I cried out with a stifled scream, and ran in; but the body was
already fallen to the ground, where it writhed a moment like a
trodden worm, and then lay motionless.

"Look at his left hand." said Mr. Henry.

"It is all bloody," said I.

"On the inside?" said he.

"It is cut on the inside," said I.

"I thought so," said he, and turned his back.

I opened the man's clothes; the heart was quite still, it gave not
a flutter.

"God forgive us, Mr. Henry!" said I.  "He is dead."

"Dead?" he repeated, a little stupidly; and then with a rising
tone, "Dead? dead?" says he, and suddenly cast his bloody sword
upon the ground.

"What must we do?" said I.  "Be yourself, sir.  It is too late now:
you must be yourself."

He turned and stared at me.  "Oh, Mackellar!" says he, and put his
face in his hands.

I plucked him by the coat.  "For God's sake, for all our sakes, be
more courageous!" said I.  "What must we do?"

He showed me his face with the same stupid stare.

"Do?" says he.   And with that his eye fell on the body, and "Oh!"
he cries out, with his hand to his brow, as if he had never
remembered; and, turning from me, made off towards the house of
Durrisdeer at a strange stumbling run.

I stood a moment mused; then it seemed to me my duty lay most plain
on the side of the living; and I ran after him, leaving the candles
on the frosty ground and the body lying in their light under the
trees.  But run as I pleased, he had the start of me, and was got
into the house, and up to the hall, where I found him standing
before the fire with his face once more in his hands, and as he so
stood he visibly shuddered.

"Mr. Henry, Mr. Henry," I said, "this will be the ruin of us all."

"What is this that I have done?" cries he, and then looking upon me
with a countenance that I shall never forget, "Who is to tell the
old man?" he said.

The word knocked at my heart; but it was no time for weakness.  I
went and poured him out a glass of brandy.  "Drink that," said I,
"drink it down."  I forced him to swallow it like a child; and,
being still perished with the cold of the night, I followed his
example.

"It has to be told, Mackellar," said he.  "It must be told."  And
he fell suddenly in a seat - my old lord's seat by the chimney-side
- and was shaken with dry sobs.

Dismay came upon my soul; it was plain there was no help in Mr.
Henry.  "Well," said I, "sit there, and leave all to me."  And
taking a candle in my hand, I set forth out of the room in the dark
house.  There was no movement; I must suppose that all had gone
unobserved; and I was now to consider how to smuggle through the
rest with the like secrecy.  It was no hour for scruples; and I
opened my lady's door without so much as a knock, and passed boldly
in.

"There is some calamity happened," she cried, sitting up in bed.

"Madam," said I, "I will go forth again into the passage; and do
you get as quickly as you can into your clothes.  There is much to
be done."

She troubled me with no questions, nor did she keep me waiting.
Ere I had time to prepare a word of that which I must say to her,
she was on the threshold signing me to enter.

"Madam," said I, "if you cannot be very brave, I must go elsewhere;
for if no one helps me to-night, there is an end of the house of
Durrisdeer."

"I am very courageous," said she; and she looked at me with a sort
of smile, very painful to see, but very brave too.

"It has come to a duel," said I.

"A duel?" she repeated.  "A duel!  Henry and - "

"And the Master," said I.  "Things have been borne so long, things
of which you know nothing, which you would not believe if I should
tell.  But to-night it went too far, and when he insulted you - "

"Stop," said she.  "He?  Who?"

"Oh! madam," cried I, my bitterness breaking forth, "do you ask me
such a question?  Indeed, then, I may go elsewhere for help; there
is none here!"

"I do not know in what I have offended you," said she.  "Forgive
me; put me out of this suspense."

But I dared not tell her yet; I felt not sure of her; and at the
doubt, and under the sense of impotence it brought with it, I
turned on the poor woman with something near to anger.

