The Master of Ballantrae
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Robert Louis Stevenson >> The Master of Ballantrae
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"They will prove substantial enough before a court," said I.
He looked at me with a burning eye, and seemed to repress the word
upon his lips; and I repented what I had said, for I saw that while
he spoke of the estate he had still a side-thought to his marriage.
And then, of a sudden, he twitched the letter from his pocket,
where it lay all crumpled, smoothed it violently on the table, and
read these words to me with a trembling tongue: "'My dear Jacob' -
This is how he begins!" cries he - "'My dear Jacob, I once called
you so, you may remember; and you have now done the business, and
flung my heels as high as Criffel.' What do you think of that,
Mackellar," says he, "from an only brother? I declare to God I
liked him very well; I was always staunch to him; and this is how
he writes! But I will not sit down under the imputation" - walking
to and fro - "I am as good as he; I am a better man than he, I call
on God to prove it! I cannot give him all the monstrous sum he
asks; he knows the estate to be incompetent; but I will give him
what I have, and it in more than he expects. I have borne all this
too long. See what he writes further on; read it for yourself: 'I
know you are a niggardly dog.' A niggardly dog! I niggardly? Is
that true, Mackellar? You think it is?" I really thought he would
have struck me at that. "Oh, you all think so! Well, you shall
see, and he shall see, and God shall see. If I ruin the estate and
go barefoot, I shall stuff this bloodsucker. Let him ask all -
all, and he shall have it! It is all his by rights. Ah!" he
cried, "and I foresaw all this, and worse, when he would not let me
go." He poured out another glass of wine, and was about to carry
it to his lips, when I made so bold as to lay a finger on his arm.
He stopped a moment. "You are right," said he, and flung glass and
all in the fireplace. "Come, let us count the money."
I durst no longer oppose him; indeed, I was very much affected by
the sight of so much disorder in a man usually so controlled; and
we sat down together, counted the money, and made it up in packets
for the greater ease of Colonel Burke, who was to be the bearer.
This done, Mr. Henry returned to the hall, where he and my old lord
sat all night through with their guest.
A little before dawn I was called and set out with the Colonel. He
would scarce have liked a less responsible convoy, for he was a man
who valued himself; nor could we afford him one more dignified, for
Mr. Henry must not appear with the freetraders. It was a very
bitter morning of wind, and as we went down through the long
shrubbery the Colonel held himself muffled in his cloak.
"Sir," said I, "this is a great sum of money that your friend
requires. I must suppose his necessities to be very great."
"We must suppose so," says he, I thought drily; but perhaps it was
the cloak about his mouth.
"I am only a servant of the family," said I. "You may deal openly
with me. I think we are likely to get little good by him?"
"My dear man," said the Colonel, "Ballantrae is a gentleman of the
most eminent natural abilities, and a man that I admire, and that I
revere, to the very ground he treads on." And then he seemed to me
to pause like one in a difficulty.
"But for all that," said I, "we are likely to get little good by
him?"
"Sure, and you can have it your own way, my dear man," says the
Colonel.
By this time we had come to the side of the creek, where the boat
awaited him. "Well," said be, "I am sure I am very much your
debtor for all your civility, Mr. Whatever-your-name-is; and just
as a last word, and since you show so much intelligent interest, I
will mention a small circumstance that may be of use to the family.
For I believe my friend omitted to mention that he has the largest
pension on the Scots Fund of any refugee in Paris; and it's the
more disgraceful, sir," cries the Colonel, warming, "because
there's not one dirty penny for myself."
He cocked his hat at me, as if I had been to blame for this
partiality; then changed again into his usual swaggering civility,
shook me by the hand, and set off down to the boat, with the money
under his arms, and whistling as he went the pathetic air of SHULE
AROON. It was the first time I had heard that tune; I was to hear
it again, words and all, as you shall learn, but I remember how
that little stave of it ran in my head after the freetraders had
bade him "Wheesht, in the deil's name," and the grating of the oars
had taken its place, and I stood and watched the dawn creeping on
the sea, and the boat drawing away, and the lugger lying with her
foresail backed awaiting it.
The gap made in our money was a sore embarrassment, and, among
other consequences, it had this: that I must ride to Edinburgh,
and there raise a new loan on very questionable terms to keep the
old afloat; and was thus, for close upon three weeks, absent from
the house of Durrisdeer.
