Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice

The boot suddenly relaxed as Miss Lumsden entered, and the shock brought out her brother’s muttering in a louder tone than he intended: “A pretty fellow!”

“Who is that?” asked his sister.

Mr. Lumsden looked up, flushed with exertion. “This lord at Strathoran. Take his note – a seemly thing indeed to write so to me; Marjory Falconer is right after all – the man thinks himself a Highland chieftain.”

Miss Lumsden read the note, wonderingly.

“Sir.

“My people inform me that you are in the habit of visiting my tenants at Oranmore, and inciting them to a course of action quite subversive of my plans. I am informed that the glen is in the parish of Strathoran, and consequently under the charge of another clergyman – the Rev. Mr. Bairnsfather – whose own good sense and proper feeling have withheld him from any interference between myself and my dependants. I am not inclined to submit to any clerical meddling, and therefore beg to remind you, that as Oranmore is not under your charge, any interference on your part is perfectly uncalled for and officious. I do not choose to have any conventicles in the glen, and trust that you will at once refrain from visits, which may injure the people but can do them no good.

“I am, &c.“Gillravidge.”

“Did ever any mortal hear such impertinence?” exclaimed the amazed Miss Lumsden.

“His people!” said the minister: “they have been his a long time to be so summarily dealt with as goods and chattels. The man must have got his ideas of Scotland from ‘Waverley,’ and thinks he is a Glennaquoich and at the head of a clan – what absurd folly it is!”

“And just, ‘Sir!’ ” said Miss Lumsden, indignantly; “he might have had the good breeding to call you ‘Reverend’ at least.”

Mr. Lumsden laughed. He rose and changed the long black garment, once a great-coat, now his study-coat and morning-undress, for habiliments better suiting the long ride he was about to commence, twisted his plaid round his neck, and shut his quarto.

“What do you intend to do, John?” asked Miss Lumsden. “Are you going out?”

“I intend to do just what I should have done, had I not received this polite note,” said Mr. Lumsden. “I am going to Oranmore, Martha. This lordling threatens to eject these hapless Macalpines, and poor Kenneth, the widow’s son, is on the very verge of the grave. I must see him to-day. If they attempt to remove him, it will kill the lad.”

“Remove them, John? what are you thinking of?” said Miss Lumsden: “it is nearly three months yet to the term.”

The minister shook his head.

“They were warned to quit at Martinmas, Martha. This man, Lord Gillravidge, has his eyes open to his own advantage. He has been advised, I hear, to make one great sheep-farm of these exposed hill-lands. The poor little clachan of Oranmore could not believe that those fearful notices were anything but threats to secure the payment of their rent; but now they promise to turn very sad earnest. I do not know what to do.”

“Eject them?” said Miss Lumsden, “bring one of those terrible Irish scenes to our very door – in our peaceable country? John, it’s not possible!”

Mr. Lumsden looked still more serious.

“I fear it is nearly certain, Martha. I met Big Duncan Macalpine on the road last night. He says Lord Gillravidge’s agent and that fellow with the moustache, have been in the glen several times of late; and the ejectment must be accomplished before their seed is sown. At least if they are permitted to remain till after seed-time, the man will not surely have the heart to remove them then. I do not know – it is a very sad business altogether; but we must try to do something better for them than sending them, friendless and penniless, to Canada. We get a trial of all businesses, we ministers, Martha – this is a new piece of work for me.”

The minister’s man stood at the door, holding the minister’s stout, gray pony. Mr. Lumsden left the room. “And a great comfort it is, John my man,” soliloquized his sister, “that your Master has made you able for them all.”

Oranmore was not in Mr. Lumsden’s parish. Mr. Lumsden was, what in those days was called a “Highflyer,” that is, a purely and earnestly evangelical minister – a man who dedicated his whole energies, not to any abstraction of merely beautiful morality – not to amiable respectability, nor temporal beneficence; but in the fullest sense of these solemn words, to the cause and service of Christ. In consequence, Mr. Lumsden was assailed with all the names peculiarly assigned to his class by common consent of the world: sour Presbyterian, gloomy Calvinist, narrow-minded bigot, illiberal Pharisee. The minister of Portoran, like his brethren in all ages, escaped thus the woe denounced by his Master against those of whom all men speak well.

