The Master of Ballantrae

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But I had no thought now of obedience; I came straight up to him.
"If nothing will move you to go back," said I; "though, sure, under
all the circumstances, any Christian or even any gentleman would
scruple to go forward . . . "

"These are gratifying expressions," he threw in.

"If nothing will move you to go back," I continued, "there are
still some decencies to be observed. Wait here with your baggage,
and I will go forward and prepare your family. Your father is an
old man; and . . . " I stumbled . . . "there are decencies to be
observed."

"Truly," said he, "this Mackellar improves upon acquaintance. But
look you here, my man, and understand it once for all - you waste
your breath upon me, and I go my own way with inevitable motion."

"Ah!" says I. "Is that so? We shall see then!"

And I turned and took to my heels for Durrisdeer. He clutched at
me and cried out angrily, and then I believe I heard him laugh, and
then I am certain he pursued me for a step or two, and (I suppose)
desisted. One thing at least is sure, that I came but a few
minutes later to the door of the great house, nearly strangled for
the lack of breath, but quite alone. Straight up the stair I ran,
and burst into the hall, and stopped before the family without the
power of speech; but I must have carried my story in my looks, for
they rose out of their places and stared on me like changelings.

"He has come," I panted out at last.

"He?" said Mr. Henry.

"Himself," said I.

"My son?" cried my lord. "Imprudent, imprudent boy! Oh, could he
not stay where he was safe!"

Never a word says Mrs. Henry; nor did I look at her, I scarce knew
why.

"Well," said Mr. Henry, with a very deep breath, "and where is he?"

"I left him in the long shrubbery," said I.

"Take me to him," said he.

So we went out together, he and I, without another word from any
one; and in the midst of the gravelled plot encountered the Master
strolling up, whistling as he came, and beating the air with his
cane. There was still light enough overhead to recognise, though
not to read, a countenance.

"Ah! Jacob," says the Master. "So here is Esau back."

"James," says Mr. Henry, "for God's sake, call me by my name. I
will not pretend that I am glad to see you; but I would fain make
you as welcome as I can in the house of our fathers."

"Or in MY house? or YOURS?" says the Master. "Which were you about
to say? But this is an old sore, and we need not rub it. If you
would not share with me in Paris, I hope you will yet scarce deny
your elder brother a corner of the fire at Durrisdeer?"

"That is very idle speech," replied Mr. Henry. "And you understand
the power of your position excellently well."

"Why, I believe I do," said the other with a little laugh. And
this, though they had never touched hands, was (as we may say) the
end of the brothers' meeting; for at this the Master turned to me
and bade me fetch his baggage.

I, on my side, turned to Mr. Henry for a confirmation; perhaps with
some defiance.

"As long as the Master is here, Mr. Mackellar, you will very much
oblige me by regarding his wishes as you would my own," says Mr.
Henry. "We are constantly troubling you: will you be so good as
send one of the servants?" - with an accent on the word.

If this speech were anything at all, it was surely a well-deserved
reproof upon the stranger; and yet, so devilish was his impudence,
he twisted it the other way.

"And shall we be common enough to say 'Sneck up'?" inquires he
softly, looking upon me sideways.

Had a kingdom depended on the act, I could not have trusted myself
in words; even to call a servant was beyond me; I had rather serve
the man myself than speak; and I turned away in silence and went
into the long shrubbery, with a heart full of anger and despair.
It was dark under the trees, and I walked before me and forgot what
business I was come upon, till I near broke my shin on the
portmanteaus. Then it was that I remarked a strange particular;
for whereas I had before carried both and scarce observed it, it
was now as much as I could do to manage one. And this, as it
forced me to make two journeys, kept me the longer from the hall.

When I got there, the business of welcome was over long ago; the
company was already at supper; and by an oversight that cut me to
the quick, my place had been forgotten. I had seen one side of the
Master's return; now I was to see the other. It was he who first
remarked my coming in and standing back (as I did) in some
annoyance. He jumped from his seat.

"And if I have not got the good Mackellar's place!" cries he.
"John, lay another for Mr. Bally; I protest he will disturb no one,
and your table is big enough for all."

I could scarce credit my ears, nor yet my senses, when he took me
by the shoulders and thrust me, laughing, into my own place - such
an affectionate playfulness was in his voice. And while John laid
the fresh place for him (a thing on which he still insisted), he
went and leaned on his father's chair and looked down upon him, and
the old man turned about and looked upwards on his son, with such a
pleasant mutual tenderness that I could have carried my hand to my
head in mere amazement.

