Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1893 — The Master of Ballantrae [ARTICLE]

The Master of Ballantrae

By Robert Louis Stevenson. CHAPTER Xl—-CONTINUED. This missive I carried at once to Mr. Henry; and 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. CHAPTER XII. From the coming of the colonel’s letter, l had a spyglass in my room, began to drop questions to the tenant folk, and as there was no great secrecy observed and the fred-trade (in our part) went by force as much as stealth, I had soon got together a knowledge of the signals in use, and knew 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 willing ly. Indeed by what proved in the sequel an unhappy chance, I was an object of scorn to some of these braggad cios; who had not only gratified me with a nickname, but catching me one night upon a bypath and being all (as they would have said) somewhat merry, had ave 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, 1 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 commont is required. It happened on the afternoon of November 7th, i this same unfortunate year, that I espied, during my walk, the smoke of a beacon fire upon the Mucklcross. It was drawing near time for my return: but the uneasiness upon my spirits was that day so great that l 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 tr ading out their signal fire upon the Ross, and in the bay the lugger lying with her sails bruited up. She was plainly but now 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 1 knew could signify but one h ng, 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 bid among the shore side thickets in time to see the boat touch. Captian Crail himself was steering, a thing not usual, by his side there sat a passenger; and the men gave way with difficulty, being tampered with near upon half a dozen portmanteaus, great and small. But the business of landing was briskly darned 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 an I a walking cane upon his wrist. As he 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 dffidence 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 full, and waved and cried on me to draw near. 1 did so with a heart like lead. “Here, my good man," said he, in the English accent, “here are some things for Durrisdeer." 1 was now near enough to see him, a very handsome figure and countenance. swarthy, lean. long, with a quick, alert, block look, as of one who was a fighter and accustomed to command: upon one check he had a mole, not unbecoming: a large diamond sparked 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. “l wager, my friend, “says he, ''that I know both your name and nickname. I divined these very garments upon your band of writing, Mr, Blackellar," At these words I fell to shaking. “Oh,” says be, “you need not be afraid of me, 1 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 precision), it is so I have curtailed

my own. Come, now, pick up that and that” —indicating two 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 ever green. I followed behind, loaded almost to the dust, although I profess I was not conscious of the burden, 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 arc the master of Ballantrae?" “You will do me the justice to observe,” says be, “that 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 1 ” 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 traps of mine, which you have set down in a very boggy place, and attend to that which I have made your business.” But I had no thought now of obedience; I came straight up to him. “If nothing will move you to go back,” said 1, “though sure, under the circumstances, “any Christian, or even any gentleman, would scruple to go forward--” “These are very 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 Maekellar 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 or 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 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 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 said 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 he. “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 recognize 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 welcomed as I can in the house of our fathers." “Or in my house? or yours" says the matter. “Which was you about to say? But this is an old sore, so 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 excellent ly well.” “Why, I believe I do,” said the other, with a little laugh. And this, although they had not, as yet, 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 to send one of the servants?" with ah 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 effective playfulness was in his voice. And while John laid the fresh place for him (a thing whjch 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 upward 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 sets 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 hot shame but flattered us. All that he did throughout the meal, indeed, drinking wine with me with a notable respect, turning about for a Eleasant word with John, fondling is 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 be hind with dropping tears. As soon as supper was over, Mrs. Henry rose to withdraw. “This was never your way, Allison,” 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 —froth thcolead,” said she, and her voice drooped and trembled. Poor Mr. Henry, who had made rather aheavy figure through the meal; was more concerned than ever; pleased to see his wife withdraw, and yet half displeased, as he thought upon the bause ofTt; and the next moment altogether dashed by the fervor of her speech. ====== On my part, I thought I was now one too many; and was stealing after Mrs. Henry, when tho master saw me. • -•••••-• - : “Now, Mr. Maekellar,” 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 yo down, and drink another glass with Mr. Bally.” “Ay. ay, Mr. Maekellar," says my lord, “we must not make a stranger either of him or you. I have been tellingmy son,” he added, his voice brightening as usual on the word, “how much we valued all your friendly service, i ’ . 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 endeavors to carry things before my lord, up jumps the master, passes about the board, and clasps his brother on the shoulder. “Come, come, Hairry lad,” says he, with a broad accent on such as they must have used together when they were boys, “you must not be downcast beca> se 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 besides 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 tne elder brother of the parable in the good sense; you must be careful of the other.” “I am easily put ib the wrong?" said Mr. Henry “Who puts you in tho 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 thougfit to be his interest? or by a mere delight in cruelty such as cate display and theologians tell us of tho devil? or by iyhat ho would have called love f My common opinion % *

halts among the three first; but perhaps there lay at the spring of his behavior 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 weuld 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 depicable 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 burden 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 patron 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?” as|<s 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 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 per.lidious, so simple, so impossible to combat. And yet I think again, and I think always, Mrs. Henry might have read between the lines; she might have had more knowledge of her husband’s nature; after all theso 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? -Bui for one TEing, the decc-it waTpracttccd by a master hand, and might have gulled an angel. For another (in the case of Mrs. Henry’s), 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 tongug. For a third (in the case of both these spectators), they were blinded by old ingrained predilection. And for a fourth,, the risk the master was supposed to stand m (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. J-Tcnry had the essence of a gentleman; when he was moved, when there was any call of circumstances, 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 moment but it commended him. So it befell, that when the one appeared gracious and the other ungracious, every trick of their bodies seemed to call out confirmation. Nor that alone; but the more deeply Mr. Henry floundered m his brother’s toils, the more clownish he grew; and the more the master enjoyed his spiteful entertainment, tho more engagingly, the more smilingly, he went! So that the plot, by its own scope and progress, furthered otd confirmed itself. It was one of tho man’s arts to use the peril in which, os 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 ns a cruel weapon of offense. I remember his laying his linger on the clean lozenge of the painted window, one day when wo three were alone together in the hall. “Here went your lucky guinea, Jacob," said ho. And when Mr. Henry only looked upon him darkly, “6h," 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 bo wrought to the point of a denunciation, scrupulous brother? It is one of my interests in this dreary hole. I ever lov&l experiment.'' (to be continued.) .