Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice

“You will have heard that dear Archibald has arrived safely at that horrid place in America. What could induce him to do such a thing, when he might have gone into the army, or got into Parliament, or something? and the friends of the family would have helped him, I am sure. It’s just like Archie; he’s always so hot and extreme. I thought he would have killed himself that dreadful time at Paris, before he took the fever; and what a shocking thing that would have been for me, with all my other misfortunes. To be sure, it was a horrid, foolish business – that of losing the estate – and if it had not been that dull old Strathoran, where papa and mamma managed to vegetate all the year through, I don’t know how – I should have been broken-hearted. I am sure, considering that dear Archie was only my brother, there was nothing I was not willing to do for him; but to go away a common clerk, into a horrid mercantile office! I must say he has shown very little regard for the feelings of his relatives, especially as he knows how I detest these ogres of commercial people. One can only bear with them if they are very rich, and I am afraid dear Archie is not likely ever to become a moneyed man.

“They are so fond of me here, and dear Eliza has done so much to make me comfortable, that I should be very ungrateful to run away, else I should have been delighted to spend a week or two at the Tower. Mr. Legeretie has a shooting-lodge in the Highlands, and dear Eliza talks of going down with him this year to give me a little change; if we do, we shall come by dear old dreary Strathoran just to look at it again. I hope the Rosses, and all the other old friends, are well. I used to think a good deal of Lewis. I suppose Anne is never married yet; she must be getting quite ancient now.

“My dear Mrs. Catherine,“Very sincerely yours,“ISABEL DUNCOMBE.”

It was a strange contrast – with Christian Lillie’s desolate life before her – with her own heart throbbing so anxiously for the stranger, Norman, whom, in her remembrance, she had never seen – to hear this Isabel, her play-mate long ago, talking of Archie as “only” her brother. The effect was very singular. What had become of the sad sufferer who lay within these walls in the tranquil rest of death, if for Christian, and Marion, and Norman there had been any “only” stemming the deep tide of their self-denying tenderness?

Anne wrote a brief note to Mrs. Catherine, announcing Patrick Lillie’s death, and saying that her mission was now accomplished; and that in a day or two she would return to Edinburgh to explain the further particulars of this long mystery. The day was waning again; in weary sadness and solitude she sat in Patrick Lillie’s study. From the kitchen she could hear the subdued voices of Marget and Jacky: above, the stealthy step of Miss Crankie, as she arranged the sad preliminaries of the funeral. The second evening had fallen since he departed to his rest; and where was Christian?

A dark shadow flitted across the window. She heard a footstep enter, and pass quickly up the stair. Anne rose and followed. The footstep was quicker than Christian’s, but it went steadily to the chamber of death.

Anne paused at the door. The lonely dimness of the evening air gathered shadowy and spiritual round the bed, a dark background, from which that rigid marble face stood out in cold relief. A deadly stillness – a dim, brooding, tremulous awe – which carried in it a vague conviction of watching spirits, and presences mysteriously unseen, was hovering in the room.

And kneeling at the bedside, her veil hanging round her white, thin face, like a cloud over the tearful pallor of a wan November sky, was Christian Lillie, the quivering smile upon her lip again, and the words of sad thankfulness falling from her tongue.

“Ye are thanking God in His own heaven, Patrick, my brother; the justice is done, the cloud is taken away. Henceforward, in the free light of heaven, may Norman bear his own name; and now there remaineth nothing but to lay you, with hope and solemn thanksgiving into your quiet grave.”

Anne stood still; there was a long pause. Christian knelt silently by her dead brother’s side, in darkness, in silence, in the presence of death, thanking God.

At last she rose, and turned to leave the room. Anne’s presence did not seem to excite any wonder; she took her offered arm quietly and kindly.

“I have been very anxious,” said Anne.

“Ay,” said Christian; “did you think I could rest, and that blight remaining on their name? Did you think there was any peace for me till all my labor was accomplished? Now – you heard me speak – Norman Rutherford may bear his own name, and return to his own country with honor and blessing upon him, in the open sunshine of day. My work is ended: I must but tarry for one look upon them, and then I wait the Lord’s pleasure. His call will not come too soon.”

“You have taken no rest,” said Anne, anxiously: “remember, there is one trial yet remaining. Let me get you some refreshment, and then try to sleep. This constant watching will kill you.”