Yet all was of a piece. Never a harsh word fell from him, never a
sneer showed upon his lip. He had laid aside even his cutting
English accent, and spoke with the kindly Scots' tongue, that set a
value on affectionate words; and though his manners had a graceful
elegance mighty foreign to our ways in Durrisdeer, it was still a
homely courtliness, that did not shame but flattered us. All that,
he did throughout the meal, indeed, drinking wine with me with a
notable respect, turning about for a pleasant word with John,
fondling his father's hand, breaking into little merry tales of his
adventures, calling up the past with happy reference - all he did
was so becoming, and himself so handsome, that I could scarce
wonder if my lord and Mrs. Henry sat about the board with radiant
faces, or if John waited behind with dropping tears.

As soon as supper was over, Mrs. Henry rose to withdraw.

"This was never your way, Alison," said he.

"It is my way now," she replied: which was notoriously false, "and
I will give you a good-night, James, and a welcome - from the
dead," said she, and her voice dropped and trembled.

Poor Mr. Henry, who had made rather a heavy figure through the
meal, was more concerned than ever; pleased to see his wife
withdraw, and yet half displeased, as he thought upon the cause of
it; and the next moment altogether dashed by the fervour of her
speech.

On my part, I thought I was now one too many; and was stealing
after Mrs. Henry, when the Master saw me.

"Now, Mr. Mackellar," says he, "I take this near on an
unfriendliness. I cannot have you go: this is to make a stranger
of the prodigal son; and let me remind you where - in his own
father's house! Come, sit ye down, and drink another glass with
Mr. Bally."

"Ay, ay, Mr. Mackellar," says my lord, "we must not make a stranger
either of him or you. I have been telling my son," he added, his
voice brightening as usual on the word, "how much we valued all
your friendly service."

So I sat there, silent, till my usual hour; and might have been
almost deceived in the man's nature but for one passage, in which
his perfidy appeared too plain. Here was the passage; of which,
after what he knows of the brothers' meeting, the reader shall
consider for himself. Mr. Henry sitting somewhat dully, in spite
of his best endeavours to carry things before my lord, up jumps the
Master, passes about the board, and claps his brother on the
shoulder.

"Come, come, HAIRRY LAD," says he, with a broad accent such as they
must have used together when they were boys, "you must not be
downcast because your brother has come home. All's yours, that's
sure enough, and little I grudge it you. Neither must you grudge
me my place beside my father's fire."

"And that is too true, Henry," says my old lord with a little
frown, a thing rare with him. "You have been the elder brother of
the parable in the good sense; you must be careful of the other."

"I am easily put in the wrong," said Mr. Henry.

"Who puts you in the wrong?" cried my lord, I thought very tartly
for so mild a man. "You have earned my gratitude and your
brother's many thousand times: you may count on its endurance; and
let that suffice."

"Ay, Harry, that you may," said the Master; and I thought Mr. Henry
looked at him with a kind of wildness in his eye.

On all the miserable business that now followed, I have four
questions that I asked myself often at the time and ask myself
still:- Was the man moved by a particular sentiment against Mr.
Henry? or by what he thought to be his interest? or by a mere
delight in cruelty such as cats display and theologians tell us of
the devil? or by what he would have called love? My common opinion
halts among the three first; but perhaps there lay at the spring of
his behaviour an element of all. As thus:- Animosity to Mr. Henry
would explain his hateful usage of him when they were alone; the
interests he came to serve would explain his very different
attitude before my lord; that and some spice of a design of
gallantry, his care to stand well with Mrs. Henry; and the pleasure
of malice for itself, the pains he was continually at to mingle and
oppose these lines of conduct.

Partly because I was a very open friend to my patron, partly
because in my letters to Paris I had often given myself some
freedom of remonstrance, I was included in his diabolical
amusement. When I was alone with him, he pursued me with sneers;
before the family he used me with the extreme of friendly
condescension. This was not only painful in itself; not only did
it put me continually in the wrong; but there was in it an element
of insult indescribable. That he should thus leave me out in his
dissimulation, as though even my testimony were too despicable to
be considered, galled me to the blood. But what it was to me is
not worth notice. I make but memorandum of it here; and chiefly
for this reason, that it had one good result, and gave me the
quicker sense of Mr. Henry's martyrdom.