What passed in the interval I had none to tell me, but I found Mrs.
Henry, upon my return, much changed in her demeanour. The old
talks with my lord for the most part pretermitted; a certain
deprecation visible towards her husband, to whom I thought she
addressed herself more often; and, for one thing, she was now
greatly wrapped up in Miss Katharine. You would think the change
was agreeable to Mr. Henry; no such matter! To the contrary, every
circumstance of alteration was a stab to him; he read in each the
avowal of her truant fancies. That constancy to the Master of
which she was proud while she supposed him dead, she had to blush
for now she knew he was alive, and these blushes were the hated
spring of her new conduct. I am to conceal no truth; and I will
here say plainly, I think this was the period in which Mr. Henry
showed the worst. He contained himself, indeed, in public; but
there was a deep-seated irritation visible underneath. With me,
from whom he had less concealment, he was often grossly unjust, and
even for his wife he would sometimes have a sharp retort: perhaps
when she had ruffled him with some unwonted kindness; perhaps upon
no tangible occasion, the mere habitual tenor of the man's
annoyance bursting spontaneously forth. When he would thus forget
himself (a thing so strangely out of keeping with the terms of
their relation), there went a shook through the whole company, and
the pair would look upon each other in a kind of pained amazement.
All the time, too, while he was injuring himself by this defect of
temper, he was hurting his position by a silence, of which I scarce
know whether to say it was the child of generosity or pride. The
freetraders came again and again, bringing messengers from the
Master, and none departed empty-handed. I never durst reason with
Mr. Henry; he gave what was asked of him in a kind of noble rage.
Perhaps because he knew he was by nature inclining to the
parsimonious, he took a backforemost pleasure in the recklessness
with which he supplied his brother's exigence. Perhaps the falsity
of the position would have spurred a humbler man into the same
excess. But the estate (if I may say so) groaned under it; our
daily expenses were shorn lower and lower; the stables were
emptied, all but four roadsters; servants were discharged, which
raised a dreadful murmuring in the country, and heated up the old
disfavour upon Mr. Henry; and at last the yearly visit to Edinburgh
must be discontinued.
This was in 1756. You are to suppose that for seven years this
bloodsucker had been drawing the life's blood from Durrisdeer, and
that all this time my patron had held his peace. It was an effect
of devilish malice in the Master that he addressed Mr. Henry alone
upon the matter of his demands, and there was never a word to my
lord. The family had looked on, wondering at our economies. They
had lamented, I have no doubt, that my patron had become so great a
miser - a fault always despicable, but in the young abhorrent, and
Mr. Henry was not yet thirty years of age. Still, he had managed
the business of Durrisdeer almost from a boy; and they bore with
these changes in a silence as proud and bitter as his own, until
the coping-stone of the Edinburgh visit.
At this time I believe my patron and his wife were rarely together,
save at meals. Immediately on the back of Colonel Burke's
announcement Mrs. Henry made palpable advances; you might say she
had laid a sort of timid court to her husband, different, indeed,
from her former manner of unconcern and distance. I never had the
heart to blame Mr. Henry because he recoiled from these advances;
nor yet to censure the wife, when she was cut to the quick by their
rejection. But the result was an entire estrangement, so that (as
I say) they rarely spoke, except at meals. Even the matter of the
Edinburgh visit was first broached at table, and it chanced that
Mrs. Henry was that day ailing and querulous. She had no sooner
understood her husband's meaning than the red flew in her face.
"At last," she cried, "this is too much! Heaven knows what
pleasure I have in my life, that I should be denied my only
consolation. These shameful proclivities must be trod down; we are
already a mark and an eyesore in the neighbourhood. I will not
endure this fresh insanity."
"I cannot afford it," says Mr. Henry.
"Afford?" she cried. "For shame! But I have money of my own."
"That is all mine, madam, by marriage," he snarled, and instantly
left the room.
My old lord threw up his hands to Heaven, and he and his daughter,
withdrawing to the chimney, gave me a broad hint to be gone. I
found Mr. Henry in his usual retreat, the steward's room, perched
on the end of the table, and plunging his penknife in it with a
very ugly countenance.
"Mr. Henry," said I, "you do yourself too much injustice, and it is
time this should cease."