Christian suffered herself to be led down stairs. Into the little parlor Anne hastily brought tea, and, considerably to Jacky’s horror, insisted upon rendering all needful services herself. It was evident that Christian felt the delicacy which kept strange eyes from beholding her grief. She took the tea eagerly, removed her cloak and bonnet, and met Anne’s anxious look with a tremulous, tender smile, inviting, rather than deprecating, conversation now.

“Let me go with you to your own room,” said Anne; “you have been in Edinburgh, and are quite exhausted, I see. You will be better after you have slept.”

“Sit down, I need no sleep,” said Christian: “I scarcely think now, after my long watching, that I can begin to think of rest. – Sometimes – sometimes – ”

She rose and stretched out her thin arms, like one who complains of some painful void within, drawing them in again wearily to her breast.

“Sometimes, when I do not think of them, and mind that he is gone, I could be content to bear it all again, were he but back once more. God aid us, for we are weak. Patrick, my brother, are ye away at last? are ye at peace? And I am ready to lament and pine, and not to thank God! God be thanked! God be thanked! that he is away in blessedness at last.”

She paced the room slowly for a while, and sitting down by the window, drew the curtains aside, and looked out in silence upon the sea – the placid, wakeful sea – with which so often in her misery she had taken counsel.

“The morning after he went home,” she said at last, turning to Anne abruptly, “I saw you looking out upon the Firth, when I departed on my needful errand. You mind the soft fall of the air, like the breath of a young angel – a spirit in its first joy – the latest born of heaven? You mind the joy and gentleness that were in the air?”

“Yes,” said Anne.

“On such a morning – as soft, as joyous, and as bright – he came to me, who is now in heaven at peace. There was no peace about him then. Within his soul, and in his face, was an agony more bitter than death. You know the reason. He had done the deed, for which, through eighteen lingering, terrible years, Norman Rutherford has been a banished man.

“I took him in, and closed the door: he fell down upon the ground, at my feet. From the terrible words of his first madness, I gleaned something of the truth. Think of it – think of that. – The horror of great darkness that fell on me that day has scarce ever been lightened for an hour, from that time to this.

“I sent for him, for Norman, your brother, and mine. He came to me, into the room where Patrick lay, in a burning fever of agony and madness. By that time a breath of the terrible story was abroad. It was his gun it was done with. He had parted from Arthur Aytoun in just anger. There were but two ways – either to give up the frantic, fevered lad that lay there before us, knowing neither him nor me, to a death of shame and horror, or for him – him, in his honorable, upright, pure youth – to sacrifice honor, and home, and name.

“He did not hesitate – the Lord bless him! – the Lord send the blessings of the convenant upon him, promised and purchased! – he made up his mind. And to us, as we stood there in our first agony, with Patrick stricken down before us, there was no consolation of innocence. We knew not but what the blood had been wilfully shed: we thought the torture he was in was the just meed of a murderer.

“I gave him a line to Marion: she was at a friend’s house, between Edinburgh and Glasgow. She had gone, a joyous light-hearted girl, with as fair a lot before her as ever lay at mortal feet, to get apparel for her bridal. I bade her go with Norman. When I wrote that, I was calmer than I am now. I, that was parting with them both – that was left here alone with this stricken man and his blood-guiltiness.

“They went away, and he was still lying unconscious on my hands. Then I had to hear the unjust stain thrown upon the noble and brave heart that was bearing the burden. I had to hear it all – to listen to the certainties of his guilt – to hear them tell how he had done it like a coward; and with my heart burning within me, I dared not say to them that he was pure and guiltless as ever was righteous man. I turned from the scorching summer light, and the false accusation, in to the bedside of my raving, maddened brother, and he was the man. Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! how did I live?

“Then there came the word that they were lost; and a calm, like what you will see in storms, came over the miserable heart within me. I defied my misery: I dared it to add to me another pang.

“Then I said that Marion was dead – my bird – my light – my little sister! When I said that, I knew not it was false; I believed she was gone out of her new grief; I believed I was alone in the world.

“Then the secret news came to me that they were safe, and then the life struggled through that time of horror, and Patrick rose from his bed. One solemn still night I told him all, and in his agony he said he was innocent. Since that time through all this life of desolation, he has repeated that at times, when his mind was clear; but his soul was frozen within him in terror. When I spoke of justice to Norman, he shrank and trembled, and bade me wait. What could I do? I could not give him up as a shedder of blood – he was in my hand. To my own heart, and to my Father in heaven, I had to answer for him; and when I dared hope that he had shed this blood unawares, I became strong.”