It was on him the burthen fell. How was he to respond to the
public advances of one who never lost a chance of gibing him in
private? How was he to smile back on the deceiver and the
insulter? He was condemned to seem ungracious. He was condemned
to silence. Had he been less proud, had he spoken, who would have
credited the truth? The acted calumny had done its work; my lord
and Mrs. Henry were the daily witnesses of what went on; they could
have sworn in court that the Master was a model of long-suffering
good-nature, and Mr. Henry a pattern of jealousy and thanklessness.
And ugly enough as these must have appeared in any one, they seemed
tenfold uglier in Mr. Henry; for who could forget that the Master
lay in peril of his life, and that he had already lost his
mistress, his title, and his fortune?

"Henry, will you ride with me?" asks the Master one day.

And Mr. Henry, who had been goaded by the man all morning, raps
out: "I will not."

"I sometimes wish you would be kinder, Henry," says the other,
wistfully.

I give this for a specimen; but such scenes befell continually.
Small wonder if Mr. Henry was blamed; small wonder if I fretted
myself into something near upon a bilious fever; nay, and at the
mere recollection feel a bitterness in my blood.

Sure, never in this world was a more diabolical contrivance: so
perfidious, so simple, so impossible to combat. And yet I think
again, and I think always, Mrs. Henry might have road between the
lines; she might have had more knowledge of her husband's nature;
after all these years of marriage she might have commanded or
captured his confidence. And my old lord, too - that very watchful
gentleman - where was all his observation? But, for one thing, the
deceit was practised by a master hand, and might have gulled an
angel. For another (in the case of Mrs. Henry), I have observed
there are no persons so far away as those who are both married and
estranged, so that they seem out of ear-shot or to have no common
tongue. For a third (in the case of both of these spectators),
they were blinded by old ingrained predilection. And for a fourth,
the risk the Master was supposed to stand in (supposed, I say - you
will soon hear why) made it seem the more ungenerous to criticise;
and, keeping them in a perpetual tender solicitude about his life,
blinded them the more effectually to his faults.

It was during this time that I perceived most clearly the effect of
manner, and was led to lament most deeply the plainness of my own.
Mr. Henry had the essence of a gentleman; when he was moved, when
there was any call of circumstance, he could play his part with
dignity and spirit; but in the day's commerce (it is idle to deny
it) he fell short of the ornamental. The Master (on the other
hand) had never a movement but it commanded him. So it befell that
when the one appeared gracious and the other ungracious, every
trick of their bodies seemed to call out confirmation. Not that
alone: but the more deeply Mr. Henry floundered in his brother's
toils, the more clownish he grew; and the more the Master enjoyed
his spiteful entertainment, the more engagingly, the more
smilingly, he went! So that the plot, by its own scope and
progress, furthered and confirmed itself.

It was one of the man's arts to use the peril in which (as I say)
he was supposed to stand. He spoke of it to those who loved him
with a gentle pleasantry, which made it the more touching. To Mr.
Henry he used it as a cruel weapon of offence. I remember his
laying his finger on the clean lozenge of the painted window one
day when we three were alone together in the hall. "Here went your
lucky guinea, Jacob," said he. And when Mr. Henry only looked upon
him darkly, "Oh!" he added, "you need not look such impotent
malice, my good fly. You can be rid of your spider when you
please. How long, O Lord? When are you to be wrought to the point
of a denunciation, scrupulous brother? It is one of my interests
in this dreary hole. I ever loved experiment." Still Mr. Henry
only stared upon him with a grooming brow, and a changed colour;
and at last the Master broke out in a laugh and clapped him on the
shoulder, calling him a sulky dog. At this my patron leaped back
with a gesture I thought very dangerous; and I must suppose the
Master thought so too, for he looked the least in the world
discountenance, and I do not remember him again to have laid hands
on Mr. Henry.

