Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (140 page)

The mention of these rambles brings me to a strange scene of which I was a witness. There was one walk I never followed myself without emotion, so often had I gone there upon miserable errands, so much had there befallen against the house of Durrisdeer. But the path lay handy from all points beyond the Muckle Ross; and I was driven, although much against my will, to take my use of it perhaps once in the two months. It befell when Mr. Alexander was of the age of seven or eight, I had some business on the far side in the morning, and entered the shrubbery, on my homeward way, about nine of a bright forenoon. It was that time of year when the woods are all in their spring colours, the thorns all in flower, and the birds in the high season of their singing. In contrast to this merriment, the shrubbery was only the more sad, and I the more oppressed by its associations. In this situation of spirit it struck me disagreeably to hear voices a little way in front, and to recognise the tones of my lord and Mr. Alexander. I pushed ahead, and came presently into their view. They stood together in the open space where the duel was, my lord with his hand on his son’s shoulder, and speaking with some gravity. At least, as he raised his head upon my coming, I thought I could perceive his countenance to lighten.

“Ah!” says he, “here comes the good Mackellar. I have just been telling Sandie the story of this place, and how there was a man whom the devil tried to kill, and how near he came to kill the devil instead.”

I had thought it strange enough he should bring the child into that scene; that he should actually be discoursing of his act, passed measure. But the worst was yet to come; for he added, turning to his son - “You can ask Mackellar; he was here and saw it.”

“Is it true, Mr. Mackellar?” asked the child. “And did you really see the devil?”

“I have not heard the tale,” I replied; “and I am in a press of business.” So far I said a little sourly, fencing with the embarrassment of the position; and suddenly the bitterness of the past, and the terror of that scene by candle-light, rushed in upon my mind. I bethought me that, for a difference of a second’s quickness in parade, the child before me might have never seen the day; and the emotion that always fluttered round my heart in that dark shrubbery burst forth in words. “But so much is true,” I cried, “that I have met the devil in these woods, and seen him foiled here. Blessed be God that we escaped with life - blessed be God that one stone yet stands upon another in the walls of Durrisdeer! And, oh! Mr. Alexander, if ever you come by this spot, though it was a hundred years hence, and you came with the gayest and the highest in the land, I would step aside and remember a bit prayer.”

My lord bowed his head gravely. “Ah!” says he, “Mackellar is always in the right. Come, Alexander, take your bonnet off.” And with that he uncovered, and held out his hand. “O Lord,” said he, “I thank Thee, and my son thanks Thee, for Thy manifold great mercies. Let us have peace for a little; defend us from the evil man. Smite him, O Lord, upon the lying mouth!” The last broke out of him like a cry; and at that, whether remembered anger choked his utterance, or whether he perceived this was a singular sort of prayer, at least he suddenly came to a full stop; and, after a moment, set back his hat upon his head.

“I think you have forgot a word, my lord,” said I. “‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.’“

“Ah! that is easy saying,” said my lord. “That is very easy saying, Mackellar. But for me to forgive! - I think I would cut a very silly figure if I had the affectation to pretend it.”

“The bairn, my lord!” said I, with some severity, for I thought his expressions little fitted for the care of children.

“Why, very true,” said he. “This is dull work for a bairn. Let’s go nesting.”

I forget if it was the same day, but it was soon after, my lord, finding me alone, opened himself a little more on the same head.

“Mackellar,” he said, “I am now a very happy man.”

“I think so indeed, my lord,” said I, “and the sight of it gives me a light heart.”

“There is an obligation in happiness - do you not think so?” says he, musingly.

“I think so indeed,” says I, “and one in sorrow, too. If we are not here to try to do the best, in my humble opinion the sooner we are away the better for all parties.”

“Ay, but if you were in my shoes, would you forgive him?” asks my lord.

The suddenness of the attack a little gravelled me.

“It is a duty laid upon us strictly,” said I.

“Hut!” said he. “These are expressions! Do you forgive the man yourself?”

“Well - no!” said I. “God forgive me, I do not.”

“Shake hands upon that!” cries my lord, with a kind of joviality.

“It is an ill sentiment to shake hands upon,” said I, “for Christian people. I think I will give you mine on some more evangelical occasion.”