"Oh!" cries he, "nobody minds here. They think it only natural. I
have shameful proclivities. I am a niggardly dog," and he drove
his knife up to the hilt. "But I will show that fellow," he cried
with an oath, "I will show him which is the more generous."
"This is no generosity," said I; "this is only pride."
"Do you think I want morality?" he asked.
I thought he wanted help, and I should give it him, willy-nilly;
and no sooner was Mrs. Henry gone to her room than I presented
myself at her door and sought admittance.
She openly showed her wonder. "What do you want with me, Mr.
Mackellar?" said she.
"The Lord knows, madam," says I, "I have never troubled you before
with any freedoms; but this thing lies too hard upon my conscience,
and it will out. Is it possible that two people can be so blind as
you and my lord? and have lived all these years with a noble
gentleman like Mr. Henry, and understand so little of his nature?"
"What does this mean?" she cried.
"Do you not know where his money goes to? his - and yours - and the
money for the very wine he does not drink at table?" I went on.
"To Paris - to that man! Eight thousand pounds has he had of us in
seven years, and my patron fool enough to keep it secret!"
"Eight thousand pounds!" she repeated. "It in impossible; the
estate is not sufficient."
"God knows how we have sweated farthings to produce it," said I.
"But eight thousand and sixty is the sum, beside odd shillings.
And if you can think my patron miserly after that, this shall be my
last interference."
"You need say no more, Mr. Mackellar," said she. "You have done
most properly in what you too modestly call your interference. I
am much to blame; you must think me indeed a very unobservant wife"
(looking upon me with a strange smile), "but I shall put this right
at once. The Master was always of a very thoughtless nature; but
his heart is excellent; he is the soul of generosity. I shall
write to him myself. You cannot think how you have pained me by
this communication."
"Indeed, madam, I had hoped to have pleased you," said I, for I
raged to see her still thinking of the Master.
"And pleased," said she, "and pleased me of course."
That same day (I will not say but what I watched) I had the
satisfaction to see Mr. Henry come from his wife's room in a state
most unlike himself; for his face was all bloated with weeping, and
yet he seemed to me to walk upon the air. By this, I was sure his
wife had made him full amends for once. "Ah," thought I to myself,
"I have done a brave stroke this day."
On the morrow, as I was seated at my books, Mr. Henry came in
softly behind me, took me by the shoulders, and shook me in a
manner of playfulness. "I find you are a faithless fellow after
all," says he, which was his only reference to my part; but the
tone he spoke in was more to me than any eloquence of protestation.
Nor was this all I had effected; for when the next messenger came
(as he did not long afterwards) from the Master, he got nothing
away with him but a letter. For some while back it had been I
myself who had conducted these affairs; Mr. Henry not setting pen
to paper, and I only in the dryest and most formal terms. But this
letter I did not even see; it would scarce be pleasant reading, for
Mr. Henry felt he had his wife behind him for once, and I observed,
on the day it was despatched, he had a very gratified expression.
Things went better now in the family, though it could scarce be
pretended they went well. There was now at least no misconception;
there was kindness upon all sides; and I believe my patron and his
wife might again have drawn together if he could but have pocketed
his pride, and she forgot (what was the ground of all) her brooding
on another man. It is wonderful how a private thought leaks out;
it is wonderful to me now how we should all have followed the
current of her sentiments; and though she bore herself quietly, and
had a very even disposition, yet we should have known whenever her
fancy ran to Paris. And would not any one have thought that my
disclosure must have rooted up that idol? I think there is the
devil in women: all these years passed, never a sight of the man,
little enough kindness to remember (by all accounts) even while she
had him, the notion of his death intervening, his heartless
rapacity laid bare to her; that all should not do, and she must
still keep the best place in her heart for this accursed fellow, is
a thing to make a plain man rage. I had never much natural
sympathy for the passion of love; but this unreason in my patron's
wife disgusted me outright with the whole matter. I remember
checking a maid because she sang some bairnly kickshaw while my
mind was thus engaged; and my asperity brought about my ears the
enmity of all the petticoats about the house; of which I reeked
very little, but it amused Mr. Henry, who rallied me much upon our
joint unpopularity. It is strange enough (for my own mother was
certainly one of the salt of the earth, and my Aunt Dickson, who
paid my fees at the University, a very notable woman), but I have
never had much toleration for the female sex, possibly not much
understanding; and being far from a bold man, I have ever shunned
their company. Not only do I see no cause to regret this
diffidence in myself, but have invariably remarked the most unhappy
consequences follow those who were less wise. So much I thought
proper to set down, lest I show myself unjust to Mrs. Henry. And,
besides, the remark arose naturally, on a re-perusal of the letter
which was the next step in these affairs, and reached me, to my
sincere astonishment, by a private hand, some week or so after the
departure of the last messenger.