He was a thorough Presbyterian, a sound Calvinist. Men who know, and may rationally judge of these two stately systems of discipline and doctrine, can decide best whether the frank and open pleasantness of Mr. Lumsden’s face belied his faith or no. He was a man of one idea – we confess to that; but the mightiness that filled his mind was great enough to overbrim a universe. It was the Gospel – the Gospel in its infinite breadth of lovingness – the Gospel no less in its restrictions and penalties. His hand did not willingly extend itself in fellowship to any man who dishonored the name of his Divine leader and King. His soul was not sufficiently indifferent to prophesy final blessedness to those who contemned and set at nought the everlasting love of God – so far he was narrow-minded and illiberal, a bigot and a Pharisee.

But it happened that Mr. Lumsden’s co-presbyters on every side were men called, in the emphatic ecclesiastical phraseology of Scotland, “Moderates;” men who wrote sermons and preached them because it was a necessity of their office, not because they had a definite message to deliver from a Lord and Master known and beloved; men who tolerated profanity, and hushed uncomfortable fears, and were themselves so very moderately religious, as to give no manner of offence to that most narrow-minded and illiberal of all bigots, the irreligious world. We mention this, in explanation of a foible of Mr. Lumsden’s, particularly alluded to in the letter of Lord Gillravidge, and the cause of much skirmishing in the Presbytery of Strathoran. Mr. Lumsden had an especial knack of preaching in other people’s parishes.

Not to the neglect of his own – of all kinds of dishonor or ill-fame, Mr. Lumsden held none so grievous as the neglecting or slight performance of any part of that honorable and lofty work of his. Dearly as he loved extraneous labor, the minutest of his own especial parochial duties were looked to first. But all his round of toil gone through; his sermons prepared; his examinations held; himself, heart and mind, at the constant service of his people, Mr. Lumsden thought it no longer necessary to confine his marvellous appetite for work within the limits of Portoran. – There was a heathenish village yonder, growing up in all the rude brutality of rural vice, untaught and uncared for. What matter that the privilege of instructing it belonged to the Reverend Michael Drowsihed? The Reverend Michael awoke out of his afternoon sleep one day in wrath and consternation. Mr. Lumsden, of Portoran, had established a fortnightly sermon, and threatened to set down a daily school, in his own neglected village. What matter, that the half-Gaelic colony of Oranmore, belonged of right to Mr. Bairnsfather? The warm heart of the Minister of Portoran was laboring in the cause of the Macalpines, while Mr. Bairnsfather was “sheughing kail and laying leeks,” in his own Manse garden.

In consequence of which propensity, Mr. Lumsden made a mighty commotion in that ecclesiastical district. Gratefully to his ears, as he wended homeward, came the voice of psalms from peasant-households, whom his faithful service had brought back to the devout and godly habits of their forefathers. Pleasantly before him stood, in rustic bashfulness, the ruddy village children, for whom his care and labors had procured an education of comparative purity; but by no means either grateful or pleasant were those endless battles convulsing his presbytery, shaking study chairs in drowsy Manses, and sweeping in a perfect whirlwind of complaint and reprimand through the Presbytery House of Portoran.

Mr. Lumsden had his failings – we do not deny it. He had no especial shrinking from a skirmish in the Presbytery. He walked to the bar of that reverend court with so very little awe, that the Moderator was well-nigh shocked out of his propriety. He had even been heard irreverently to suggest to the newly-placed Minister of Middlebury, a young brother, who seemed rather inclined to abet him in his rebelion, that it would be better for him to take his place permanently at the bar, than to be called to it at every meeting. He had been reprimanded by the Presbytery, till the Presbytery were tired of reprimanding. Mr. Bairnsfather had carried the case to the Synod, by appeal. The Synod had denounced his irregularities in its voice of thunder. Mr. Lumsden only smiled his peculiar smile of gleeful simplicity, and went on with his labor.

He was going now to Oranmore. The glen of Oranmore lay among the lower heights of the Grampians, a solitary, secluded valley. A small colony of Highlanders, attached to the Strathoran branch of the house of Sutherland, in feudal times, and bearing the ancient name of Macalpine, had settled there, nearly a century before. The patriarchs of the little community still spoke their original Gaelic; but the younger generations, parents and children, approached much more closely to their Lowland neighbors, whose idiom they had adopted. The glen was entirely in their hands, and its fields, reclaimed by their pains-taking husbandry, produced their entire subsistence. Some flocks of sheep grazed on the hillside. There was good pasture land for their cattle, and the various patches of oats and barley, turnips and potatoes, were enough to keep these sturdy cottar families in independent poverty. Whether in other circumstances they might have displayed the inherent indolence which belongs, as men say, to that much belied Celtic race, we cannot tell. But having only ordinary obstacles to strive against – an indulgent landlord, and a kindly factor – the Macalpines had maintained themselves as sturdily as any Saxon tribe of their numbers could possibly have done; and had, what Saxon hamlets in the richer South are not wont to have, a couple of lads from their little clachan at college – one preparing himself for the work of the ministry, and another aspiring to the dignity of an M. D.