This I said, smiling a little; but as for my lord, he went from the room laughing aloud.

For my lord’s slavery to the child, I can find no expression adequate. He lost himself in that continual thought: business, friends, and wife being all alike forgotten, or only remembered with a painful effort, like that of one struggling with a posset. It was most notable in the matter of his wife. Since I had known Durrisdeer, she had been the burthen of his thought and the loadstone of his eyes; and now she was quite cast out. I have seen him come to the door of a room, look round, and pass my lady over as though she were a dog before the fire. It would be Alexander he was seeking, and my lady knew it well. I have heard him speak to her so ruggedly that I nearly found it in my heart to intervene: the cause would still be the same, that she had in some way thwarted Alexander. Without doubt this was in the nature of a judgment on my lady. Without doubt she had the tables turned upon her, as only Providence can do it; she who had been cold so many years to every mark of tenderness, it was her part now to be neglected: the more praise to her that she played it well.

An odd situation resulted: that we had once more two parties in the house, and that now I was of my lady’s. Not that ever I lost the love I bore my master. But, for one thing, he had the less use for my society. For another, I could not but compare the case of Mr. Alexander with that of Miss Katharine; for whom my lord had never found the least attention. And for a third, I was wounded by the change he discovered to his wife, which struck me in the nature of an infidelity. I could not but admire, besides, the constancy and kindness she displayed. Perhaps her sentiment to my lord, as it had been founded from the first in pity, was that rather of a mother than a wife; perhaps it pleased her - if I may so say - to behold her two children so happy in each other; the more as one had suffered so unjustly in the past. But, for all that, and though I could never trace in her one spark of jealousy, she must fall back for society on poor neglected Miss Katharine; and I, on my part, came to pass my spare hours more and more with the mother and daughter. It would be easy to make too much of this division, for it was a pleasant family, as families go; still the thing existed; whether my lord knew it or not, I am in doubt. I do not think he did; he was bound up so entirely in his son; but the rest of us knew it, and in a manner suffered from the knowledge.

What troubled us most, however, was the great and growing danger to the child. My lord was his father over again; it was to be feared the son would prove a second Master. Time has proved these fears to have been quite exaggerate. Certainly there is no more worthy gentleman to-day in Scotland than the seventh Lord Durrisdeer. Of my own exodus from his employment it does not become me to speak, above all in a memorandum written only to justify his father. . . .

[Editor’s Note. Five pages of Mr. Mackellar’s MS. are here omitted. I have gathered from their perusal an impression that Mr. Mackellar, in his old age, was rather an exacting servant. Against the seventh Lord Durrisdeer (with whom, at any rate, we have no concern) nothing material is alleged. - R. L. S.]

. . . But our fear at the time was lest he should turn out, in the person of his son, a second edition of his brother. My lady had tried to interject some wholesome discipline; she had been glad to give that up, and now looked on with secret dismay; sometimes she even spoke of it by hints; and sometimes, when there was brought to her knowledge some monstrous instance of my lord’s indulgence, she would betray herself in a gesture or perhaps an exclamation. As for myself, I was haunted by the thought both day and night: not so much for the child’s sake as for the father’s. The man had gone to sleep, he was dreaming a dream, and any rough wakening must infallibly prove mortal. That he should survive its death was inconceivable; and the fear of its dishonour made me cover my face.

It was this continual preoccupation that screwed me up at last to a remonstrance: a matter worthy to be narrated in detail. My lord and I sat one day at the same table upon some tedious business of detail; I have said that he had lost his former interest in such occupations; he was plainly itching to be gone, and he looked fretful, weary, and methought older than I had ever previously observed. I suppose it was the haggard face that put me suddenly upon my enterprise.

“My lord,” said I, with my head down, and feigning to continue my occupation - “or, rather, let me call you again by the name of Mr. Henry, for I fear your anger and want you to think upon old times - “

“My good Mackellar!” said he; and that in tones so kindly that I had near forsook my purpose. But I called to mind that I was speaking for his good, and stuck to my colours.

“Has it never come in upon your mind what you are doing?” I asked.

“What I am doing?” he repeated; “I was never good at guessing riddles.”