"Madam," said I, "we are speaking of two men:  one of them insulted
you, and you ask me which.  I will help you to the answer.  With
one of these men you have spent all your hours:  has the other
reproached you?  To one you have been always kind; to the other, as
God sees me and judges between us two, I think not always:  has his
love ever failed you?  To-night one of these two men told the
other, in my hearing - the hearing of a hired stranger, - that you
were in love with him.  Before I say one word, you shall answer
your own question:  Which was it?  Nay, madam, you shall answer me
another:  If it has come to this dreadful end, whose fault is it?"

She stared at me like one dazzled.  "Good God!" she said once, in a
kind of bursting exclamation; and then a second time in a whisper
to herself:  "Great God! - In the name of mercy, Mackellar, what is
wrong?" she cried.  "I am made up; I can hear all."

"You are not fit to hear," said I.  "Whatever it was, you shall say
first it was your fault."

"Oh!" she cried, with a gesture of wringing her hands, "this man
will drive me mad!  Can you not put me out of your thoughts?"

"I think not once of you," I cried.  "I think of none but my dear
unhappy master."

"Ah!" she cried, with her hand to her heart, "is Henry dead?"

"Lower your voice," said I.  "The other."

I saw her sway like something stricken by the wind; and I know not
whether in cowardice or misery, turned aside and looked upon the
floor.  "These are dreadful tidings," said I at length, when her
silence began to put me in some fear; "and you and I behove to be
the more bold if the house is to be saved."  Still she answered
nothing.  "There is Miss Katharine, besides," I added:  "unless we
bring this matter through, her inheritance is like to be of shame."

I do not know if it was the thought of her child or the naked word
shame, that gave her deliverance; at least, I had no sooner spoken
than a sound passed her lips, the like of it I never heard; it was
as though she had lain buried under a hill and sought to move that
burthen.  And the next moment she had found a sort of voice.

"It was a fight," she whispered.  "It was not - " and she paused
upon the word.

"It was a fair fight on my dear master's part," said I.  "As for
the other, he was slain in the very act of a foul stroke."

"Not now!" she cried.

"Madam," said I, "hatred of that man glows in my bosom like a
burning fire; ay, even now he is dead.  God knows, I would have
stopped the fighting, had I dared.  It is my shame I did not.  But
when I saw him fall, if I could have spared one thought from
pitying of my master, it had been to exult in that deliverance."

I do not know if she marked; but her next words were, "My lord?"

"That shall be my part," said I.

"You will not speak to him as you have to me?" she asked.

"Madam," said I, "have you not some one else to think of?  Leave my
lord to me."

"Some one else?" she repeated.

"Your husband," said I.  She looked at me with a countenance
illegible.  "Are you going to turn your back on him?" I asked.

Still she looked at me; then her hand went to her heart again.
"No," said she.

"God bless you for that word!" I said.  "Go to him now, where he
sits in the hall; speak to him - it matters not what you say; give
him your hand; say, 'I know all;' - if God gives you grace enough,
say, 'Forgive me.'"

"God strengthen you, and make you merciful," said she.  "I will go
to my husband."

"Let me light you there," said I, taking up the candle.

"I will find my way in the dark," she said, with a shudder, and I
think the shudder was at me.

So we separated - she down stairs to where a little light glimmered
in the hall-door, I along the passage to my lord's room.  It seems
hard to say why, but I could not burst in on the old man as I could
on the young woman; with whatever reluctance, I must knock.  But
his old slumbers were light, or perhaps he slept not; and at the
first summons I was bidden enter.

He, too, sat up in bed; very aged and bloodless he looked; and
whereas he had a certain largeness of appearance when dressed for
daylight, he now seemed frail and little, and his face (the wig
being laid aside) not bigger than a child's.  This daunted me; nor
less, the haggard surmise of misfortune in his eye.  Yet his voice
was even peaceful as he inquired my errand.  I set my candle down
upon a chair, leaned on the bed-foot, and looked at him.

"Lord Durrisdeer," said I, "it is very well known to you that I am
a partisan in your family."

"I hope we are none of us partisans," said he.  "That you love my
son sincerely, I have always been glad to recognise."

