Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1892 — The Master Of Ballantrae [ARTICLE]

The Master Of Ballantrae

CHAPTER ITT. I made the last of fay journey in the cold end of December, in a -mighty dry day of Jrost; and who should be my guide but Patey Macnorl&nd. brother of Tam! For a tew headed, bare-legged brat of ten, ho had more ill tales upon his tongue than ever I heard the match of; having drunken betimes in his brother’s cup. I was still not so old myself; pride had not yet the upper hand of curiosity ; and indeed it would have taken any man, that cold morning, to hear all the old clashes of the -country and be shown all the places by the way where strange things had fallen out. I had tales of Claverhouse as we came through the bogs, and tales of the devil as we came ♦ver the top of the scaur. As we came in by the abbey I heard somewhat of the old monks, and more of the free traders, who use its ruins for a magazine, landing for that cause within a cannon shot of Durrisdeer; and along all the road the Duries and poor Mr. Henry were in the first rank of slander. My mind was thus highly prejudiced against the family I was about to serve : so that I was half surprised when I beheld Durrisdeer itself, lying in the Eretty sheltered bay under the Abey Hill, the house most commodiously built in the French fashion or perhaps Italianate, for 1 have no skill in these arts ; and tho place the most beautified with gardens, lawns, shrubberies and trees I. had ever seen. The money sunk here un productively would have quite restored the family : hut as it was, it cost a revenue to keep it up. Mr. Henry came himself to the door to welcome me : a tall, dark young gentleman (the Duries are all black men.! of a plain and not cheerful face, very strong in body but not so strong in health; taking me by the hand without any pride, and putting me at home with plain, kind speeches. He led me into tho hall, booted as I was, to present me to my lord. It was still daylight; and the first thing I observed was a lozenge of clear glass in the midst of the shield in the painted window, which I remember thinking a blemish on a room otherwise so handsome, with its family portraits and the parget-1 ted ceiling with pendants, and the carved chimney, in one corner of I which my old lord sat reading in his ] Divy. He was like Mr. Henry, with I much the same plain countenance, only more subtle and pleasant, and his talk a thousand times more entertaining. He had many questions to ask me, I remember, of Edinburg College, where I had just received my mastership of arts, and of the various professors, with whom and their proficiency he seemed well acSnain ted:Eland thus, talking of »ings that I knew, I soon got liberty, of speech in my new home. In the midst of this came Mrs. Henry into the room ; she was very far gone, Miss Katharine being due in about six weeks, which made me think less of her beauty at the first sight; and she used me with more of condescension than the rest so that, upon all accounts, I kept her in the third place of my esteem. It did not take long before all Pate Macmarland’s tales were blotted out of my belief, and I was become, what I have ever since remained, a loving servant of the house of Durrisdeer. Mr. Henry had! the chief part of my affection. | It was with him that I worked; and I found him an exacting master, keepingall his kindness, for those hours in which we were unemployed, and in the steward's o iice not only loading me with work but viewing me with a shrewd supervision. At length one day he looked up from his paper with a kind of timidness, and says he, “Mr. Mackellar, I think that. I ought to tell you that you do very well.” That was my first word of commendation: and from that day his ~ealousy of my performance was relaxed: soon it was ‘Mr. Mackellar’ here, and ‘Mr. Mackellar’ there, with the whole family; and for much of my service at Durrisdeer, I have transacted everything at my own time and to my own fancy, and never a farthing challenged. Even while he was driving me, I had begun to find my heart go out to Mr. Henry; uo doubt partly in pity, he was a man so palpably unhappy. He would fail into a deep muse over our accounts. starring at the page or out of the window: and at those times the look of his face, and the sigh that would break from him, awoke in me strong feeling of curiosity and commiseration. One day, I remember, we were late upon some business in thesteward’s room. This room is in the top of the house and has a view upon the bay, and over a little wooded ' cape, on the long sands; and there, right over against the ’ sen which was then dipping, we saw the free-traders with a great foice of men and horses scouring on the beach, Mr. Henry had been staring straight west, so that I marvelled lie was not blinded by the sun; suddenly he frowns, riibb >d his hand upon his brow, and turus to me with a smile: “You would not guess what I was thinking," says he. “rwusthinkiny I would be a happier man if I could ride and run the danger of my fife with these lawless companions'”' L told him I had observed he did not enjoy good spirits; and that it was a cotomoi) fancy to envy others •nd think we should be the better of ■some change; quoting Horacetoth* ‘X.. iOt'J.'”'" ■ '