She paused. She had been speaking rapidly, without stop or hesitation, almost without breath. Anne endeavored to soothe and calm her.

“Last year, they sent me their child. He had called her Lilie. He himself, whom our unhappy name had blighted. The child was pining under the hot sun of yon strange land. I could not keep her in our desolate house. I took her to Norman’s country. I was to place her with his nurse, near to his old home. When we got there, I feared to enter; I trembled to betray the secret I was burdened with. I thought a heart that he was dear to, could not fail to discover his bairn, and so I took her to a stranger.

“When I left her there – you mind? – I met you, and we looked upon each other face to face: I did not need to hear the name that the blue-eyed girl by your side was saying. I knew you were Norman’s sister – I felt that his spirit was within you, and that we would meet again.

“Now we have met, and you know it all. The history is public now. The ban is off Norman’s name – your brother and mine. I will see them again – my bird Marion – my bairn, that my own hands nurtured!”

“Christian,” said Anne, “for her sake, and for us all, you must rest. There are quiet days in store – tranquil days of household peace and honor. You have done your work nobly and bravely, as few could have done; for Marion’s sake, who is my sister as well as yours, and for the sake of the dead, for whom you have watched so long, take rest now. Your work is over.”

Christian drew the curtain aside again, and gazed out upon the sea. “For him – for Marion – for Norman; for Thy mercy’s sake, O, Lord! and for Thy beautiful world, which Thou hast given to calm us, I will be calm – give me now what Thou willest, and Thy rest in Thine own heaven, when Thy good time shall come.”

And so peacefully, in chastened hope and with gentle tears, refreshing with their milder sorrow the weary eyes that had burned in tearless agony so long, they laid the innocent shedder of blood in his quiet grave.

On the evening after the funeral, Christian wandered out alone. “She goeth unto the grave to weep there,” said Anne, as it was said of the Mary of the Lord’s time; and she made no attempt either to detain or to accompany her. To Christian, the balm of Anne’s sisterly care and sympathy was evidently very dear; but she was not wont to lean upon any mortal arm, and it was best that she should be left with her sorrow alone.

The house had the exhausted, worn-out look which is common after such a solemn departure. Marget sat, dressed in her new mourning, in the kitchen, in languid despondent state, telling Jacky traits of the dead Master, whom, now that all excitement was over, she began to miss and lament, and weep some natural tears for. Jacky was half-listening to these, half-buried in an old volume of “Quarles’ Emblems,” which she had recently brought from the study. Anne had opened the low projecting window, and sat in the recess with one of those devout contemplative books in her hand; she was reading little, and thinking much – feeling herself affected by the listless weariness that reigned around her.

She saw a lad come in at the gate, without observing who he was. In a minute after Jacky entered the study.

“If ye please, Miss Anne, it’s Johnnie Halflin.”

Anne started.

“Has he come from Mrs. Catherine?”

“If ye please, Miss Anne, Mrs. Catherine’s at Miss Crankie’s.”

Anne rose immediately, and proceeded up the lane to Miss Crankie’s house. Mrs. Catherine’s carriage stood at the door. Mrs. Catherine herself was in the parlor, where Miss Crankie stood in deferential conversation with her – keenly observant of all the particulars of her plain, rich dress and stately appearance, and silently exulting over the carriage at the door – the well-appointed, wealthy carriage, which all the neighborhood could see.

“Anne!” exclaimed Mrs. Catherine, as Anne in her deep mourning dress entered the room. “What is the matter?”

Miss Crankie sensibly withdrew.

“He is dead, Mrs. Catherine,” said Anne.

“Who is dead? Who is this lad?”

“The brother of Marion – the brother of Norman’s wife.”

“Anne,” said Mrs. Catherine, “you have not dealt ingenuously and frankly with me in this matter. Who is this lad, I ask you? Have you a certainty that Norman’s wife was his sister, that you are thus mourning for a fremd man?”

Anne sat down beside her.