"Oh! my lord, we are past the hour of these civilities," I replied.
"If we are to save anything out of the fire, we must look the fact
in its bare countenance.  A partisan I am; partisans we have all
been; it is as a partisan that I am here in the middle of the night
to plead before you.  Hear me; before I go, I will tell you why."

"I would always hear you, Mr. Mackellar," said he, "and that at any
hour, whether of the day or night, for I would be always sure you
had a reason.  You spoke once before to very proper purpose; I have
not forgotten that."

"I am here to plead the cause of my master," I said.  "I need not
tell you how he acts.  You know how he is placed.  You know with
what generosity, he has always met your other - met your wishes," I
corrected myself, stumbling at that name of son.  "You know - you
must know - what he has suffered - what he has suffered about his
wife."

"Mr. Mackellar!" cried my lord, rising in bed like a bearded lion.

"You said you would hear me," I continued.  "What you do not know,
what you should know, one of the things I am here to speak of, is
the persecution he must bear in private.  Your back is not turned
before one whom I dare not name to you falls upon him with the most
unfeeling taunts; twits him - pardon me, my lord - twits him with
your partiality, calls him Jacob, calls him clown, pursues him with
ungenerous raillery, not to be borne by man.  And let but one of
you appear, instantly he changes; and my master must smile and
courtesy to the man who has been feeding him with insults; I know,
for I have shared in some of it, and I tell you the life is
insupportable.  All these months it has endured; it began with the
man's landing; it was by the name of Jacob that my master was
greeted the first night."

My lord made a movement as if to throw aside the clothes and rise.
"If there be any truth in this - " said he.

"Do I look like a man lying?" I interrupted, checking him with my
hand.

"You should have told me at first," he odd.

"Ah, my lord! indeed I should, and you may well hate the face of
this unfaithful servant!" I cried.

"I will take order," said he, "at once."  And again made the
movement to rise.

Again I checked him.  "I have not done," said I.  "Would God I had!
All this my dear, unfortunate patron has endured without help or
countenance.  Your own best word, my lord, was only gratitude.  Oh,
but he was your son, too!  He had no other father.  He was hated in
the country, God knows how unjustly.  He had a loveless marriage.
He stood on all hands without affection or support - dear,
generous, ill-fated, noble heart!"

"Your tears do you much honour and me much shame," says my lord,
with a palsied trembling.  "But you do me some injustice.  Henry
has been ever dear to me, very dear.  James (I do not deny it, Mr.
Mackellar), James is perhaps dearer; you have not seen my James in
quite a favourable light; he has suffered under his misfortunes;
and we can only remember how great and how unmerited these were.
And even now his is the more affectionate nature.  But I will not
speak of him.  All that you say of Henry is most true; I do not
wonder, I know him to be very magnanimous; you will say I trade
upon the knowledge?  It is possible; there are dangerous virtues:
virtues that tempt the encroacher.  Mr. Mackellar, I will make it
up to him; I will take order with all this.  I have been weak; and,
what is worse, I have been dull!"

"I must not hear you blame yourself, my lord, with that which I
have yet to tell upon my conscience," I replied.  "You have not
been weak; you have been abused by a devilish dissembler.  You saw
yourself how he had deceived you in the matter of his danger; he
has deceived you throughout in every step of his career.  I wish to
pluck him from your heart; I wish to force your eyes upon your
other son; ah, you have a son there!"

"No, no" said he, "two sons - I have two sons."

I made some gesture of despair that struck him; he looked at me
with a changed face.  "There is much worse behind?" he asked, his
voice dying as it rose upon the question.

"Much worse," I answered.  "This night he said these words to Mr.
Henry:  'I have never known a woman who did not prefer me to you,
and I think who did not continue to prefer me.'"

"I will hear nothing against my daughter," he cried; and from his
readiness to stop me in this direction, I conclude his eyes were
not so dull as I had fancied, and he had looked not without anxiety
upon the siege of Mrs. Henry.

"I think not of blaming her," cried I.  "It is not that.  These
words were said in my hearing to Mr. Henry; and if you find them
not yet plain enough, these others but a little after:  Your wife,
who is in love with me!'"