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

point, like a young man fresh from college. “Why, just so,” said he. “And with that we may get back to our accounts.” It was not long before I began to gfet wind of the causes that so much depressed him. Indeed a blind man must have soon discovered there was a shadow on that house, the shadow of the Master of Ballantrae. Dead or alive (and he was then supposed to be dead) that man was his brother’s rivals his rival abroad, where there was never a good word for Mr. Henry and nothing but regret and p raise for the master; and .his rival - at home, not only with his father and his wife, but with the very servants. They were two old serving men, that were the leaders. John Paul, a little, bald, solemn, stomachy man, a great professor of piety and (take him for all in all) a pretty faithful servant, was the chief of the master's faction. None durst go so far as John. He took a pleasure in disregarding Mr. Henry publicly, often with a slighting comparison. My Lord ancT **rs. Henry took him up, to be sure, but never so resolutely as they should; and he had only to pull his veeping face and begin his lamentations for the master—“his laddie,” as he called him—to have the whole condoned. As for Henry, he let things pass in silence, sometimes with a sad and sometimes with a black look. There was no rivaling the dead, he knew that; and how to censure an old serving man for a fault of lovalty was more than he could see. His was not the tongue to do it. Maeconochie was chief upon the other rde; an old, illspoken, swearing, ranting, drunken dog; and I have often thought it an odd circumstance in human nature that these two serving-men should each have been the champanion of his contrary, and blackening their own faultsand made light of their own virtues when they beheld them in a master. Maeconochie had soon smelled out my secret inclination, Jook me much into his confidence, and rant against the master by the hour, so that even my work 'suffered. ‘‘They’re a’ daft here,” he would cry, “and be damned to them! The master— the deii’s in their trapples that should call him sae! it’s Mr. Henry should be master now! They .were nane so fond o’ the master when they j hud him, 1 can tell ye that. Sorro.w , on his name! Never a guid word i did I hear on his lips, or uaebody else, but just fleering and flyting and pro F anecursing—deil ha’e him! There nane kent his wickdness; him a gentlemanl Did ever ye bear tell, Mr. Mackeller, o’Wully White, the wabster? No! Aweel, Wully was an unco praying kind o’ man; a driegh body, nane o’ my kind, J never could aoide the sight o’ him; onyway he was a g -eat band by his way of it, and be u t and rebukit the master for some of bin on-goings, It was a I grand thing for the Master o’ Bal’n- j trae, to tak’ up a feud wi’ a’ wabster, j was nae’t?” Maeconochie would ’ sneer; Indeed he never took the full name upon his lips but with a sort of a whine of hatred. “But he.did! A fine employ it was; chapping at the man’s door, and crying ‘boo’ in his lum, and puttin’ pootber in his fire, and pee-oys*in his window; till the man thocht it was auld Hornie was » come seekin' him. Weel, to mak’ a i laug story short, Wully gaed gyte. | At the Linder end, they couldnaeget ; him frae his knees,but he ust roared and prayed and grat straucht on, till ' he got his release. It was fair mur- | der, a’body said that. Ask John Paul—he was brawly ash uned o’ . that game, him that’s sic a Christian | man I Grand doln's for the Master i o’ Ball’ntrae ! ” I asked him what i the master had thought of himself. “ How would I ken ? ” says he. “He never said naething. ’’ And on again in his usual manner of banning and swearing, with every now and again a “ Master o’ Ballantrae ” ; sneered through his nose. It was in one of these confidences that he showed me the Carlisle letter, the print of the horseshoe still stamped m the paper. Indeed that was our last confidence; for he then expressed himself so ill naturedly of Mrs. Henry that I had to reprimand him sharply, and must thenceforth bold him at a distance. My old lord was uniformly kind to Mr. Henry ; he had even pretty ways of gratitude, and would sometimes , clap him on the shoulder and say. as if to the world at large : “This is a very good son to me. ” And grateful ) he was, no < oubt, being a man of sense und justice. But I, think that was all. and I am sure Mr. Hen y thought so. The love was all for the dead son. Not that this was often given breath to ; indeed, with me but once. My lord hud asked me one day how I got on with Mr. Henry, and 1 had told him the truth. " Ay, " said he, looking sideways ,on the burning fire, ‘Henry is a good lad, a very good lad, ’’ suit! be. “ You have heard, Mr. Mackellar, that I bad another son ? lam afraid lih was not so virtuous a lad as Mr. I Henry , but dear me. be*B dead. Mr ] Mackellar! and while he lived we ( were all very proud of him, all very | proud. If he was not all he should I have been in some ways, well, periups we loved him better I" This ast he said, looking musingly in the fire; and then to me, with a great deal of briskness, " But l am re.oiced you do so well with Mr. Henry. You will find him a good mas' tr. And kiM«i lUMforkuiude wap prirdte."

