Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1893 — The Master of Ballantrae [ARTICLE]

The Master of Ballantrae

By Robert Louis Stevenson.

■' CHAPTER XlX— Continued. “Why, Mr. Bally," said I, “the house will still be open to you for a time. ” ' 4 “For a time?" says he. “I d<s not know if I quite take your meaning.” keep you for our reputation; as soon as you shall have publicly disgraced yourself by some of your misconduct we shall pack you forth again,” “You are become an impudent rogue,” said the master, bending his brows at me dangerously. “I learned in a good school,” I returned. “And you must have perceived yourself, that with niy ..old., lord’s death your power is quite departed. .1 do not fear you now, Mr. Bally; I think even—God forgive me —that I take a certain pleasure in your company.” He burst out in a burst of laughter, which I clearly saw to be assumed. “I have come with empty pockets,” says he, after a pause. “I do not think there will beany money going,” I replied. “I would advise you not to build on that.” “I shall have something to say on the point,” he returned. “Indeed?” said I. “I have not a guess what it will be, then.” ~y~ “Oh, you affect confidence,” said the master. ‘‘l have still one strong position—that you people fear a scandal, and I enjoy it.” “Pardon me, Mr. Bally,” says—L_ “We do not.in the least fear a scandal against you.” . He laughed again. “You have been studying repartee,” he said. “But speech is very easy, and sometimes very defective. I warn you fairly; you will find me vitrol in the house. You will do wiser to pay money down, and see my back.” And with that he waived his hand to me and left the room.

CHAPTER XX. A little after, my lord came with the lawyer, Mr. Carlyle; a bottle of old wine was brought, and we all had a glass before we fell to business. The necessary deeds were then prepared and executed, and the Scotch estates made over in trust to Mr. Carlyle and myself. “There is one point, Mr. Carlyle,” said my lord, when these affairs had been adjusted “on which I wish that you would do jus justice. This sudden departure coinciding with my brother’s return will be certainly commented on. I wish you would discourage any conjunction of the two." »• “I ,will make a point of it, my lord,” said Mr. Carlyle. “The mas — Mr. Bally does not then accompany you?" “It is a point I must approach,” said my lord. “Mr. Bally remains at Durrisdeer under the care of Mr. Mackellar; and I do not mean that ho shall even know our destination.” “Common report, however —” began the lawyer. “Ah. but, Mr. Carlyle, this is to be a secret quite among ourselves,” interrupted my lord. “None but you and Mackellar are to be made acquainted with my movements.” “And Mr. Bally stays here? Quite so,” said ME Carlyle. “The powers you leave —” Then he broke, off again. “Mr. Mackellar, we have a rather heavy weight upon us.” ’"No doubt, sir,” said li “No doubt,” said he. “Mr,. Bully will have ne voice?” “He will have no voice,” said my lord, “and I hope no influence. Mr. Bally is not a good adviser;” “Isee.” said the lawyer. “By the wav, has Mr. Bally means?” n J understand him to have nothing.” replied my lord. “I give him table, fire, and candle in this house.” “And in the matter of an allowance? If lam to share the responsibility. you will see how highly desirable it is that I should understand your views,” said the lawyer. “On the question of an allowance?” “There will be no allowance,” said my lord. “I wish Mr. Bally to live very private. We have not always been gratified with his behavior."

“And in the matter of money," I added, “he has shown himself an infamous bad husband. Glance your eye upon that docket, Mr. Carlyle, where I have brought together the different sums the man has drawn from the estate in the last fifteen or twenty years. The total is pretty.” Mr. Carlyle made the motion of whistling. “I had no guess of this," said he. “Excuse me once more, my lord, if I appear to push you; but it is really desirable T should Eenetrate your intentions; Mr. Macellar might die, when I should find myself alone upon this trust. Would it not be rather your lordship’s preference that Mr. Bally should —ahem —should leave the country?" My lord looked at Mr. Carlyle. “Why do you ask that?” said he. “I gather, my lord, that Mr. Bally is not a comfort to his family," says the lawyer with a smile. My lord’s face became suddenly knotted. “I wish he was in hell,” cried he, and filled himself a glass of wine, but with a hand so tottering that he spilled the half into his bosom. This was the second time that, in the midst of the most regular and wish behaivior, his animosity had spurted out. It startled Mr. Carlyle, who observed my lord thenceforth with covert curiosity, and to me it restored the certainty that we were acting for the b«st in view of noy lord's health and reason. Except for this explosion theinter▼iew was very successfully conducted. No doubt Mr. Carlyle would