"They have quarrelled?" he said.

I nodded.

"I must fly to them," he said, beginning once again to leave his
bed.

"No, no!" I cried, holding forth my hands.

"You do not know," said he.  "These are dangerous words."

"Will nothing make you understand, my lord?' said I.

His eyes besought me for the truth.

I flung myself on my knees by the bedside.  "Oh, my lord," cried I,
"think on him you have left; think of this poor sinner whom you
begot, whom your wife bore to you, whom we have none of us
strengthened as we could; think of him, not of yourself; he is the
other sufferer - think of him!  That is the door for sorrow -
Christ's door, God's door:  oh! it stands open.  Think of him, even
as he thought of you.  'WHO IS TO TELL THE OLD MAN?' - these were
his words.  It was for that I came; that is why I am here pleading
at your feet."

"Let me get up," he cried, thrusting me aside, and was on his feet
before myself.  His voice shook like a sail in the wind, yet he
spoke with a good loudness; his face was like the snow, but his
eyes were steady and dry.

"Here is too much speech," said he.  "Where was it?"

"In the shrubbery," said I.

"And Mr. Henry?" he asked.  And when I had told him he knotted his
old face in thought.

"And Mr. James?" says he.

"I have left him lying," said I, "beside the candles."

"Candles?" he cried.  And with that he ran to the window, opened
it, and looked abroad.  "It might be spied from the road."

"Where none goes by at such an hour," I objected.

"It makes no matter," he said.  "One might.  Hark!" cries he.
"What is that?"

It was the sound of men very guardedly rowing in the bay; and I
told him so.

"The freetraders," said my lord.  "Run at once, Mackellar; put
these candles out.  I will dress in the meanwhile; and when you
return we can debate on what is wisest."

I groped my way downstairs, and out at the door.  From quite a far
way off a sheen was visible, making points of brightness in the
shrubbery; in so black a night it might have been remarked for
miles; and I blamed myself bitterly for my incaution.  How much
more sharply when I reached the place!  One of the candlesticks was
overthrown, and that taper quenched.  The other burned steadily by
itself, and made a broad space of light upon the frosted ground.
All within that circle seemed, by the force of contrast and the
overhanging blackness, brighter than by day.  And there was the
bloodstain in the midst; and a little farther off Mr. Henry's
sword, the pommel of which was of silver; but of the body, not a
trace.  My heart thumped upon my ribs, the hair stirred upon my
scalp, as I stood there staring - so strange was the sight, so dire
the fears it wakened.  I looked right and left; the ground was so
hard, it told no story.  I stood and listened till my ears ached,
but the night was hollow about me like an empty church; not even a
ripple stirred upon the shore; it seemed you might have heard a pin
drop in the county.

I put the candle out, and the blackness fell about me groping dark;
it was like a crowd surrounding me; and I went back to the house of
Durrisdeer, with my chin upon my shoulder, startling, as I went,
with craven suppositions.  In the door a figure moved to meet me,
and I had near screamed with terror ere I recognised Mrs. Henry.

"Have you told him?" says she.

"It was he who sent me," said I.  "It is gone.  But why are you
here?"

"It is gone!" she repeated.  "What is gone?"

"The body," said I.  "Why are you not with your husband?"

"Gone!" said she.  "You cannot have looked.  Come back."

"There is no light now," said I.  "I dare not."

"I can see in the dark.  I have been standing here so long - so
long," said she.  "Come, give me your hand."

We returned to the shrubbery hand in hand, and to the fatal place.

"Take care of the blood," said I.

"Blood?" she cried, and started violently back.

"I suppose it will be," said I.  "I am like a blind man."

"No!" said she, "nothing!  Have you not dreamed?"

"Ah, would to God we had!" cried I.

She spied the sword, picked it up, and seeing the blood, let it
fall again with her hands thrown wide.  "Ah!" she cried.  And then,
with an instant courage, handled it the second time, and thrust it
to the hilt into the frozen ground.  "I will take it back and clean
it properly," says she, and again looked about her on all sides.
"It cannot be that he was dead?" she added.