with that he opened his book, which was the customary signal of dismission. But it would be little that he read and less that he understood; Culloden field and the master, these would be the burderrof his thought ; and the burden of mine was an "unnatural jealousy of the dead man for Mr. Henry’s sake that had even then begun to grow on me. l am keeping Mrs. Henry for the last so that this expression of my sentiment may seem unwarrantably strong: the reader shall judge for himself when I have done. But I must first tell of another matter, which was the means of bringing me more intimate. Iliad not yet been* six months at Durrisdeer when it chanced that John Paul fell sick and must keep his bed; drink was the root of his malady, in my poor thought, but he was tended and indeed carried himself like an afflicted saint; and the very minister, -who came to visit him. professed himself edified when he went away. The third morning of his sickness, Mr. Henry comes to me with something of a hang dog look. '• Mackellar, ” says he, “I wish I could trouble you upon a little service. There is a pension we pay ; it is John’s part to carry it; and now that he is sick, I know not to whom I should look unless it was youYself. The matter is very delicate , I could nut carry it with my own hand for a sufficient reason ; I dare not send Maeconochie who is a talker, and I am—l have—l am desirous this should not come to Mrs; Henry’s ears, ’’ says he, and flushed to his neck as he said it. To say truth, when I found I was to carry money to one Jessie Broun, who was no better than she sbotdd be, I supposed It was some trip of his own that Mr. Henry was dissembling. I was the more impressed when the truth came out. It was up a wynd off a side street in St. Bride’s that Jessie bad her lodging. The place was very ill inhabited, mostly by the free trading sort; there was a man with a broken head at the entry ; half way up, in a tavern, fellows were roaring and singing, though it was not yet nine in the daj. Altogether. I had never seen a worse neighborhood even in the great city of Edinburgh, and I was In two minds to go back. Jessie’s room was of a piece with her surroundings, and herself no better. She would not give me the receipt (which Mr. Henry bad told me to demand, for he was very methodical) until she had sent out for spirits and I had pledged her in a glass ; and all the time she carried on in a light headed, reckless way, now aping the manners of a lady, now breaking into unseemly mirth, now making coquettish advances that oppressed me to the ground. ;Of the money, she spoke more tragically. “It's blood money, ” said she, “I take it for that: blood money for the betraved. See what I’m brought down tot Ah, ,ft the bonnie lad were back again, it would be changed days. But he’s deid—he’s lyin’ deid amang the Hieland hills—the bonnie lad. the bonnie lad I ” . She had a rapt manner of crying on the bonnie lad,clasping her bands and casting up her eyes, that I think she must have learned of strolling players; and I thought her sorrow very much of an affectation, and tlqat she dwelt upon the business because her shame was now all she had to be proud of. I will not say I did not pity her, but it was a loathing pity at the best; and last change of manner wiped it out. This was w hen -shehad had enough for me for an audience and bad set here name at last to the receipt. “Therel”says she, and taking the most unwomanly Oaths upon her tongue, bade me begone and carry it to the Judas who had sent me. It was the first time I had beard the name applied to Mr. Henry: I was staggered besides 1 at her sudden vehemence of word | and manner; and got forth from the room, under this shower of curses, like a beaten dog. But even then I was not quit; for the vixen threw up her window, and, leaning forth, cons tinued to revile me as I went up the wynd; the free traders, coming to the tavern door, joined in the mocks ery; and one had even the inhuman - ity to set upon „me a very savage, small dog, which bit me in the ankle. This was a strong ’««son, had I required one. to avoi If company; and I rode home in muu.. pain from the bite and considerable indignation of of mind. Mr Henry was in the steward’s room, affecting employment, but I could see he was only impatient to hear of my errand. “Well?” says he, as soon as I came in; and when I had told him some thing of what passed, and that Jessie ' seemed an undeserving woman and far from grateful; “She is no friend to nrie.” said he; “but indeed,Mackellar, I have few friends to boast of; and Jessie has some cause to be unjust. I need not dissemble what all : the country knows, she was not very well used by one of our family?’ This was the first time I had heard him refer to the master even distantly; and J think ho found-his tongue rebellious, even for that much; but presently resumed. “This is why I would have nothing said. It would give pain to Mrs. Henry—and to my father,” he added with another flu.V' "Mr. Henry,” said I, “if you win take a freedom at my hands, I would tell you to. let that w be. What service is your money to the like of her? Bhe Ims no sobriety and no economy; as for gratitude, you will as soon get milk from a whinstone; and if you will pretermityour bounty it will make no change at all but ust to save the ankles of your messengers.” Mr. Henry smiled. “But lam grieved about your ankle,” said he,

