Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1893 — The Master of Ballantrae [ARTICLE]

The Master of Ballantrae

By Robert Louis Stevenson.

CHAPTER XXIII — Continued. It will be gathered from so much, fiuniliar talk, and so much patience oa both sides, that we now lived together upon excellent terms. Such was again the fact, and this time more seriously than before. Apart from disputations such as that which I have tried to reproduce, not only consideration reigned, but l tempted to say even kindness. When I fell 'sickfas I did shortly after our great storm) he sat by my berth to entertain me with his conversation, and treated me with excellent remedies, which I accepted with security. Himself commented on the circumstance. “You sec,” says he, “you begin to know me better. A very little while ago, upon this lonely ship where no one but myself has any smattering of science, you would have made sure I had designs upon Jmur life. And observe, it is since. I ound you had designs upon my own that I have shewn you most respect. You will tell me if this speaks of a small mind.” J found little to reply. In so far as regarded myself, I believed him to mean well; I am per- j haps the more a dupe of his dissimulation, but I believed (and I still be- I lieve) that he regarded me with genuine kindness. Singular and sad fact! so soon as this change began, my animosity abated, and .these haunting visions of my master passed utterly away. So that, perhaps, there was truth in tha- man’s last vaunting word to me, uttered on the second day of July, when our long, voyage was at last brought almost to an end, and we iSy becalmed at the sea end. of the vast harbor of New York in a gasping heat which was presently exchanged for a surprising water-fall of rain. I stood on the poop regarding the green shores near at hand, and now and then the light smoke of the little town, our destina-tion,--iAnd as I was even then devising how to steal a march on my familiar enemy, I was conscious of a shade of embarrassment when he approached me with his hand extended. “I am now to bid you farewell,” said he, “and that forever. For now you go among my enemies, where all vour former prejudices will reviv.e. ) never yet failed to charm a person when I wanted; even you, my good friend —to call you so for once —even you have»now a very different portrait of nie in your memory, and one that yem trill never quite forget. The voyage has not lasted long enough, or I have wrote the impression doeper. But now all is at an end, and we are again at war. Judge by this little interlude how dangerous I am; and tell those fools” —pointing with his anger to the town —“to think twice and thrice before they set me at defiance. u

CHAPTER XXIV. PASSAGES AT NEW YORK. I have mentioned I was resolved to steal a march upon the master; and - this with the complicity of Captain McMurtrie, was mighty easily effect ed: a boat being partly loaded on the one side of our ship and tlie master placed on board of it, the while a skiff put off from the other carrying me alone, I had no more trouble in finding a direction to- mv lord's house, whither I went at top speed, and which I found to be on the outskirts of the place, a very suitable extraordinary large barn, byre,, and stable all in one. It was here my lord was walking when I arrived; indeed it had become his chief place of frequentation, and his mind wasnpw filled with farming. I burst in upon him breathless, and gave him my news; which was indeed no news; at all, several ships having outsailed the “Nonesuch” in the interval. “We have been expecting you long,” said my lord; “and indeed, of late days, ceased to expect you any more. lam glad to take your hand again, Mackellar. I thought that you had been at the bottom of the Sea."

“Ah, my lord, would God I had!” cried I. "‘Things would have been better for yourself.”^ “Not in the leapt,” says he, grimly. “I could not ask better. There is a long score to pay, and now—at last—l can begin to pay it." I cried out against his security. “Oh,” says he, “this is not Durrisdeer, and I have taken my precautions. His rcputatioh awaits him, I have prepared a welcome for my brother. Indeed, fortune has served me; for I found here a merchant of Albany who knew him after the ’45 and had mighty convenient suspicions of a murder; some one of the name of Chew it was, another Albanian. No one here will be surprised if I deny him my door; he will not be suffered to address-my children, nor even to salute my wife; as for myself, I make so much exception for a brother that he may speak to me. I Bhould lose my pleasure else," says my lord, rubbing his palms. Presently he bethought himself, and sent men off running, with billets, to summon the magnates of the province. I cim not recall what pretext he employed; at least it was succesful; and when our ancient enemy appeared upan the scene, he found my lord pacing in front of his house under some trees of shade, with the governor upon one hand and various notables upon the other. My lady, who was seated in the veranda, rose with a very pinched expression and carried her children into the house. !fhe master, well dressed and with an elegant walking sword, bowed to the company in a handsome manner and nodded to my lord with famil-