“What I knew formerly was so dim and indistinct that I feared to tell you. They avoided me – they went away from their own home to shun my presence. In the confusion of my imperfect knowledge, I felt that I could not speak of them. Now I am sure. There is a most sad story to tell you, Mrs. Catherine – Patrick Lillie is Marion’s brother – he is more than that.”

“Speak out, child. Who is he?”

“He is the man for whom Norman sacrificed all – he is the slayer of Alice Aytoun’s father.”

Mrs. Catherine started – in her extreme wonder she could say nothing.

“An innocent man, Mrs. Catherine; this dreadful deed was done unawares, and in a life of agony has it been avenged.”

Mrs. Catherine remained silent for a moment.

“And he let Norman, the honorable, generous, just lad, suffer a death for him – suffer the death of a lifetime? Anne – Anne, is it a coward like this you are mourning for? A faint heart and a weak spirit – what could it be other that would let a righteous man bear this for him?”

“There is justice done,” said Anne, “it is over now. I acknowledge the weakness, Mrs. Catherine; but he has suffered dreadfully. A gentle, delicate, pensive spirit, unfit for storms and trials – altogether unfit for doing any great thing: one to be supported and tenderly upheld – not to take any bold step alone.”

“Suffered!” Mrs. Catherine rose and walked through the room, till the boards, less solid than those of the Tower, quaked and sounded below her feet. “Wherefore did he not come forth in the light of day, and bear his own burden? Good fame and honor – land and home – what was he that a just man should lay down these for him?”

“He was a feeble, delicate, dependant spirit,” said Anne: “one of those whom it is our natural impulse to defend and suffer for. That was his only claim; but you know how strong that is.”

Mrs. Catherine did know, but she felt no sympathy for the shrinking weakness which could suffer another to bear its own just punishment.

“I know? Yes, I know; but what claim has the like of such a weakling to call himself a man? Eighteen years – eighteen long, slow years – all Alice Aytoun’s lifetime. Anne, I marvel you can bear with his memory, or lift up your face to me, and speak of him as kindred. He shed this blood unawares, said you? Did he doom Norman to this death unawares? was it without his knowledge that he laid this blight upon the two that have borne banishment for him? Speak not to me of this coward, child. I say, mention not his name to me.”

“Mrs. Catherine,” said Anne, “bear with me till you hear his story. If you had seen him as I have seen – if you had listened to Christian as I have listened, you too would mourn over this blighted, broken man, less in his death than in his life. When Norman fled, he was in an agony of fever and madness, unconscious of what was passing round him – only aware in his burning horror and grief that he had shed blood. When he recovered – and most strange it was that he should have recovered – most strange the tenacious life and strength of his feebleness – he heard of Norman’s sacrifice; and then I acknowledge he ought to have done justice, had not his weakness overpowered him. He dared not face the terror and the shame; perhaps the dreadful death due to his blood-guiltiness, and so he lived on – such a life as few have ever lived in this world – a life of despair, and gloom, and misery: terrible to hear of – more terrible to see.”

Mrs. Catherine seated herself again.

“And the sister and the righteous man, his friend, bearing a dark name for him over the sea; and the sad woman at home, that you have told me of, wearing out her days for him. Was his miserable life worth that, think you? Should that not have been worse than any death?”

“Should have been,” said Anne; “but I do not speak of what should be, Mrs. Catherine. Why this shrinking, feeble spirit was conjoined with such a lot, who can tell? It had a strange, feverish, hysteric strength, too. When he battled through yon dark waves to save the perishing seamen, you would not have said that Patrick Lillie was a coward.”

There was a pause. Mrs. Catherine’s manner softened. Anne took advantage of it to repeat to her Christian Lillie’s story. The stern, stately old lady was moved to very tears.

“And so at last justice is done,” she said. “Anne, it is meet that this worn woman, after her travail, should have light in her evening-time. If she will come with you, bid her come to my house. The like of her would do honor to any dwelling, were it a king’s. And she left him at his grave’s brink, whenever he was at rest, to render what was just to the banished man? She did well. It behoves that all who known this history should render reverence. I say she did well.”

There was again a momentary pause.

“And where is he?” asked Mrs. Catherine. “Where, and in what condition is Norman Rutherford?”

“I have never asked yet,” said Anne. “I was anxious to soothe her; she has been so worn out with watching and grief. I will ask her now, when all excitement is over, and she has only to bear her gentle sorrow for Patrick’s death.”