the next moment, with a proper gravity. t - ‘‘And observe,” I continued, “I give you this advice upon consideration: and yet my heart was touched for the woman in the beginning.J’ “Why there it is, you see!” said Mr. Henry. “And you are to re.member that I knew her once a very decent lass. Besides which, although I Speak little of my family, 1 think much of its repute.” And with that he broke up the talk, wh ch was the first we .had together in such confidence. Htttthe same afternoon 1 had the proof that his father was perfectly acquainted . with-the business, and that it was only from his wife that Mr. Henry kept it secret. “I fear you had a painful errand to-day,” says my. lord to. me: “for which, as it enters in no way among your duties, I wish to thank you,and to remind you at the same Tirme j^n - : case Mr. Henry should have neglected) how very desirable it is that no word of it should reach my daughter. Reflections on the dead, Mr. Mackellar, are doubly painful." Anger glowed in my heart; and I could have told my lord to his face how Little he had to do, bolstering up the image of the dead in Mrs. Henry’s heart, and)iow much better he were employed to shatter that false idol. For by this time I saw very well how the land lay between my patron and his wife/

CHAPTER IV. My pen is clear enough to tell a plain tale; but to render the effect of an infinity of small things, not one great enough in itself to bo narrated; and to translate the story of looks, and the message of voices when they are saying no great matter; and to put in half a page the essence of near eighteen months; this is what I despair to accomplish. The fault, to be very blunt, Itty all in Mrs. Henry. She felt it a merit to have consented to the marriage, and she took it like a martyrdom; in which my old lord, whether he knew it or not, fomented her. She made a merit, besides, of her constancy to the dead; though its name, to a nicer conscience, should have seemed rather disloyalty to the living; and here also my lord gave her his countenance. I suppose he was glad to talk of his loss, and ashamed to dwell on it with Mr. Henry. Certainly, at least, he made a little coterie apart in that family of three, and it was the husband who was shut out. It seems it was an old custom when the family were alone in Durrisdeer, that my lord take his wine to the chimney side, and Miss Alison (instead of withdrawing) should bring a stool to his knee and chatter to him privately; and after she had become my patron’s wife, the same manner of doing was I continued. It should have been ■ pleasant to behold this ancient gentleman so loving with his daughter; but I was too much a partisan of Mr. Henry’s to be anything but wroth at his exclusion. Many’s the time I have seen him make an obvi- I ous resolve, quit the table, and go I and join himself to his wife and my Lord Durrisdeer; and on their part, they were never backward to make him welcome, turned to him smilingly as to an intruding child, and took him into their talk with an effort so ill concealed that he was soon back again me at the table; whence (so great is the hall of Durrisdeer) we could hear the murmur of voices at the chimn/ y, 1 There he would sit and watch and I along with him; and sometimes by my lord’s head sorrowfully shaken, or his hand laid on Mrs. Henry’s head or hers upon hfeknee in conso’ation, or sometimes by an exchange of tearful looks, we would draw our conclusion that the talk had gone to the old subject and the shadow of the dead was in the hull. I have hours when I blame Mr. Henry for taking all too