Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1891 — The Heir of Linne. [ARTICLE]

The Heir of Linne.

By Robert Buchanan.

CHAPTER VHI. THE LAIRD’S’CONFESSION. No sooner wore they left alone than the manner of the old man changed, acd, taking the young girl's hand in his,,he looked into her face with a curious smile. "It's an ill task, Marjorie.” he said, “waiting iov dead men's shoon. How like you yon slip of my brother's?” Then, without waiting for her to reply, he continued, “He has a shifty eye and a treacherous heart, I’m thinking; eh, Marjorie? Did you see how he glowered when you came creeping in? He's wondering, TH swear, if you are kith or kin. Have you Joi dhi m nothing?' ’ - ~~ “Nothing." answered Marjorie. “We have hardly spoken to each other.” “Sandie says he asked for strong driuk last night, and he nearly choked me with the fumes of his tobacco, the graceless loon! Yet for all that, Majorie, blood is thicker than water, and he’s the heir of Linne." - “Yes, sir,” said Majorie.uncomfortable under the old man’s eyes still fixed with a curious expression upon her. “Come tell me, graceless as he seems, how would you like him for a husband?” “For a husband!”-cried Majorie, starting. “Ay. and why not? You are a lonely hiss and ho will be the laird when I am gone. ” “But you will not go. Yoii’afe better and stronger already. ” “The hand of Death is on me; the ’ blood runs cold as quicksilver at seventy years.l'll soon be lying in my grave.” “No. no!” “But aye, Marjorie. But if I was not ripe do you think I would be gathered? Now listen, Marjorie. I have been as’nful man. Thirty years ago Twas as graceless as yon young limmer, but I have repented, and if there is hope for me there may be hope for him as weel, Let that stand. You ken, Marjorie, I never married?” "I .know that, sir?” —— “But do you know all? You know nothing! Tis a secret that rests till this day between Willie Macgillvray and me. Before you came to this house, flesh of my flesh and bone of niy boue was east, by God's will, to the bottom of the sea!” The girl looked at him in wonder. His face was set like granite, but his eyes were dilated and shone like fire. “There was a lass as bonnie as a May morning. She was a poor peasant: I was a rich man, and I beguiled her under promise of marriage. She bore one bairn, a son, Marjorie! The golden haired laddie! I think I see him now! Had I done my duty to man and God be would be kneeling here this day. and all I have, all I have saved aud kept (for I have been a saving man)would now be his own.” He paused iu great agitation, threw himself back on his jfillow and gasped for breath. “Do not speak of all this,” said Marjorie, you will make yourself ill ‘ n. *

"I must speak! The secret is f’-ewirg' me, Marjorie. ’Twas a jut g uer t upon me! Willie Macg 111vrey s id so. and he was right; I s7ou’d • we taken the woman to my .heart and ’dtc bairn upon my knee; bur 1 w .7 o ‘‘r proqd; proud as Herod; and now, I’i'l; him. I'm eaten up as of worms. « but he was a bonnie bairn. v,\faced and < omly, with eves like the blue sky and a voice like running water. Had he lived he would have been a man o' men!” “Rut what became of him sir?” 1 sked Marjorie. “Did be die?” “Drown’d, drown’d! Mother and 1 m went down with a cure on me! I bet rayed my promise: I 1 efused to do i n justice, and, sick with despair, Ihe went away to joiiL her folk in Canada. I would have called her back, but it was o’er late. ’Twas the year of the great storm, and the ship went down with every soul on board.” •> Hj oausod again, and, stretching out ale n hand, pointed to a rude E aiming in oil which hung over the ed; the nortrait of a nian in the prune of life, with a dark, forbidding face, narrow, harsh and stern. “Look yonder. Marjorie. That was me, when the strength of manhood was upon me, at the time when the curse fell. An artist from Edinburg parnted it for five pounds and his ‘ keep, and folk say it is weel done, ; but to me it is like a ghaist of the wicked past. Weel, 1 repented. Sickness camd, and in sickness I saw my sins grow bigger and bigger. Lonesome pears followed. I had no friend, no man to whom I cou d open up mv heart, but Willie the Preacher. At last, one day ten years syne, he came to me leading a wee lassie bv the band. ‘Your fldsh and blood is under the sea,’ he said; ‘here s something to keep and rear instead. ’ " ‘‘Yes, I remember,"-sighed Marjorie. ‘••Your own father and mother were deed, and you were alone in the world. The moment I saw you my j heart went out to you, for you had golden hair. But at first I was mad with Willie Macgib.vray, and Sdy to drive you bi>th from my. a - . ‘Who is she?'l asked. ‘The bairn of a better man than you or me,’ the rogue, replied,'‘oue Alexan.der Glenuy. who yas at coiltige wi" <ne, and died a minister o’ the kirk.’ Wlwa you began to sob and cry,