"There was no flutter of his heart," said I, and then remembering:
"Why are you not with your husband?"

"It is no use," said she; "he will not speak to me."

"Not speak to you?" I repeated.  "Oh! you have not tried."

"You have a right to doubt me," she replied, with a gentle dignity.

At this, for the first time, I was seized with sorrow for her.
"God knows, madam," I cried, "God knows I am not so hard as I
appear; on this dreadful night who can veneer his words?  But I am
a friend to all who are not Henry Durie's enemies."

"It is hard, then, you should hesitate about his wife," said she.

I saw all at once, like the rending of a veil, how nobly she had
borne this unnatural calamity, and how generously my reproaches.

"We must go back and tell this to my lord," said I.

"Him I cannot face," she cried.

"You will find him the least moved of all of us," said I.

"And yet I cannot face him," said she.

"Well," said I, "you can return to Mr. Henry; I will see my lord."

As we walked back, I bearing the candlesticks, she the sword - a
strange burthen for that woman - she had another thought.  "Should
we tell Henry?" she asked.

"Let my lord decide," said I.

My lord was nearly dressed when I came to his chamber.  He heard me
with a frown.  "The freetraders," said he.  "But whether dead or
alive?"

"I thought him - " said I, and paused, ashamed of the word.

"I know; but you may very well have been in error.  Why should they
remove him if not living?" he asked.  "Oh! here is a great door of
hope.  It must be given out that he departed - as he came - without
any note of preparation.  We must save all scandal."

I saw he had fallen, like the rest of us, to think mainly of the
house.  Now that all the living members of the family were plunged
in irremediable sorrow, it was strange how we turned to that
conjoint abstraction of the family itself, and sought to bolster up
the airy nothing of its reputation:  not the Duries only, but the
hired steward himself.

"Are we to tell Mr. Henry?" I asked him.

"I will see," said he.  "I am going first to visit him; then I go
forth with you to view the shrubbery and consider."

We went downstairs into the hall.  Mr. Henry sat by the table with
his head upon his hand, like a man of stone.  His wife stood a
little back from him, her hand at her mouth; it was plain she could
not move him.  My old lord walked very steadily to where his son
was sitting; he had a steady countenance, too, but methought a
little cold.  When he was come quite up, he held out both his hands
and said, "My son!"

With a broken, strangled cry, Mr. Henry leaped up and fell on his
father's neck, crying and weeping, the most pitiful sight that ever
a man witnessed.  "Oh! father," he cried, "you know I loved him;
you know I loved him in the beginning; I could have died for him -
you know that!  I would have given my life for him and you.  Oh!
say you know that.  Oh! say you can forgive me.  O father, father,
what have I done - what have I done?  And we used to be bairns
together!" and wept and sobbed, and fondled the old man, and
clutched him about the neck, with the passion of a child in terror.

And then he caught sight of his wife (you would have thought for
the first time), where she stood weeping to hear him, and in a
moment had fallen at her knees.  "And O my lass," he cried, "you
must forgive me, too!  Not your husband - I have only been the ruin
of your life.  But you knew me when I was a lad; there was no harm
in Henry Durie then; he meant aye to be a friend to you.  It's him
- it's the old bairn that played with you - oh, can ye never, never
forgive him?"

Throughout all this my lord was like a cold, kind spectator with
his wits about him.  At the first cry, which was indeed enough to
call the house about us, he had said to me over his shoulder,
"Close the door."  And now he nodded to himself.

"We may leave him to his wife now,"' says he.  "Bring a light, Mr.
Mackellar."

Upon my going forth again with my lord, I was aware of a strange
phenomenon; for though it was quite dark, and the night not yet
old, methought I smelt the morning.  At the same time there went a
tossing through the branches of the evergreens, so that they
sounded like a quiet sea, and the air pulled at times against our
faces, and the flame of the candle shook.  We made the more speed,
I believe, being surrounded by this bustle; visited the scene of
the duel, where my lord looked upon the blood with stoicism; and
passing farther on toward the landing-place, came at last upon some
evidences of the truth.  For, first of all, where there was a pool
across the path, the ice had been trodden in, plainly by more than
one man's weight; next, and but a little farther, a young tree was
broken, and down by the landing-place, where the traders' boats
were usually beached, another stain of blood marked where the body
must have been infallibly set down to rest the bearers.