In summer time, these peaceful cot-houses, lying on either side of the infant Oran, within the shadow of the hills, with the fair low country visible from the end of the glen, and the stern Grampians rising to the sky above, were very fair to look upon; and the miniature clan at its husbandry, working in humble brotherhood – the link of kindred that joined its dozen families, all inheriting one name and one blood – the purer atmosphere of morality and faith among them – made the small commonwealth of Oranmore a pleasant thing for the mind to rest upon, no less than for the eye.

Mr. Ferguson had never dealt hardly with these honest Macalpines, in regard to the rent of their small holdings. He knew they would pay it when they could, and, in just confidence, he gave them latitude. Unhappily for the Macalpines, one whole half-year’s rent remained unpaid, when the new landlord took the management out of Mr. Ferguson’s kindly hands. The year was a backward year: their crops had been indifferent, and the Macalpines were not ready with their rent at Martinmas.

The consequence was, that these fearful notices to quit were served upon them. Big Duncan Macalpine, a man of very decided character and deep piety – one of that class, who, further north, are called “the men,” – perceived the alien Laird’s intention of removing them at once. The remainder of the humble people, looked upon the notices only as threats, and set to with all industry to make up the rents, and prevent the dread alternative of leaving their homes. They had come there in the time of Laird Fergus, the great-grandfather of Archibald Sutherland. Their ninety-nine year’s lease had expired in the previous year, and had not (for it was Archibald’s dark hour) been renewed, so that now they were the merest tenants at will. Mr. Foreman warned Big Duncan that they might be ejected at any time.

The small community became alarmed. The big wheel was busy in every cottage. Sheep and poultry were being sold; every family was ready to make sacrifices for the one great object of keeping their lands and homes. The sharp, keen, unscrupulous writer whom Lord Gillravidge had employed in Edinburgh, where his over-acuteness had lost him caste and character, had been seen in the glen for three successive days. The Macalpines were smitten with dread. Rumors floated up into their hilly solitude of a great sheep-farmer from the south, who was in treaty for these hill-lands of Strathoran. A shadow fell upon the humble households. The calamity that approached began to shape itself before them. To leave their homes – the glen to which they clung with all the characteristic tenacity of their race – the country for which the imaginative Celtic spirit burned with deep and patriotic love – the national faith, still dearer, and more precious – for a cold, unknown, and strange land, far from their northern birth-place, and their preached Gospel!

Mr. Lumsden’s strong, gray pony was used to all manner of rough roads, and so could climb along the craggy way that led to Oranmore. The minister rode briskly into the glen. His keen and anxious look became suddenly changed as he entered it into one of grief and indignation. He quickened his pace, leaped from the saddle, fastened his pony to a withered thorn, and hastened forward.

The crisis had come. Mr. Whittret the lawyer, and Mr. Fitzherbert, stood in the middle of a knot of Macalpines; a party of sheriff’s-officers hung in the rear, and the youthful Giles Sympelton stood apart, looking on. The high head of Duncan Macalpine towered over the rest. In his moral chieftainship he was the spokesman of his neighbors. He was speaking when Mr. Lumsden approached.

“Your rent is ready, Sir – the maist of us are ready with your rent; but oh! if there is a heart of flesh within ye, spare us our hames! Gentlemen, we have a’ been born here. Yon auld man,” and Duncan pointed to the venerable white head of a trembling old man, wrapped in a plaid, who leaned against the lintel of the nearest cottage – ”and he’s past a century – is the only ane amang us that was a living soul at the flitting. For pity’s sake, Sir, think o’t! Gie us time to make up the siller. We’ll pay the next half-year in advance, if better mayna be; but do not bid us leave the glen.”

“That’s all very well,” said Fitzherbert, “very pretty. A set of Scotch cheats, who only want to deceive Lord Gillravidge.”