iarity.. My lord did not accept the salutation, but looked upßn his . brother with bended brows. “Well, sir,” says he, at last, “what ill wind brings you hither 1 of all places, where (to our common disgrace) your reputation has preceded you?” - “Your lordship is pleased to be civil," cried the master, with a fine start. “I am pleased to be very plain.” returned the lord; “because it is needful you should clearly under- ' stand your situation. At home, where you were so little known, it was still possible to keep appearances; that would be quite vain in this province; and I have to tell you that I am quite resolved to wash my hands of you. You have already ruined me almost to the door, as you ruined my father before me; whose heart you also broke, r Your crimes escape the law; but my friend the governor has promised protection to my family. Have a care,- sir!” cries my lord, shaking his cane at him: “if you are observed to utter two words to any of my innocent household, the law shall be stretched to make you smart for it.” “Ah!" says the master, very slowly. “And so this is the advantage of a foreign land! These gentlemen are unacquainted with our story, I perceive. They do not know that I am Lord Durrisdeer: they do not know you are my younger brother, sitting in my place under a sworn family compact; they do not know (or they would not be seen with you in familiar correspondence) that every acre is mine before God Almighty and every doit of the money you withhold from me. .you do it as a thief, a perjurer, 'and a disloyal brother!” “General''Clinton,” I cried, “do

not listen to his lies. lam the stew- : ard of the estate, and there is not ! one word of truth in it. The man isj a forfeited rebel turned into a hired \ spy; there is his story in two words.” • It was in that (the heat of the moment) I let slip his infamy. “Fellow,” said the governor, turning his face sternly on the master, “I know more of you than you think for. We have some broken ends of your adventures in the provinces, which you will do well not to drive me to investigate. There is the disappearance of Mr. Jacob Chew with all his merchandise; there is the matter of where you came ashore frqin with so much money and jewels, when you were picked up by a Bermudan out of Albany. Believe me, if I let these matters lie, it is in commiseration for your family and out of respect for my valued friend Lord Durrisdeer.” There was a murmur of applause from the provincials. “I should have remembered how a title would shine out in such a hole as this,” says the master, white as a sheet; “no matter how unjustly come by. It remains for me them., to die at my lord’s door, where my dead body will form a very cheerful ornament.” “Away with your affectations!” cries my lord. “You know very well I have no such meaning; only to protect myself from calumny and my home from your intrusion. I offer you a choice. Either I shall pay your passage home on the first ship, when you may perhaps be able to resiyne your occupations under government, although God knows I would rather see you on the highwayr ;: or, if that likes you not, stay Inm and weloome! I have inquired the least sum on which body and soul can be decently kept together in New York; so much you shall have, paid weekly; and if you cannot labor with your hands to better it, high time you should betake youself to learn! The condition is, that you speak with no member of my family except myself,” he added. I do not think I have ever seen any man so pale as was the master; but he was erect and his mouth firm. “I have been met here with some very unmerited insults," said he, “from which I have certainly no idea to take refuge by flight. Give pie your pittance; I take it without shame, for it is mine already—like the shirt upon your back; and I choose to stay until these gentlemen understand me better. Already they must spy the cloven hoof; since with all your pretended eagerness for the family honor, you take a pleasure to degrade it in my person.” “This is all very fine," said my lord; “but to us who know you of old, you must be sure it signifies nothing. You take the alternative out of which you think that you can make the most. Take it, if you can, in silence; it will serve you better in the long run, you may believe me, than th.is ostentation of ingratitude." “Oh, gratitude, my lord!” cries the master, with a mounting intonation and his forefinger very conspicuously lifted up. “Beat rest; it will not fail you. It now remains that I should salute these gentlemen whom we have wearied with our family affairs.” ' L : . And he bowed to each in succession, settled his walking-sword, and took himself off, leaving every one amazed at his behavior, and me not less so at my lord’s. We were now to enter on a changed phase of this family division. The master was by no manner of means so helpless as my lord supposed, having at his hand and entirely devoted to his service, an excellent artist in all sorts of goldsmith work. With my lord's allowance, which was not so scanty as he had described it, the pair could support life; and all the earnings of Secundra Dass might be laid upon one side for any future purThat this was done, I have no