feard o’ my frowning face; and’ that pleased me, and, sinoe ye did not wish to stay, I inclined to keep you. and stay you have tifi this hour.” Tears were streaming down the girl's cheeks. Her eyes were full of dreamy retrospection, all her face full of sorrow. Stooping forward, the old man patted her hand, not unkindly, as he said: “Dry your tears, Marjorie. It has been a* cheerless life, I ken, herewith me alone, but all is for the best You have had schooling from the dominie, and Willie Macgillvray has taught you the Latin tongue, and you have a tonguedike alady. And a lady you shall be, when latn 1 ving in the kirkyard." “Do you think I care for that?” cried Marjorie. *<All I want is to remain with you and be your nurse.” “Poor lassie! poor lassie!” muttered the laird, “You've grown round my heart like a missletoe round the oak, and you’re white and bright as the missletoe berry. My own daughter could not be closer to my heart, Marjorie,” “I am your daughter, sir, am I not'.' Indeed, I love you like a daughter!" “Aye, ay, ay! And you shall be a lady yet; I have set my heart onit. But oh, Marjorio, if I had seen my . son! The bonnio laddie, flesh o’ my flesh, bone o’ my bone, that should have been my heir! Drowned! drowned! Shall 1 meet him, I’m wondering, when the sea gives up its dead? ’ He lay back upon his cushions, muttering to himself. Suddenly he started and Marjorie sprang to her feet, for a voice in the room said — “Who comes here like a wolf intil the fold? Who comes here like a thief in the night to steal my boy’s birthright?” Standing erect and bareheaded in the middle of the chamber was Willie Macgillvray. ns worn and woebegone, as ragged and wild as ever, anti"covered now with the snows and frosts' of many years. But though old age had set its mark upon him, his figure was still straight and hale, his voice deen and musical his manner fult of strength and power. “Is that you, Willie Macgillvray?’, said the laird, nervously. “What brings you hera at this hour?” “1 came to sae the limmer who would steal the birthright,” was the reply. “He's down yonder and I have seen him!” “You mean my nephew Edward? Weel, ho is my nearest kin. ” “The hawk lies wounded on the ground and the corby-crow wou’d inherit? Let me show him the door and point his face southward to the land whence he came.” “I sent for hini,” said the laird, sharply. “He will stay here till I bid him go.” , Willie was about to speak again, I but at a look from Marjorie he desisted. Falling back upon his pillows Mosskuow cried, waving his hand towards Hie door—~“Gol leave me—both of you. It is ill to trouble a dying man. Leave me I and let me try to sleep.” ; . ..Without a word Marjorie stooped and kissed him, then turning to the ■ mendicant drew him gently from the 1 chamber. Passing down stairs in silence they ■ left the house, and as they did so en- ' countered Edward Linne upon the threshold, leaning against lhe porch I and indolently surveying the dreary 1 landscape. He met Willie's scornful look with a careless yawn, but smiled and nodded to Marjorie as she went by. “Come down with me to the seashore,” said Willio. “I sicken when. I breathe the air o’ Castle Hunger. Let the old man sleep awhile; maybe the Lord will send a dream to warn him against yon graceless loon.” It was a dark and chilly afternoon; the sky was cloudless and the hills stretched away inland in inky silhoutte. Their way lay across dreary moorland till they came in sight of the sea, and as they went, following ho footpath but crossing the bleak moor, the heather grew thicker and the ground swelled into purple kuolls. Neither spoke; both were deep in thought. Emerging from the moor they gained a country road skirting the edge of the sea and came in sight of a thinly wooded promontory facing westward. The wood was composed of bare fir trees and a few stunted pines, and on the inland side facing the road hung a rain-beaten board, nailed against a tree and bearing this tremendous inscription in rude-, ly painted letters— TAKE NOTICE ! PRIVATE ! In tile name of Willie the Hermit Steel Traps and Spring Guns! Cave Canfm! Keep to the Road! Marjorie smiled, as she had often smiled before, at these words of warning, and, entering the wood by Willie’s side, found herself before th* hermit’s habitation. Built among the trees, against the side of a low crag, was a rude hut or cabin, roofed with withered branches and peat cut from the moss. The bare cliff formed one side of the hut, the others were rudely built of stones carried from the seashore. There was a broken door, and a small wooded window-Dane, both secured from some ruined cabin among the mountains. The door stood open, and they entered. On the bare earth within wore a couple of stools, a rude table, ] formed of the stump bf a tree, anda coup e of planks that formed a sort lof bed. A peat fire was burning in f the middle of the hut, and filling the with its blue smoke. Down ■ tho inward wall, or cliff-side, ran the damp green and golden moss, trick- , bug with dews distilled by the solid i rock. e. > ( ■ I It was a miserable place, but, Wil-