“I want to deceive no man,” said the humble chief of Oranmore, indignantly. “I wouldna set my face to a lee for a’ his revenues. I am a head of a family, and a decent man, in God’s providence, Sir; and I gie ye my word, that if ye’ll just give us time, we’ll make up the next half-year’s rent in advance. His Lordship is a stranger, and maybe, doesna ken whether he can trust us or no. Mr. Ferguson will bear us witness, Sir – the Laird himsel will bear us witness. Mr. Lumsden – Guid be thankit he is here himsel! – the minister will bear us witness!”

Mr. Lumsden entered the circle, hailed by various salutations. “Blessings on him! He never fails when he’s needed.” “He’ll bear witness to us that we’re honest folk.” And one indignant outcry from Duncan’s sister: “Ye’ll believe the minister!”

“What is the matter, Duncan?” said Mr. Lumsden.

“The gentlemen have come for our rent, Sir; we’re ahin’ hand. I make nae wonder that folk new to the countryside mayna trust us; but oh! if they would but pit us on trial. I promise, in the name of all in the glen – ye’re a’ hearing me? – that, though it should take our haill substance, we’ll pay the siller just and faithfully, as we have aye dune, if we only can bide upon our ain land.”

“You own land!” echoed Fitzherbert. “Fellow! the land is Lord Gillravidge’s.”

Big Duncan Macalpine’s honest face flushed deeply.

“I am nae fellow, Sir; and the land belangs to us by an aulder tenure than can give it to ony foreign lord. We are clansmen of the Laird’s. Langsyne our chief sold our land further north – instead of it we got this glen. I say, Sir, that the land is ours. – We were born and bred in it; our fathers fought for it langsyne. We hold it on an auld tenure – aulder than ony lordship in thae pairts. Our forebears were content to follow their chief when he threw his ain hills into the hands of strangers. We got this instead of our auld inheritance. I say, Sir, that the land is ours – that no man has a right to take it from us. Mr. Whittret, ye’re a lawyer – am I no speaking true?”

“Bah! You’re a cheat!” exclaimed Fitzherbert.

Big Duncan’s muscular arm shook nervously. He restrained himself with an effort. Not so his vehement sister Jean.

“Wha daurs say sic a name to Duncan Macalpine? Wha daurs disbelieve his word, standing in Oranmore? A feckless, ill-favored fuil, wi’ as muckle hair about the filthy face o’ him as wad hang him up in a tree, as the prodigal Absalom hung langsyne. – A cheat! If Big Duncan Macalpine wasna caring mair for his folk and name than for himsel, ye wad hae been spinning through the air afore now, in your road to the low country, ye ill-tongued loon!”

“Whisht, Jean! – whisht!” said her brother. “What needs we heed ill word? We’re langer kent it in Oranside than the gentleman.”

Duncan drew himself up in proud dignity. The puny “gentleman” – a thing of yesterday – was insignificant in the presence of the cottar of Oranmore – a true heritor of the soil.

“You do not mean, gentleman,” said Mr. Lumsden, – ”I trust you do not mean to take any extreme proceedings. I rejoice to be able to give my testimony to the sterling honor and integrity of Duncan Macalpine and his kinsmen of Oranmore. Lord Gillravidge cannot have better, or more honorable tenants. I entreat – I beg that time may be given them to make a representation of their case to his Lordship. He is new to the country, and may not know that these men are not ordinary tenants – that they have, as they truly say, a right to the soil. Mr. Whittret, you cannot refuse them your influence with Lord Gillravidge – you know their peculiar claim?”

“They might have a claim upon Mr. Sutherland,” said the agent, gloomily. “They can have none upon Lord Gillravidge.”

“Lord Gillravidge is bound to preserve ancient rights,” exclaimed Mr. Lumsden. “It is not possible he can know the circumstances. These men are not ordinary cottars, Mr. Whittret – you understand their position. For pity’s sake do not drive them to extremity!”

“It cannot be helped,” said Mr. Whittret, bending his dark brows, and shunning the clear eye of the minister: “I must adhere to my instructions, Sir. These hill-lands are already let to a stock-farmer. I must proceed.”

“There can be no need for haste, at least,” said Mr. Lumsden. “The new tenant cannot enter till Whit-Sunday. Let the Macalpines stay – let them remain until the term.”

Mr. Whittret lifted his eyes in furtive malice, with a glance of that suspicious cunning which perpetually fancies it is finding others out.

“And have Lord Gillravidge called a tyrant and oppressor for removing the people after their seed is sown? You are very good, Mr. Lumsden – we know how clerical gentlemen can speak. We shall take our own plan. Simpson, begin your work.”