But though he had his peril always on his lips in the one way or
the other, I thought his conduct strangely incautious, and began to
fancy the Government - who had set a price upon his head - was gone
sound asleep. I will not deny I was tempted with the wish to
denounce him; but two thoughts withheld me: one, that if he were
thus to end his life upon an honourable scaffold, the man would be
canonised for good in the minds of his father and my patron's wife;
the other, that if I was anyway mingled in the matter, Mr. Henry
himself would scarce escape some glancings of suspicion. And in
the meanwhile our enemy went in and out more than I could have
thought possible, the fact that he was home again was buzzed about
all the country-side, and yet he was never stirred. Of all these
so-many and so-different persons who were acquainted with his
presence, none had the least greed - as I used to say in my
annoyance - or the least loyalty; and the man rode here and there -
fully more welcome, considering the lees of old unpopularity, than
Mr. Henry - and considering the freetraders, far safer than myself.

Not but what he had a trouble of his own; and this, as it brought
about the gravest consequences, I must now relate. The reader will
scarce have forgotten Jessie Broun; her way of life was much among
the smuggling party; Captain Crail himself was of her intimates;
and she had early word of Mr. Bally's presence at the house. In my
opinion, she had long ceased to care two straws for the Master's
person; but it was become her habit to connect herself continually
with the Master's name; that was the ground of all her play-acting;
and so now, when he was back, she thought she owed it to herself to
grow a haunter of the neighbourhood of Durrisdeer. The Master
could scarce go abroad but she was there in wait for him; a
scandalous figure of a woman, not often sober; hailing him wildly
as "her bonny laddie," quoting pedlar's poetry, and, as I receive
the story, even seeking to weep upon his neck. I own I rubbed my
hands over this persecution; but the Master, who laid so much upon
others, was himself the least patient of men. There were strange
scenes enacted in the policies. Some say he took his cane to her,
and Jessie fell back upon her former weapons - stones. It is
certain at least that he made a motion to Captain Crail to have the
woman trepanned, and that the Captain refused the proposition with
uncommon vehemence. And the end of the matter was victory for
Jessie. Money was got together; an interview took place, in which
my proud gentleman must consent to be kissed and wept upon; and the
woman was set up in a public of her own, somewhere on Solway side
(but I forget where), and, by the only news I ever had of it,
extremely ill-frequented.

This is to look forward. After Jessie had been but a little while
upon his heels, the Master comes to me one day in the steward's
office, and with more civility than usual, "Mackellar," says he,
"there is a damned crazy wench comes about here. I cannot well
move in the matter myself, which brings me to you. Be so good as
to see to it: the men must have a strict injunction to drive the
wench away."

"Sir," said I, trembling a little, "you can do your own dirty
errands for yourself."

He said not a word to that, and left the room.

Presently came Mr. Henry. "Here is news!" cried he. "It seems all
is not enough, and you must add to my wretchedness. It seems you
have insulted Mr. Bally."

"Under your kind favour, Mr. Henry," said I, "it was he that
insulted me, and, as I think, grossly. But I may have been
careless of your position when I spoke; and if you think so when
you know all, my dear patron, you have but to say the word. For
you I would obey in any point whatever, even to sin, God pardon
me!" And thereupon I told him what had passed.

Mr. Henry smiled to himself; a grimmer smile I never witnessed.
"You did exactly well," said he. "He shall drink his Jessie Broun
to the dregs." And then, spying the Master outside, he opened the
window, and crying to him by the name of Mr. Bally, asked him to
step up and have a word.

"James," said he, when our persecutor had come in and closed the
door behind him, looking at me with a smile, as if he thought I was
to be humbled, "you brought me a complaint against Mr. Mackellar,
into which I have inquired. I need not tell you I would always
take his word against yours; for we are alone, and I am going to
use something of your own freedom. Mr. Mackellar is a gentleman I
value; and you must contrive, so long as you are under this roof,
to bring yourself into no more collisions with one whom I will
support at any possible cost to me or mine. As for the errand upon
which you came to him, you must deliver yourself from the
consequences of your own cruelty, and, none of my servants shall be
at all employed in such a case."

"My father's servants, I believe," says the Master.

"Go to him with this tale," said Mr. Henry.

The Master grew very white. He pointed at me with his finger. "I
want that man discharged," he said.

"He shall not be," said Mr. Henry.

"You shall pay pretty dear for this," says the Master.

"I have paid so dear already for a wicked brother," said Mr. Henry,
"that I am bankrupt even of fears. You have no place left where
you can strike me."

"I will show you about that," says the Master, and went softly
away.

"What will he do next, Mackellar?" cries Mr. Henry.

