose narrow and solitary fireside he returned, night after night alone – the fat, Glasgow landlady, whose broad, good-humored face began to smile upon him with a familiar kindliness, which the broken laird blamed himself for almost shrinking from – the life of strange labor – he was getting accustomed to them all.

The house which he had entered was a great one. The senior partner, Mr. Sutor, a man of good mercantile descent, and capital business head, lived at a considerable distance from Glasgow, in one of those magnificent solitudes of hill and water, whither the merchants of St. Mungo are wont to carry their genial wealth, and their fine houses. It was within convenient distance of the “Saut Water,” that irresistible temptation and delight of every genuine Glaswegian. Mr. Sutor came up frequently to business; he was still the active sagacious head of his extensive establishment. The manager, Mr. George Lumsden, was as great a man in his way. He lived in the dignified vicinity of Blytheswood Square. He had a fine house, a well-dressed pretty wife, and beautiful children; gave good dinners; visited baillies and town-councillors, and had baillies and town-councillors visiting him, and was certain in a very short time, to have his respectable name introduced into the firm. He was moreover an active, intelligent man, almost intellectual in spite of those absorbing cares of business, and worthy to call the minister of Portoran brother. Had Archibald chosen, he might have made a tolerably good entre into the society of Glasgow, in the hospitable house of Mr. Lumsden; but Archibald did not choose. His former folly, illness, and repentance had both sobered and saddened him, and he desired to avoid society – a desire which Mr. Lumsden kindly perceived; and after one or two unhappy evenings, during which the sensitive young man had endured in exquisite pain “the pity of the crowd,” and suffered the sympathy of indifferent strangers, Mr. Lumsden forbore pressing further invitations upon him.

Messrs. Sutor and Sinclair’s office was filled with young men – very young men, most of them – adventurous scions of commercial Glasgow families, foredoomed to push their fortunes, and to push them successfully in every quarter of the globe. Youths who made immense havoc among “grossets,” strawberries, and all other delicacies of the luxurious summer-time, sacred to Clydesdale orchards, and radiant with the crowning glory of the Saut Water; nor in the gloomier season did less execution among edibles and drinkables, by no means so delicate or innocent – uproarious, laughter loving, practical-joking youths, among whose noisy conclave Archibald Sutherland sat silent, grave, and sad, in strange solitude.

Thoroughly respectable they would all be by-and-by, on English ‘Change and foreign market-place, and home counting-house – men who could lose some few thousands without much discomposure, and whose custom was to win them in tens and twenties. Yet one could pass so lightly over these ruddy faces, to rest upon that pale one among them, with its secret history – its grief – its hope – altogether forgetful that this was a hired clerk, and that the cubs were young gentlemen, taken in at nominal salaries, to learn their craft, and saving Mr. Sutor no inconsiderable annual sum in the salaries of other hired clerks, whose services his great business must have demanded but for them.

But Archibald discharged his duty well: so well, that Mr. Lumsden formally pronounced his satisfaction – shortened his probation – and when he had been but a month in the Glasgow counting-house, bade him prepare immediately for his voyage. Archibald did so: wrote a long letter, and received a short note of leave-taking from his sister Isabel – the much-admired and gay Mrs. Duncombe – packed up his great outfit, placed in his pocketbook Mrs. Catherine’s long letter of pithy counsel and tender kindliness; with these few words of grave farewell from Merkland; and on a heavy day in February, took his last look of the fair West Country, and its beautiful Clyde, and set sail for the New World.