A detached cottage, the furthest out of the group, stood close upon the Oran – the narrow streamlet, a mere mountain burn so near its source, was spanned there by white stepping-stones. A woman in a widow’s cap stood at the cottage-door, looking out with a silent want of wonder, which told plainly enough that some mightier interest prevented her from sharing in the excitement of her neighbors. The men approached the house, and after summoning her to leave it instantly, a summons which the poor woman heard in vacant astonishment, immediately prepared to unroof her humble habitation. The crowd of Macalpines had been looking on in breathless silence. Now there was a wild shriek of excitement and fury – men and women precipitated themselves at once upon the minions of that ruthless law which was not justice. – The ladder was thrown down; the hapless officer who had been the first to mount it, struggled in the hands of two strong young men; and Jean Macalpine, a tall athletic woman, stood before the terrified widow in the doorway, another officer prostrate at her feet. Mr. Fitzherbert and Whittret rushed forward – their satellites formed themselves together for resistance – the Macalpines furiously surrounded the cottage – there promised to be a general melee. But loud above the noise and tumult sounded the united voices of Big Duncan, and his minister.

“Jean Macalpine,” shouted the chief of Oranmore, “come out from among this senseless fray. Dugald Macalpine, quit the man: why will ye pollute your hands striving with him? Donald Roy, let go your hold. Gentlemen, gentlemen, haud your hands, and hear me.”

There was a momentary truce.

“Beware!” said Mr. Lumsden. “Within that house lies an invalid – if you expose that sinking lad, you will have a death to answer for. I tell you, beware!”

“Gentlemen,” said Big Duncan Macalpine, “yon house is mine. I protest, in the name of my people, that ye are doing an unrighteous and unlawful thing. I beg ye, as ye are Christian men, that ken what hames are, to let us bide in our ain glen and country. – In honor, and honesty, and leal service we will pay ye for your mercy; but if ye are determined to carry on this work, unrighteous as it is in the sight of God and man, begin yonder – take my house. I was born in it – I thocht to die in it – begin with my house; but if ye would escape a curse and desolation, leave the hame of the widow.”

There was a pause – the invading party were in a dilemma. – The very officials were moved by the manly disinterestedness of Big Duncan Macalpine. He himself strode to the side of the lads who had pulled the man from the ladder, and freed him from their grasp: then he gathered the Macalpines together, spoke a word of comfort to the widow, and placing himself by the door of her cottage, looked calmly towards his own house and waited.

Mr. Whittret stood undecided. Fitzherbert was furious. He had already issued his orders to the men to proceed, when his arm was grasped from behind. He turned round – the Honorable Giles Sympelton was at his elbow, his simple youthful face quivering with emotion.

“Fitz, Fitz,” cried the lad, “stop this – I cannot bear it. I wll’ not see it; if you destroy that noble fellow’s house I will never enter Gillravidge’s again. Take care what you do – they are better men than we.”

Mr. Whittret looked up. Mr. Lumsden had his note-book in his hand, and was writing. The mean soul of the agent writhed within him. That Mr. Lumsden was writing an exposure of his conduct he never doubted; he would be covered with infamy and shame; at least it should not be without cause. “Simpson,” he cried, “take the fellow at his word – proceed with your work.”

Vain evil-thinking of the evil-doer! Mr. Lumsden, in fear of the compulsory removal of the invalid, was writing to his sister to send up a chase immediately from Portoran, and in a moment after, had despatched the most ungovernable of the lads to carry his note to the Manse.

Duncan Macalpine stood looking calmly at his cottage. His sister Jean, following his heroic example, had hurried into it, and now returned, leading a feeble woman of seventy – their mother. Duncan’s wife stood beside her husband; two of his little boys lingered in childish wonder by the cottage door. The men began their odious work – the straw bands were cut, the heather thatch thrown in pieces on the ground. The children looked on at first in half-amused astonishment. They saw their home laid open to the sky with all its homely accommodations – their own little bed, their grandmother’s chair by the fire, the basket of oatcakes on the table from which their “eleven-hours piece” had been supplied. The eldest of them suddenly rushed forward in childish rage and vehemence, and springing upon the ladder, dealt a fruitless blow at one of the devastators. He was thrown off – a piece of the thatch struck upon his head – the child uttered a sharp cry and fell. His mother flew out from among the crowd. The Macalpines were shaken as with a wind, and with various cries of rage and grief were pressing forward again. Again Big Duncan stayed them. “Fuils that ye are, would ye lose your guid fame with your hames? would ye throw everything away? Be still I tell you. Can I no guard my ain bairn mysel?”