Letter from Colonel BURKE (afterwards Chevalier) to MR. MACKELLAR.
TROYES IN CHAMPAGNE,
July 12, 1756
My Dear Sir, - You will doubtless be surprised to receive a
communication from one so little known to you; but on the occasion
I had the good fortune to rencounter you at Durrisdeer, I remarked
you for a young man of a solid gravity of character: a
qualification which I profess I admire and revere next to natural
genius or the bold chivalrous spirit of the soldier. I was,
besides, interested in the noble family which you have the honour
to serve, or (to speak more by the book) to be the humble and
respected friend of; and a conversation I had the pleasure to have
with you very early in the morning has remained much upon my mind.
Being the other day in Paris, on a visit from this famous city,
where I am in garrison, I took occasion to inquire your name (which
I profess I had forgot) at my friend, the Master of B.; and a fair
opportunity occurring, I write to inform you of what's new.
The Master of B. (when we had last some talk of him together) was
in receipt, as I think I then told you, of a highly advantageous
pension on the Scots Fund. He next received a company, and was
soon after advanced to a regiment of his own. My dear sir, I do
not offer to explain this circumstance; any more than why I myself,
who have rid at the right hand of Princes, should be fubbed off
with a pair of colours and sent to rot in a hole at the bottom of
the province. Accustomed as I am to Courts, I cannot but feel it
is no atmosphere for a plain soldier; and I could never hope to
advance by similar means, even could I stoop to the endeavour. But
our friend has a particular aptitude to succeed by the means of
ladies; and if all be true that I have heard, he enjoyed a
remarkable protection. It is like this turned against him; for
when I had the honour to shake him by the hand, he was but newly
released from the Bastille, where he had been cast on a sealed
letter; and, though now released, has both lost his regiment and
his pension. My dear sir, the loyalty of a plain Irishman will
ultimately succeed in the place of craft; as I am sure a gentleman
of your probity will agree.
Now, sir, the Master is a man whose genius I admire beyond
expression, and, besides, he is my friend; but I thought a little
word of this revolution in his fortunes would not come amiss, for,
in my opinion, the man's desperate. He spoke, when I saw him, of a
trip to India (whither I am myself in some hope of accompanying my
illustrious countryman, Mr. Lally); but for this he would require
(as I understood) more money than was readily at his command. You
may have heard a military proverb: that it is a good thing to make
a bridge of gold to a flying enemy? I trust you will take my
meaning and I subscribe myself, with proper respects to my Lord
Durrisdeer, to his son, and to the beauteous Mrs. Durie,
My dear Sir,
Your obedient humble servant,
FRANCIS BURKE.
This missive I carried at once to Mr. Henry; and I think there was
but the one thought between the two of us: that it had come a week
too late. I made haste to send an answer to Colonel Burke, in
which I begged him, if he should see the Master, to assure him his
next messenger would be attended to. But with all my haste I was
not in time to avert what was impending; the arrow had been drawn,
it must now fly. I could almost doubt the power of Providence (and
certainly His will) to stay the issue of events; and it is a
strange thought, how many of us had been storing up the elements of
this catastrophe, for how long a time, and with how blind an
ignorance of what we did.
From the coming of the Colonel's letter, I had a spyglass in my
room, began to drop questions to the tenant folk, and as there was
no great secrecy observed, and the freetrade (in our part) went by
force as much as stealth, I had soon got together a knowledge of
the signals in use, and knew pretty well to an hour when any
messenger might be expected. I say, I questioned the tenants; for
with the traders themselves, desperate blades that went habitually
armed, I could never bring myself to meddle willingly. Indeed, by
what proved in the sequel an unhappy chance, I was an object of
scorn to some of these braggadocios; who had not only gratified me
with a nickname, but catching me one night upon a by-path, and
being all (as they would have said) somewhat merry, had caused me
to dance for their diversion. The method employed was that of
cruelly chipping at my toes with naked cutlasses, shouting at the
same time "Square-Toes"; and though they did me no bodily mischief,
I was none the less deplorably affected, and was indeed for several
days confined to my bed: a scandal on the state of Scotland on
which no comment is required.