patiently; yet we are to remember he was married in pity, and accented his wife upon that term. And indeed he had small encouragement to make a stand. Once, I remember, he an- i nounced he had found a man to re- I place the pane of the stained window, which, as it was he that managed all the business, was a thing clearly within his attributions. But to the master’s fanciers that pane was like a relic, and on the first word of any change the blood flew to Mrs. Henry’s face. “I wonder at you!" she cried. “I wonder at myself,” said Mr. Henry with more bitterness than I had ever heard him express. Thereupon my old lord stepped in with his smooth talk, so before the meal was at an end all seemed for- ! gotten; only that, after dinner, when the pair .had withdrawn as usual to the chimney side, we could see her weeping with her,head upon his knee. Mr. Henry kept up the talk with me upon sorpe topic of the estates —he could speak of little else but business and was never the best of company; but be kept it up that day with more continuity, his eye straying ever and again to the chimney and his voice changing to another key, but without cheek of delivery. The pane, however, was not replaced, and I believe he counted it a great defeat. ,Wh ther be was stout enough or no, God knows he was kind enough. Mrs. Henry had-a manner of condescension with him, such as (in a wife) would have pricked my vanity into an ulcer; he took it like a favor; She held him at the staff’s end; forgot and then remembered and unbent to him, as we do to children; burdened 'him with cold kindness; reproved him with a change of color and bitten lip, like one shamed by his disgrace; ordered him with a look of the eye, when she was off her guard; when shpwas on the wutch, pleaded with Um for tho most natural attentions

as though they were unheard-of favors. And to all this he replied with unwearied service, loving’ as folks say, the very ground she trod on, and carrying that love in his eyes as bright as a lamp. When Miss Katharine was to be born nothing would serve but that he must stay in the room behind the head of the bed. There he sat, as white (they. tsll roe) as a sheet and the sweat dropping from fcis brow, and the liandkerthief he had in his hand was crushed into a little ball no bigger than a )musket bullet., Nor could he bear the sight of Miss Katharine for many a day; indeed I doubt if be was ever what he should have been to my young lady, for which want of natural feeling be was loudly blamed. « Such was the state of this family down to the 7th of April, 1749, when there befell the first of that series.of events which were to break so many

CHAPTER V. On that day I was sittiijg in my room a little before supper when John Paul burst open the door with no civilty of knocking and tdld me was one belo w who wished to speak to the steward, sneering at the name of my office. I asked what manner of man and what his name was, and this disclosed the cause of John’s ill-humor, for it appeared the visitor refused to name himself except to me, a sore affront to the major-domo’s consequence. “Well,” said I, smiling a little, “I will see what he wants.” I found in the entrance hall a big man very plainly habited and wrapped in a sea cloak, like one newly landed, as indeed he was. Not far off Maeconochie was standing, with bis tongue out of his mouth and hand upon his chin, like a dull fellow thinking hard: and the stranger, who had brought his cloakmbout his face, appeared uneasy. He had no sooner seen me coming than he went to meet me in an effusivd manner. (to be continued.)