talk, as lawyers do little by little. We could thus feel we had laid the foundations of a better feeling in the country, and the man’s own conduct would certainly complete what we had begun. Indeed, before his departure, the lawyer showed us -there-had already gone abroad some glimmerings of the truth; “I should perhaps explain to you, my lord,” said he, pausing, with his “htrtdn-his hand, ■'that I have not been altogether surprised with your lordship’s dispositions in the case ofMr. Bally. Something of this nature oozed out when he was last in Durrisdeer. There was some talk of a woman at St. Bride’s, to whom you had behaved extremely handsome, and Mr. Bally with no small degree of cruelty. There was the entail again, which was much controverted. In short, there was no want of talk, back and forth; and some of our wiseacres took up a strongopinion. I remained in suspense, as became one of ray cloth; but Mr. McKellar’s docket here has opened my eyes. I do not think, Mr. Mackellar, that you and I will give him that much rope.” The rest of that important day passed prosperously through. It was our policy to keep the enemy in view, and I took my turn to be his watchman with the rest. I think his spirits rose as he perceived us to be so attentive, and I know that mine insensibly declined. What chiefly daunted me was the man’s singular dexterity to worm himself into our troubles. You may have felt (after

a horse accident) the hand of a bonesetterartfully divide and interrogate the muscles, and settle strongly on the injured place.’ It was so with the master's tongue that was so cunning to question, and his eyes that were so quick to observe. I seemed to have said nothing, and yet to have let out all. Before I knew where I was, the man was condoling with me on my lord’s neglect of my lady and myself, and his hurtful indulgence to his son. On this last point I perceived him (with panic four) to return wjpeatedly. The boy had dlsplayed a certain shrinking from his uncle; and it was strong in my mind his father had been fool enough to indoctrinate the same, which was no wise beginning; and when I looked upon the man before me, still so handsome, so apt a speaker, with so great a variety of fortunes to relate, I saw he was the very personage to captivate a boyish fancy. John Paul had left only that morning; it was not to be supposed he had been altogether dumb upon his favorite subject; so that here would be Mr. Alexander in the part of Dido, with a curiosity inflamed to hear; and there would be the master like a diabolical JEneas. full of matter the most pleasing in the world to any youthful ear, such as battles, sea disasters, flights, the.forests of the West, and (since his later voyage) the ancient cities of the Indies. ’ How cunningly these baits might be employed and what an empire might be so founded, little by little, in the mind of any boy, stood obviously clear to me' There was no inhibition, so long as the man was in the house, that would be strong enough to hold these two apart; for if it be hard to charm serpents, it is no very difficult thing to cast a glamor over a little chip of manhood not very long in breeches. I recalled an ancient sailor-man who dwelt in a lone house beyond the Figgate Whins (I believe he called it after Portobello), and how the boys would troop out of Leith of a Saturday, and sit and listen to his swearing tales, as thick as crows about a carrion; a thing I often remarked as I went by, a young student, on my more meditative holiday diversion. Many of these boys went, no doubt, in the face of an express command; many feared and even hated the old brute whom they made their hero, and I have seen them flee from him when he was tipsy, and stone him when he was drunk. And yet there they came each Saturday. How much more easily would a boy like Mr. Alexander fall under the influence of a high-looking, high-spoken gentle man-adventurer, who should conceive the fancy to entrap him; and the influence gained, how easy to employ it for the child’s perversion! I doubt if our enemy had named Mr. Alexander three times, before I perceived which way his mind was aiming—all this train of thought and memory passed in one pulsation through my own —and you may say I started back as though an open hole had gaped across my pathway. Mr. Alexander —there was the weak point, there was the Eve in our perishable paradise, and the serpent was already hissing on the trial.