“Ay – ay,” said Mrs. Catherine, slowly; “ay – and yet you do not know, Gowan, the terrible, dreary calm that is left by that shadow of death. I speak of the death that carries home a godly, honorable, righteous man, whose life was a joy and a blessing. – This is a grief sorer than mine. I bow my head to this tribulation. I cannot fathom all the depths of its bitterness; it is greater than mine.”

And with her large gray eyelid swelling full, Mrs. Catherine Douglas bowed her stately head. Yes! the solitary, desolate, dumb might of anguish with which her strong spirit quivered, when she left all that remained of Sholto Douglas sleeping peacefully in his calm island grave, overwhelming as it was, became a gentle sorrow in presence of the life of wakeful agony which Christian Lillie had borne silently within the desolate walls of Schole.

Mrs. Catherine began to speak of the possibility of remaining for the night. It was a very strange idea for her, who had not slept under a strange roof for more than thirty years. Since Patrick’s death, Anne had passed both night and day at Schole, and the pretty little clean bed-room behind was unoccupied. Miss Crankie herself was called in to be consulted on the subject.

Miss Crankie had scarcely entered the room, when there was a rush in the passage. The door flew violently open, and Mrs. Yammer, her head bound up with mighty rolls of flannel, and a newspaper trembling in her eager hand, stood before them.

“Eh, Johann! – Eh, Miss Ross!” she could articulate no more.

“What in the world has come ower the woman now?” exclaimed Miss Crankie, peevishly. “If ye will be a puling, no-weel fuil, ye may keep your ailments to yoursel at least. For guid sake, Tammie, haud your tongue; dinna deave the ladies.”

“Eh, Miss Ross! – Eh, Johann!” exclaimed the aroused and excited Mrs. Yammer, “if it wasna for the stitch in my side, I wad read it to ye mysel. Look at this.”

Anne took the paper wonderingly. She glanced down a long paragraph, headed “Romance in real life,” with hurried half attention, and little interest. Her eyes were arrested by the concluding words: they seemed to shine out from a mist. Unconsciously, in her sudden excitement, she read them aloud: “This most honorable vindication of Norman Rutherford, of Redheugh – ”

“Gowan,” exclaimed Mrs. Catherine, hastily, taking the paper from her powerless hand, “what is that you say?”

“Ye see,” said Mrs. Yammer, following up briskly her unwonted independent movement, “we get it atween us. Mr. Currie, the saddler, and Mrs. Clippie, the captain’s widow, and Robert Carritch, the session-clerk, and Johann and me; and I was just sitting ower the fire, trying if the heat would do ony guid to my puir head, when I saw that about young Redheugh – and I’ll be out o’ my wits the morn wi the draft frae that open door.”

“Gae way to your fireside again, and haud your tongue,” said Miss Crankie, bundling her sister unceremoniously out of the door before her. “Wits! – woman, if ye had as muckle judgment as wad lie on a sixpence, ye wad see that the ladies have mair concern in that than either you or me.”

Anne had been looking at them vacantly with a vague, unconscious smile upon her lip. Now, when the door was shut, she suddenly knelt down at Mrs. Catherine’s knees, scarce knowing what she did, and leaning there, burst into tears. She was conscious of Mrs. Catherine’s hand laid caressingly upon her hair; she was conscious of an indistinct mist of joy and thankfulness. It overpowered and weakened her; she could not stay these tears.

In the meantime, Mrs. Catherine read:

“We have just had communicated to us the particulars of a very moving story, another of the many examples that truth is strange, stranger than fiction. We believe that many of our readers, who are acquainted with the neighborhood of our city, may have remarked a desolate house, standing in the midst of a very rich country, within sight of the Firth, and presenting a very singular contrast, in its utter neglect and ruin, to the prosperous and flourishing appearance of everything about it. The story current in the neighborhood is, that its last proprietor perished miserably in the sea, while flying from the doom of a murderer, with the blood of a friend shed deliberately and in cowardice on his hand. Other more ghostly rumors of sights seen and sounds heard in its immediate neighborhood are of course current also. – The account we have now to give of this dark transaction reveals something almost as strange as the re-appearance on this earthly scene of spirits long ago departed. It seems the very triumph and perfection of generous self-sacrifice and ‘godlike amity,’ and as such we are happy to have an opportunity of presenting it to our readers.