This stain we set ourselves to wash away with the sea-water,
carrying it in my lord's hat; and as we were thus engaged there
came up a sudden moaning gust and left us instantly benighted.

"It will come to snow," says my lord; "and the best thing that we
could hope.  Let us go back now; we can do nothing in the dark."

As we went houseward, the wind being again subsided, we were aware
of a strong pattering noise about us in the night; and when we
issued from the shelter of the trees, we found it raining smartly.

Throughout the whole of this, my lord's clearness of mind, no less
than his activity of body, had not ceased to minister to my
amazement.  He set the crown upon it in the council we held on our
return.  The freetraders had certainly secured the Master, though
whether dead or alive we were still left to our conjectures; the
rain would, long before day, wipe out all marks of the transaction;
by this we must profit.  The Master had unexpectedly come after the
fall of night; it must now he given out he had as suddenly departed
before the break of day; and, to make all this plausible, it now
only remained for me to mount into the man's chamber, and pack and
conceal his baggage.  True, we still lay at the discretion of the
traders; but that was the incurable weakness of our guilt.

I heard him, as I said, with wonder, and hastened to obey.  Mr. and
Mrs. Henry were gone from the hall; my lord, for warmth's sake,
hurried to his bed; there was still no sign of stir among the
servants, and as I went up the tower stair, and entered the dead
man's room, a horror of solitude weighed upon my mind.  To my
extreme surprise, it was all in the disorder of departure.  Of his
three portmanteaux, two were already locked; the third lay open and
near full.  At once there flashed upon me some suspicion of the
truth.  The man had been going, after all; he had but waited upon
Crail, as Crail waited upon the wind; early in the night the seamen
had perceived the weather changing; the boat had come to give
notice of the change and call the passenger aboard, and the boat's
crew had stumbled on him dying in his blood.  Nay, and there was
more behind.  This pre-arranged departure shed some light upon his
inconceivable insult of the night before; it was a parting shot,
hatred being no longer checked by policy.  And, for another thing,
the nature of that insult, and the conduct of Mrs. Henry, pointed
to one conclusion, which I have never verified, and can now never
verify until the great assize - the conclusion that he had at last
forgotten himself, had gone too far in his advances, and had been
rebuffed.  It can never be verified, as I say; but as I thought of
it that morning among his baggage, the thought was sweet to me like
honey.

Into the open portmanteau I dipped a little ere I closed it.  The
most beautiful lace and linen, many suits of those fine plain
clothes in which he loved to appear; a book or two, and those of
the best, Caesar's "Commentaries," a volume of Mr. Hobbes, the
"Henriade" of M. de Voltaire, a book upon the Indies, one on the
mathematics, far beyond where I have studied:  these were what I
observed with very mingled feelings.  But in the open portmanteau,
no papers of any description.  This set me musing.  It was possible
the man was dead; but, since the traders had carried him away, not
likely.  It was possible he might still die of his wound; but it
was also possible he might not.  And in this latter case I was
determined to have the means of some defence.

One after another I carried his portmanteaux to a loft in the top
of the house which we kept locked; went to my own room for my keys,
and, returning to the loft, had the gratification to find two that
fitted pretty well.  In one of the portmanteaux there was a
shagreen letter-case, which I cut open with my knife; and
thenceforth (so far as any credit went) the man was at my mercy.
Here was a vast deal of gallant correspondence, chiefly of his
Paris days; and, what was more to the purpose, here were the copies
of his own reports to the English Secretary, and the originals of
the Secretary's answers:  a most damning series:  such as to
publish would be to wreck the Master's honour and to set a price
upon his life.  I chuckled to myself as I ran through the
documents; I rubbed my hands, I sang aloud in my glee.  Day found
me at the pleasing task; nor did I then remit my diligence, except
in so far as I went to the window - looked out for a moment, to see
the frost quite gone, the world turned black again, and the rain
and the wind driving in the bay - and to assure myself that the
lugger was gone from its anchorage, and the Master (whether dead or
alive) now tumbling on the Irish Sea.