I promise you I went - the more heartily about the preparations.; my last scruple gone, the danger of delay written before me in huge characters. From that moment forth I seemed not to have sat down or breathed. Now I would be at my post with the master and his Indian; now in the garret buckling a valise; now sending forth Macconochie by the side postern and the wood-path to bear it to the trysting-place; and again, snatching some word of counsel with my lady. This was the verso of our life" in Durrisdeer that day; but on the recto all appeared quite settled, as of a family at home in its paternal seat; and what perturbation may have been observable the master would set down to the blow of his unlooked-for coming and the fear he was accustomed to inspire. Supper went creditably off, cold salutations passed, and the company trooped to their respective chambers. 1 attended the master to the last. We had put him next door to his Indian in the north wing; because that was the most distant and

could be severed from the body of the house with doors. I say he was a kind friend or a good master (whichever it was) to his Secundra Dass; seeing to his comfort, mending the fire with his own hand, for the Indian complained of cold; inquiring as to the rica Which the stranger made his diet; talking with him pleasantly in the Hindoostanee, while I stood by, my candle in my hand, and affected to be overcome with slumber. At length the master observed my signals of distress. “I perceive," says he, “that you have all your ancient habits: early to bed and early to rise, Yawn yourself away!-” Once in my own room, I made the customary motiops of undressing so that I might time myself; and when the cycle was complete, set my tin-der-box ready and blew out my taper. The matter of an hour afterward, I made a light again, put on my shoes of list that I had worn by my lord’s sick bed, and set forth into the house to call the voyagers. All were dressed in waiting—my lord, my lady, Miss Katharine, Mr. Alexander, my lady’s woman Chris-

tie; and I observed the effect of secrecy even upon quite innocent persons, that one after another showed in the chink of the door a face\aa white as paper. We slipped out of the side postern into the night of darkness, scarce broken by a star or. two; so that at first we groped and stumbled and fell among the bushes. A few hundred yards up the woodpath, Macconochie was waiting us with a great lantern; so the rest of the way we went easy enough, but still in a kind of guilty silence. A little beyond the abbe, the 5 path debouched on the main road; and some quarter of a mile farther, at the place called Eagles, where the moors begin, we saw the lights of the two carriages stand shing by the wayside. Scarce a word Oh two was uttered at our parting, and these regarded business; a silent grasping of hands, a turning of faces aside, and the thing was over; the horses broke into a trot, the lamp-light sped like will o’-the-wisp upon the broken moorland, it dipped beyond Stony Brae; and there were Maeconochie and I alone with our lantern on the road. There was one thing more to wait for; and that was the reappearance of the coach upon Cartmore. It seems that mtist have pulled up upon the summit, looked back for a last time, and seen our lantern not yet moved away from the place of separation. For a lamp was taken from a carriage and waved three times up and down by way of a farewell. And then they were gone indeed, having looked their last on the kind roof of Durrisdeer, their faces toward a barbarous country. I never knew before the greatness of that vault of night in which we two poor serving men, the one old and the other elderly, stood for the first time deserted; I had never felt before my own dependency upon the countenance of others. The sense of insolation .burned in my bowels like a fire. It seemed that we who remained at home were the

true exiles; and that and Solwayside, and al! that made my country native, its air good to me, and its language welcome, had gone forth and was far over the sea with my old masters. The remainder of that night I paced to and fro on the smooth highway, reflecting on the future and the past. My thoughts, which at first dwelled tenderly on those who were just gone, took a more manly temper as I considered what remained for me to do. Day came upon the inland mountain-tops, and the fowls began to cry and the smoke of homesteads to arise in the brown bosom of the moors, before I turned my face homeward and went down the path to where the roof of Durrisdeer shone in the morning by the sea.

At the customary hour I had the master called, and awaited his coming in the hall with a quiet mind. He looked about him at the empty room and the three covers set. “We are a small party,” said he. “How comes that?” “This is the party to which we must grow accustomed,” I replied. He looked at me with a sudden sharpness. “What is all this?” said ne. “You and I and your friend Mr. Dass are now all the cbinpany,” I replied. “My lord, my lady, and the children are gone upon a voyage. ~ “Upon my word!” said he. “Can this be possible? I have indeed fluttered your Volscians in Coriolil But this is no reason why our breakfast should go cold. Sit down. Mr. Mackellar, if you please” —taking, as he spoke, the head of the table, which I had designed to occupy myself— ‘ ‘and as we eat, you can give me the details of this evasion.”