lie entered it with a proud sense of possession. “Sit ye down, Marjorie!” he said, while the girl paused, half choking with the thick smoke. “Peat reck is good for the lungs, my lass, and for the eyes as weel. I hgve found the peace o’ God here, and itjs ne'er come to Castle Hunger. Not a stone not a peat stack, not u bough of wood, but I curried here with my own hands; There's water from the roek, an ever flowing fountain, and with a bit of bread now and then, and a sup of milk, and the hens to lay me bonnie white eggs, I'm better lodged than a king." A s he s poke, t >v o orthree ragged hens wore running qbout his feet. He put his hand into his pocket, and drawing out a handful of dry corn, threw it down among them. He sat down on the boards of tho bed, and lifted some dilapidated books which were lying thereon. “The mind must feed as well as’ the body, and I have my library: the Bible o’ God. according to the new Moral Law; the Bible o Robin Burns published by Mac Ewen o’ Kilmarnock; Shelley's ‘Queen Mab;* Bunyan's ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.” - "Hut there, you ken them all.” Marjorie looked at him in wonder; for, though she had knowh him so many years, he was as great a puzzle to her as ever. “ “Oh, Mr. Macgillvray," she said, “how can you bear to live in such a place, and you, as the laird says, a gentleman born?” Willie smiled and nodded. “And a graduate o’ Edinburgh University, and a minister o’ the kirk! See my name on this book Marjorie—the Rev. William Macgillvray, B. D., which stands for Bachelor o' Divinity, or Damn’d Blackguard.just as ye care to take it! Esau sold his birthright for a mess of porridge.and I, Willie Macgillvray, sold mine tor a mouthful of drink. Wee 1 , weel, it’s a world of ups and downs!” — I “But you arc growing old. You I should have some one to look after you, instead of living here allalone.” “God looks after me," returned Willie. “Marjorie, woman, I see Him looking at me all night through yon hole in thereof, and His eye is blue and bonnie, like the summer sky; but whiles He weeps for my sins, and His tears shower down upon me like the falling rain.” So mad and yet so wise! thought Marjorie; for she knew that the man who talked so wildly sometimes was as shrewd as the shrewdest farmer ia the district. “Tell me about the laird,’’she said. “Will he get better?" “In his grave,” answered the hermit. “I see the sleep stour in his eyes already. gnaws his vitals as the vulture gnawed the liver , of Prometheus, and he calls, like yon ' Titan on Caucasus, to tho elementa- ■ rv powers o’ Nature—‘the air, and 1 the fountains, and the laughing sea, ! add earth, the mother of all!’ Weel, i they hear him, and in their eternal 1 mercy are weaving him a shroud and hawking him a grave!” “He will not die!” cried Marjorie, ' while the tears streamed down her ’face.* “Why should he live?” asked Willie. sadly. “I am sure you will miss him, sir. He respects and loves you—he has been your friend." “Maybe, maybe," muttered hermit., “I have forgiven him king ago. And yet —-I can ne’er forgive him if he brings in yon evil limmer to steal my bairn's birthright!” Reminded by these words of her conversation with the laird. Marjorie bent forward eagerly and said—“ls’it true that he ever married- — that he had a child? He spoke of a son today, but 1 thought that he was wandering.” “He spoke the truth. He had a a son, a bonnie son.” ‘“Who was drownqd long ago. at sea?" “Ah, "drowned, drowned?”" cried Willie, with sudden vehemence. “He died and left his death at tho doorja’ John Mossknow,” "If you had heard him speak of his son! Oh, sir, it was pitiful - He must have loved him so much!” “I taught him that lesson," answered Willie, grimly. “I dinged the truth into his lonely heart, till he fell on his knees I’ke David, and cried, ‘Absalom! my son, my son!’ But it was o’er late. The deed was i done. They will meet up yonder—i the old man with his withered face and rheumy een, the boy with his blue eyes and golden hair, and the ■ Lord will judge!" i “Are you certain that he is dead?” cried Marjorie. “Maybe ” “No, Marjorie; had the Lord spared him we should have beard. The mermaids have him, and the spirits of the deep waters. 'Nothing o' him but doth change Into something rich and strangel jl never stand by yonder shore, and see the golden tangle drifting in with the tide, and the medusae floating and sparling in the sun, but I seem to catch a glimpse of the boy I loved. Peace be with him now and for evermore. Amen.” Troubled and distressed beyond measure, Marjorie rose nnd held out her hand. “I must go now, sir. The laird will be wanting me.” “Go then, Majorie, an 9 leave Willie Mcgillvry to his prayers," said the hermit, placing his strong hand on- the girl's head and her face towards the light that stole in from above. “Eh, my lass, but you are bonnie! You took the heir’s place, and sheila light of salvation into Mossknow’s hard heart. Weel, it is a lass, when it should have been a lad. Had ye seen my boy, you would have loved him. Marjorie!” “I am sure of that, ’’ cried the girl. “So bright, so sunny, so bold and

bonnie — sunbeam, Marjorie! He spake out his mind like a man till a man, when he saw me under tha curse o’ drink. ‘ You're drunk again, Willie” says he. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings is the evil man rebuked! I’ve never tasted whiskey since the day I got the news ct my boy’s death!” ’ ’ Here Macglllyrv spoke. the simple truth. For tw nty years he had been a teetolalftr; yet the old habits of his youth and early manhood hud left their indelible marks upon his brain. So wild and eccentric were his outbursts stllh that people yet attributed them to strong liquors. ■ As Marjorie left the cave, or cabin, she glanced back and saw that the old man had fallen upon his knees and was praying alound. Greatly moved by.what she had heard and seen, she walked slowly from the wood, and crossing the road, made her way again the open moor. [to be continted.]