It happened on the afternoon of November 7th, in this same
unfortunate year, that I espied, during my walk, the smoke of a
beacon fire upon the Muckleross. It was drawing near time for my
return; but the uneasiness upon my spirits was that day so great
that I must burst through the thickets to the edge of what they
call the Craig Head. The sun was already down, but there was still
a broad light in the west, which showed me some of the smugglers
treading out their signal fire upon the Ross, and in the bay the
lugger lying with her sails brailed up. She was plainly but new
come to anchor, and yet the skiff was already lowered and pulling
for the landing-place at the end of the long shrubbery. And this I
knew could signify but one thing, the coming of a messenger for
Durrisdeer.
I laid aside the remainder of my terrors, clambered down the brae -
a place I had never ventured through before, and was hid among the
shore-side thickets in time to see the boat touch. Captain Crail
himself was steering, a thing not usual; by his side there sat a
passenger; and the men gave way with difficulty, being hampered
with near upon half a dozen portmanteaus, great and small. But the
business of landing was briskly carried through; and presently the
baggage was all tumbled on shore, the boat on its return voyage to
the lugger, and the passenger standing alone upon the point of
rock, a tall slender figure of a gentleman, habited in black, with
a sword by his side and a walking-cane upon his wrist. As he so
stood, he waved the cane to Captain Crail by way of salutation,
with something both of grace and mockery that wrote the gesture
deeply on my mind.
No sooner was the boat away with my sworn enemies than I took a
sort of half courage, came forth to the margin of the thicket, and
there halted again, my mind being greatly pulled about between
natural diffidence and a dark foreboding of the truth. Indeed, I
might have stood there swithering all night, had not the stranger
turned, spied me through the mists, which were beginning to fall,
and waved and cried on me to draw near. I did so with a heart like
lead.
"Here, my good man," said he, in the English accent, "there are
some things for Durrisdeer."
I was now near enough to see him, a very handsome figure and
countenance, swarthy, lean, long, with a quick, alert, black look,
as of one who was a fighter, and accustomed to command; upon one
cheek he had a mole, not unbecoming; a large diamond sparkled on
his hand; his clothes, although of the one hue, were of a French
and foppish design; his ruffles, which he wore longer than common,
of exquisite lace; and I wondered the more to see him in such a
guise when he was but newly landed from a dirty smuggling lugger.
At the same time he had a better look at me, toised me a second
time sharply, and then smiled.
"I wager, my friend," says he, "that I know both your name and your
nickname. I divined these very clothes upon your hand of writing,
Mr. Mackellar."
At these words I fell to shaking.
"Oh,"' says he, "you need not be afraid of me. I bear no malice
for your tedious letters; and it is my purpose to employ you a good
deal. You may call me Mr. Bally: it is the name I have assumed;
or rather (since I am addressing so great a precision) it is so I
have curtailed my own. Come now, pick up that and that" -
indicating two of the portmanteaus. "That will be as much as you
are fit to bear, and the rest can very well wait. Come, lose no
more time, if you please."
His tone was so cutting that I managed to do as he bid by a sort of
instinct, my mind being all the time quite lost. No sooner had I
picked up the portmanteaus than he turned his back and marched off
through the long shrubbery, where it began already to be dusk, for
the wood is thick and evergreen. I followed behind, loaded almost
to the dust, though I profess I was not conscious of the burthen;
being swallowed up in the monstrosity of this return, and my mind
flying like a weaver's shuttle.
On a sudden I set the portmanteaus to the ground and halted. He
turned and looked back at me.
"Well?" said he.
"You are the Master of Ballantrae?"
"You will do me the justice to observe," says he, "I have made no
secret with the astute Mackellar."
"And in the name of God," cries I, "what brings you here? Go back,
while it is yet time."
"I thank you," said he. "Your master has chosen this way, and not
I; but since he has made the choice, he (and you also) must abide
by the result. And now pick up these things of mine, which you
have set down in a very boggy place, and attend to that which I
have made your business."
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