doubt. It was in all likelihood th© masters design to gather a sufficiency, and then proceed in quest of that treasure which he had buried long before among the mountains; to which, if he had confined himself, he would have been more happily inspired. But unfortunately for himself and all of us, he took counsel of his anger. The public disgrace of his arrival (which I sometimes wonder he could manage to survive) rankled in his bones; he was in that humor when a man (in the words of the old adage) will cut off his nose to spite his face; and he must make himself a public spectacle, in the hopes that some of the disgraee might spa tter on my lord. He chose, in a poor quarter of the town, a lonely, small house of boards, overhung with some acacias. It was furnished in front with a sort of hutch opening, like that of a dog’s kennel, but about as high as a table from the ground, in which the poorman that built it had formerly displayed some wares; and it was this which took the master’s fancy and possibly suggested his proceedings. It appears, on board the pirate ship, he. had acquired some quickness with the needle; enough at least to play the part of tailor in the public eye; which was all that was required bv the nature of his vengeance. placard was hung above the hutch, bearing these words in something of the following disposition: Jamks Durie Formerly Master of Ball antra f. Clothes Neatly Clouted,

==— . Seoundra Dass Decayed Gentleman of India ... . Fins Goldsmith Work. Underneath this, when he had a job, my gentleman sat withihside tailor-wise and busily stitching. I say, when he had a job; but such customers as came were rather for Secundra and the master’s sewing would be more in the manner of Penelope’s. He could never have designed to gain even butter to his bread by such a means of livelihood; enPugh for him, that there was the name of Durie dragged in the dirt on the placard, and the sometime heir of that proud family set up cross-legged in public for a reproach upon his brother's meanness. And in so far his device succeeded, that there was murmuring in town and a party formed highly inimical to my lord. My lord’s favor with the governor laid him more open on the other side; my lady (who was never so well received in the colony) met with painful innuendoes; in a party of women, where it would be the topic most natural to introduce, she was almost debarred from the naming of needlework, and I have seen her return with a flushed countenance and vow that she would go abroad no more. In the meanwhile my lord dwelt in his decent mansion, immersed in farming; a popular man with his intimates and careless and unconscious of the rest. He laid on flesh; had a bright, busy face; even the heat seemed to prosper with him, and my lady (in despite of her own annoyances) daily blessed Heaven that her father should have left her such a paradise. She hada looked on from a window upon the master’s humiliation, and from that hour appeared to feel at ease. I was not so sure myself; as time went on there seemed to me something not quite wholesome in my lord’s condition; happy he was, beyond a doubt, but the grounds of his felicity were secret; even in the bosom of his family he brooded with manifest delight upon some private thought; and I conceived at last the suspicion (quite unworthy of us both) that he kept a mistress somewhere in the town. Yet he went little abroad and his day was very fully occupied; indeed there was but a single period, and that pretty early in the morning, while Mr. Alexander was at his lesson book, of which I was not certain of the disposition. It should be borne in mind, in defense of that which I now did, that I was always in sorqe fear my lord was not quite in his : reason, and with our enemy sitting so still in the same town with us I did well to be upon my guard. Accordingly I made a pretext, had the hour changed at which I taught Mr. Alexander the foundation of ciphering and mathematics and sot myself instead to dog my master’s footsteps. Every morning, fair or foul, he took his gold-headed cane, set his hat on the back of his head—a recent habitude which I thought to indicate a burning brow —and betook hiijnself to make a certain circuit. At first his way was among pleasant trees and beside a graveyard, where he would sit awhile, if the day were fine, in meditation. Presently the path turned down to the water side and came back along the harbor front and past the master’s booth. As he approached this second part of the circuit my Lord Durrisdeer began to pace more leisurely, like a man delighted with the air and scene; and before the booth, half way between that and the water’s edge, would pause a little, leaning on his staff. It was the hour when the master sat within upon his board and plied his needle. So : these two brothers would gaze upon eaeh other with hard faces, and then my lord move on again, smiling to himself. It was but twice that I must stoop to that ungrateful necessity of playing spy. I was then certain of my lord’s purpose in his. rambles and of the secret source of his delight. Here was his mistress; it w3S hatred and qot love that gave him healthful colors. Some moralist might have been relieved by the discovery; I confess I was dismayed. I found this situation of two' brethren not