"Let me go away," said I. "My dear patron, let me go away; I am
but the beginning of fresh sorrows."

"Would you leave me quite alone?" said he.

We were not long in suspense as to the nature of the new assault.
Up to that hour the Master had played a very close game with Mrs.
Henry; avoiding pointedly to be alone with her, which I took at the
time for an effect of decency, but now think to be a most insidious
art; meeting her, you may say, at meal-time only; and behaving,
when he did so, like an affectionate brother. Up to that hour, you
may say he had scarce directly interfered between Mr. Henry and his
wife; except in so far as he had manoeuvred the one quite forth
from the good graces of the other. Now all that was to be changed;
but whether really in revenge, or because he was wearying of
Durrisdeer and looked about for some diversion, who but the devil
shall decide?

From that hour, at least, began the siege of Mrs. Henry; a thing so
deftly carried on that I scarce know if she was aware of it
herself, and that her husband must look on in silence. The first
parallel was opened (as was made to appear) by accident. The talk
fell, as it did often, on the exiles in France; so it glided to the
matter of their songs.

"There is one," says the Master, "if you are curious in these
matters, that has always seemed to me very moving. The poetry is
harsh; and yet, perhaps because of my situation, it has always
found the way to my heart. It is supposed to be sung, I should
tell you, by an exile's sweetheart; and represents perhaps, not so
much the truth of what she is thinking, as the truth of what he
hopes of her, poor soul! in these far lands." And here the Master
sighed, "I protest it is a pathetic sight when a score of rough
Irish, all common sentinels, get to this song; and you may see, by
their falling tears, how it strikes home to them. It goes thus,
father," says he, very adroitly taking my lord for his listener,
"and if I cannot get to the end of it, you must think it is a
common case with us exiles." And thereupon he struck up the same
air as I had heard the Colonel whistle; but now to words, rustic
indeed, yet most pathetically setting forth a poor girl's
aspirations for an exiled lover; of which one verse indeed (or
something like it) still sticks by me:-

O, I will dye my petticoat red,
With my dear boy I'll beg my bread,
Though all my friends should wish me dead,
For Willie among the rushes, O!

He sang it well, even as a song; but he did better yet a performer.
I have heard famous actors, when there was not a dry eye in the
Edinburgh theatre; a great wonder to behold; but no more wonderful
than how the Master played upon that little ballad, and on those
who heard him, like an instrument, and seemed now upon the point of
failing, and now to conquer his distress, so that words and music
seemed to pour out of his own heart and his own past, and to be
aimed directly at Mrs. Henry. And his art went further yet; for
all was so delicately touched, it seemed impossible to suspect him
of the least design; and so far from making a parade of emotion,
you would have sworn he was striving to be calm. When it came to
an end, we all sat silent for a time; he had chosen the dusk of the
afternoon, so that none could see his neighbour's face; but it
seemed as if we held our breathing; only my old lord cleared his
throat. The first to move was the singer, who got to his feet
suddenly and softly, and went and walked softly to and fro in the
low end of the hall, Mr. Henry's customary place. We were to
suppose that he there struggled down the last of his emotion; for
he presently returned and launched into a disquisition on the
nature of the Irish (always so much miscalled, and whom he
defended) in his natural voice; so that, before the lights were
brought, we were in the usual course of talk. But even then,
methought Mrs. Henry's face was a shade pale; and, for another
thing, she withdrew almost at once.

The next sign was a friendship this insidious devil struck up with
innocent Miss Katharine; so that they were always together, hand in
hand, or she climbing on his knee, like a pair of children. Like
all his diabolical acts, this cut in several ways. It was the last
stroke to Mr. Henry, to see his own babe debauched against him; it
made him harsh with the poor innocent, which brought him still a
peg lower in his wife's esteem; and (to conclude) it was a bond of
union between the lady and the Master. Under this influence, their
old reserve melted by daily stages. Presently there came walks in
the long shrubbery, talks in the Belvedere, and I know not what
tender familiarity. I am sure Mrs. Henry was like many a good
woman; she had a whole conscience but perhaps by the means of a
little winking. For even to so dull an observer as myself, it was
plain her kindness was of a more moving nature than the sisterly.
The tones of her voice appeared more numerous; she had a light and
softness in her eye; she was more gentle with all of us, even with
Mr. Henry, even with myself; methought she breathed of some quiet
melancholy happiness.

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