I could see he was more affected than his language carried, and I determined to equal him in coolness. “I was about to ask you to take the head of the table; for though I am now thrust into-the-position of your host, I could never forget that you were, after all, a member of the family.” For a while he played the part of entertainer, giving directions to Macconochie, who received them with an evil grace, and attending specially upon Secundra. “And where has my good family withdrawn to?" he asked, carelessly. “Ah, Mr. Bally, that is another point," said I. “I have no orders to communicate their destination." “To me," he corrected. “To anyone," said I. “It is the less pointed," said the master; “e'estde bon ton; my brother

improves as he continues. .And I, ’deariMr. Mackellar?*’ “You will have bed and board, Mr. Bally,” said I. “I am permitted to give you the run of the cellar, wffiich is pretty reasonablyjstocked. You have only to keep well with me, which is no very difficult matter, and you shall want neither for wine nor a saddle-horse.” He made an excuse to send Macconochie from the room. “And for money?” he inquired. “Have I to keep well with my good friend Mackellar for my pocketmoney also? This is a pleasing return tb the principles of boyhood. ” •'There was no allowance made," said I; “but I will take on myself to see you are supplied in modera”cion.” “In moderation?” he repeated. “And you will take it on yourself?" He drew himself up and looked about the hall at the dark rows of portraits. “In the name of my ancestors, I thank you,” says he; and then, with a return to irony: “But Xhere.must certainly be an allowance for Secundra Dass?” he said. “It is not possible they have omitted that.”

“I will take a note of it and ask instructions when I write,” said I. And he, with a sudden change of manner, and leaning forward with an elbow on the table: “Do you think this entirely wise?" “I execute my orders, Mr. Bally,” said I. “Profoundly modest,” said the master; “perhaps not equally ingenuous. You told me yesterday my power was fallen with my father’s death. How comes it, then, that a peer of the realm flees under cloud of night out of a house in which his fathers have stood several sieges? that he conceals his address, which must be a matter of concern to his gracious majesty and to the whole republic? and that he should leave me in possession, and under the paternal charge of his invaluable Mackellar? This smacks to me of a very considerable and genuine apprehension.”

I sought to interrupt with some not very truthful denegation; but he waved me down and pursued his speech. “I say it smacks of it,” he said, “but I will go beyond that, fori think the apprehension is grounded. I came to this house with some reluctancy. In view of the manner of my last departure, nothing but necessity could have induced me to return. Money, however, is that which I must have. You will not give with a good grace; well, I have the power to force it from you. Inside of a week, without leaving Durrisdeer, I will find out where these fools are fled to. I will follow; and when I have run my ouarry down. I will drive a wedge into that family that shall once more burst it into shivers. I shall see then whether my Lord Durrisdeer” (said with indescribable scorn and rage) “will choose to buy my absence; and you will all see whether, by that time, I decide for profit or revenge.”

I was amazed to hear the man so open. The truth is, he was consumed with anger at my lord’s successful flight, felt himself to figure as a dupe, and was in no humor to weigh language. “Do you consider this entirely wise?” said I, copying his words. “These twenty years I have lived by my poor wisdom.” he answered, with a smile that seemed almost foolish in its vanity. “And come out a beggar in the end,” said I, “if beggar be a strong enough word for it.” “I would have you to observe, Mr. Mackellar,” cried he, with a sydden, imperious heat in which I could not but admire him, “that I am. scrupulously civil ;< copy me in that, and we shall be the better friends”’ Throughout this dialogue I had been incommoded by the observation of Secundra Dass. Not on|e of us, since the first word, had , made a feint of eating; our eyes wefe in each other’s faces —you might say in each other’s bosoms; and those of the Indian troubled me with; a certain changing brightness, as Jof comprehension. But I brushes the fancy aside, telling myself onqe more he understood no English, ’only, from the gravity of both voices and the occasional scorn and angtkr in the master’s, smelled out there was something of import in thfe wind.

CHAPTER XXI. For the matter of three weeks we continued to live together in the house of Durrisdeer; the\ beginning of that most singular chapiter of my life —what I must call my\intimacy with the master. At first\ he was somewhat changeable in, his behavior, now civil, now returning to his old manner of flouting me to my\face.; and in both I met him half \vay. Thanks be to Providence, I ha« no measure to keep with the man, land I was never afraid of black only of naked swords. So I found a certain entertainment in these blouts of incivility and was not always il/l-in-spired in my rejoinders. At lasjt (it was at supper) I had* a droll expression that entirely vanquished him. He laughed again and again; amd “Who would have guessed,” he cried, “that this old wife had any wit raider his petticoat.” “It is not wit, Mr. Bally,” said I“a dry Scotch humor, and some of the driest." And indeed I never the least pretension to be though ya wit. - / (to be continued.) The greatest domes in the world are those of St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s, the Invalides in Paris, St. Isaac’s in St. Petersburg, and the Capitol at Washington.