only odious In itself, but big with possibilities of further evil, and I made it my practice, in so far as many occupations would allow, to go by a shorter path and be secretly present at their meeting. Coming down one day a little late, after I had been near a week prevented, I was struck with surprise to find a new development. I should say there was a bench ag&ihst the master's house, where customers might sit to parley with the shopman; and here I found my lord seated, nursing his cane and looking pleasantly forth upon the bay. Not three feet from him sat the master, stitching. Neither spoke; nor (in this newsituation) did my master so much as glance upon his enemy. He tasted his neighborhood, I must suppose, less indirectly in th? bare proximity of his person; and, without doubt, drank deep cf hateful pleasure. He had no sooner come away than I openly joined him. “My lord, my lord,” said, “this is no manner of behavior.” “I grow fat upon it,” he replied; and not merely the words, which were strange enough, but tljc whole character of his expression shocked me. ‘’l warn you, my lord, against this indulgence of evil feeling,” said I. “I know not to which it is the more perilous, the soul or the reason, but you go the way to murder both. ” “You cannot understand,” said he. “You never had such mountains of bitterness upon your heart.” “And if it were no more,” I added, “you will surely goad the man to some extremity.” “On the contrary, I am breaking his spirit.” says my lord. . .. .

* CHAPTER XXV,. Every morning for hard upon a week my lord took his same plaee on the bench. It was a pleasant place, under the green acacias, wih a sight upon the bay and shipping, and a sound (from some way off) of marines singing at their employ. Here the two sat without speech or any external movement beyond that of the needle or the master biting off a thread, for he still clung to his pretense of industry; and bore I made a point to join them, wondering at myself and my companions. If any of my lord’s friends went by, he would hail them cheerfully, and cry out he was there to give, some good advice to his brother, who was now (to his delight) grown quite industrious. And even this the master accepted with a steady countenance; what was in his mind, God knows, or perhaps Satan only. All of a sudden, on a still, day of what they call Indian summer, when the woods were changed into gold and pink and scarlet, the master laid down his needle and burst into a fit of merriment. I think he must have been preparing it a long while in silence, for the note in itself was pretty naturally pitched; hut breaking suddenly from so extreme a silence and in circumstances so averse Trom mirth, it my ear. “Henry,” said he, “I have for once made a false step, and for once you have had the wit to profit by it. The farce of the cobbler ends to-day; and I confess to you (with my compliments)that you have had the best of it. Blood will out; and you have certainly a choice idea of how to make yourself unpleasant.” Never a word said to my lord; it was just as though the master had not broken silence. “Come,” resumed the master, “do hot be sulky, it will spoil your attitude. You can now afford (believe me) to be a little gracious; for I have not merely a defeat to accept. I had meant to continue this performance till I had gathered enough money for a certain purpose; I confess ingenuously I have not the courage. You naturally desire my absence from this town ; I have come round by another way to the same idea. And I have a proposition to make: or il' your lordship prefers, a favor to ask."

“Ask it,” says my lord. “You may have heard that I had once in this country a considerable treasure,” returned the master', “it matters not whether or no—such is the fact, and I was obliged to bury it in a spot of which I have sufficient indications. To the recovery of this, has my ambition now come down; and as it is my owa,„you will not grudge it me.” “Go and get it,” says my lord. “I make no opposition. ” “Yes,” said the master, “but to do so I must find men and carriage The way is long and rough, and the’ country infested with wild Indians. Advance me only so much as shall be needful; either as a lump gum, in lieu of my allowance; or if you prefer it, as a loan, which I shall repay on my return. And then, if you so decide, you may have seen the last of m> . »» me. My lord stared him steadily in the eyes; there was a hard smile upon his face, but he uttered nothing. “Henrv,” said the master, with a formidable quietness,and drawing at the same time somewhat baek-“Hen-ry, I had the honor to address you.” “Lotus be stepping homeward,” says my lord to me, who was plucking at his sleeve; and with that he rosp, stretched himself, settled his hat and still without a syllable of response, began to walk steadily along the shore. I hesitated awhile between the two brothers, so serious a climax did we seem to have reached. But the master had resumed his occupation, his eyes lowered, his hand seemingly as deft as ever; and I decided to pursue my lord. - * (TO BE CONTItfCKD.) ■ & »