“What you are doing with your son?” said I.

“Well,” said he, with some defiance in his tone, “and what am I doing with my son?”

“Your father was a very good man,” says I, straying from the direct path. “But do you think he was a wise father?”

There was a pause before he spoke, and then: “I say nothing against him,” he replied. “I had the most cause perhaps; but I say nothing.”

“Why, there it is,” said I. “You had the cause at least. And yet your father was a good man; I never knew a better, save on the one point, nor yet a wiser. Where he stumbled, it is highly possible another man should fail. He had the two sons - “

My lord rapped suddenly and violently on the table.

“What is this?” cried he. “Speak out!”

“I will, then,” said I, my voice almost strangled with the thumping of my heart. “If you continue to indulge Mr. Alexander, you are following in your father’s footsteps. Beware, my lord, lest (when he grows up) your son should follow in the Master’s.”

I had never meant to put the thing so crudely; but in the extreme of fear, there comes a brutal kind of courage, the most brutal indeed of all; and I burnt my ships with that plain word. I never had the answer. When I lifted my head, my lord had risen to his feet, and the next moment he fell heavily on the floor. The fit or seizure endured not very long; he came to himself vacantly, put his hand to his head, which I was then supporting, and says he, in a broken voice: “I have been ill,” and a little after: “Help me.” I got him to his feet, and he stood pretty well, though he kept hold of the table. “I have been ill, Mackellar,” he said again. “Something broke, Mackellar - or was going to break, and then all swam away. I think I was very angry. Never you mind, Mackellar; never you mind, my man. I wouldnae hurt a hair upon your head. Too much has come and gone. It’s a certain thing between us two. But I think, Mackellar, I will go to Mrs. Henry - I think I will go to Mrs. Henry,” said he, and got pretty steadily from the room, leaving me overcome with penitence.

Presently the door flew open, and my lady swept in with flashing eyes. “What is all this?” she cried. “What have you done to my husband? Will nothing teach you your position in this house? Will you never cease from making and meddling?”

“My lady,” said I, “since I have been in this house I have had plenty of hard words. For a while they were my daily diet, and I swallowed them all. As for to-day, you may call me what you please; you will never find the name hard enough for such a blunder. And yet I meant it for the best.”

I told her all with ingenuity, even as it is written here; and when she had heard me out, she pondered, and I could see her animosity fall. “Yes,” she said, “you meant well indeed. I have had the same thought myself, or the same temptation rather, which makes me pardon you. But, dear God, can you not understand that he can bear no more? He can bear no more!” she cried. “The cord is stretched to snapping. What matters the future if he have one or two good days?”

“Amen,” said I. “I will meddle no more. I am pleased enough that you should recognise the kindness of my meaning.”

“Yes,” said my lady; “but when it came to the point, I have to suppose your courage failed you; for what you said was said cruelly.” She paused, looking at me; then suddenly smiled a little, and said a singular thing: “Do you know what you are, Mr. Mackellar? You are an old maid.”

No more incident of any note occurred in the family until the return of that ill-starred man the Master. But I have to place here a second extract from the memoirs of Chevalier Burke, interesting in itself, and highly necessary for my purpose. It is our only sight of the Master on his Indian travels; and the first word in these pages of Secundra Dass. One fact, it is to observe, appears here very clearly, which if we had known some twenty years ago, how many calamities and sorrows had been spared! - that Secundra Dass spoke English.

CHAPTER VII. - ADVENTURE OF CHEVALIER BURKE IN INDIA.

Extracted from his Memoirs.

. . . Here was I, therefore, on the streets of that city, the name of which I cannot call to mind, while even then I was so ill- acquainted with its situation that I knew not whether to go south or north. The alert being sudden, I had run forth without shoes or stockings; my hat had been struck from my head in the mellay; my kit was in the hands of the English; I had no companion but the cipaye, no weapon but my sword, and the devil a coin in my pocket. In short, I was for all the world like one of those calendars with whom Mr. Galland has made us acquainted in his elegant tales. These gentlemen, you will remember, were for ever falling in with extraordinary incidents; and I was myself upon the brink of one so astonishing that I protest I cannot explain it to this day.