It is proper I should add in this place the very little I have
subsequently angled out upon the doings of that night.  It took me
a long while to gather it; for we dared not openly ask, and the
freetraders regarded me with enmity, if not with scorn.  It was
near six months before we even knew for certain that the man
survived; and it was years before I learned from one of Crail's
men, turned publican on his ill-gotten gain, some particulars which
smack to me of truth.  It seems the traders found the Master
struggled on one elbow, and now staring round him, and now gazing
at the candle or at his hand which was all bloodied, like a man
stupid.  Upon their coming, he would seem to have found his mind,
bade them carry him aboard, and hold their tongues; and on the
captain asking how he had come in such a pickle, replied with a
burst of passionate swearing, and incontinently fainted.  They held
some debate, but they were momently looking for a wind, they were
highly paid to smuggle him to France, and did not care to delay.
Besides which, he was well enough liked by these abominable
wretches:  they supposed him under capital sentence, knew not in
what mischief he might have got his wound, and judged it a piece of
good nature to remove him out of the way of danger.  So he was
taken aboard, recovered on the passage over, and was set ashore a
convalescent at the Havre de Grace.  What is truly notable:  he
said not a word to anyone of the duel, and not a trader knows to
this day in what quarrel, or by the hand of what adversary, he
fell.  With any other man I should have set this down to natural
decency; with him, to pride.  He could not bear to avow, perhaps
even to himself, that he had been vanquished by one whom he had so
much insulted whom he so cruelly despised.



CHAPTER VI. - SUMMARY OF EVENTS DURING THE MASTER'S SECOND ABSENCE.



Of the heavy sickness which declared itself next morning I can
think with equanimity, as of the last unmingled trouble that befell
my master; and even that was perhaps a mercy in disguise; for what
pains of the body could equal the miseries of his mind?  Mrs. Henry
and I had the watching by the bed.  My old lord called from time to
time to take the news, but would not usually pass the door.  Once,
I remember, when hope was nigh gone, he stepped to the bedside,
looked awhile in his son's face, and turned away with a gesture of
the head and hand thrown up, that remains upon my mind as something
tragic; such grief and such a scorn of sublunary things were there
expressed.  But the most of the time Mrs. Henry and I had the room
to ourselves, taking turns by night, and bearing each other company
by day, for it was dreary watching.  Mr. Henry, his shaven head
bound in a napkin, tossed fro without remission, beating the bed
with his hands.  His tongue never lay; his voice ran continuously
like a river, so that my heart was weary with the sound of it.  It
was notable, and to me inexpressibly mortifying, that he spoke all
the while on matters of no import:  comings and goings, horses -
which he was ever calling to have saddled, thinking perhaps (the
poor soul!) that he might ride away from his discomfort - matters
of the garden, the salmon nets, and (what I particularly raged to
hear) continually of his affairs, cyphering figures and holding
disputation with the tenantry.  Never a word of his father or his
wife, nor of the Master, save only for a day or two, when his mind
dwelled entirely in the past, and he supposed himself a boy again
and upon some innocent child's play with his brother.  What made
this the more affecting:  it appeared the Master had then run some
peril of his life, for there was a cry - "Oh!  Jamie will be
drowned - Oh, save Jamie!" which he came over and over with a great
deal of passion.

This, I say, was affecting, both to Mrs. Henry and myself; but the
balance of my master's wanderings did him little justice.  It
seemed he had set out to justify his brother's calumnies; as though
he was bent to prove himself a man of a dry nature, immersed in
money-getting.  Had I been there alone, I would not have troubled
my thumb; but all the while, as I listened, I was estimating the
effect on the man's wife, and telling myself that he fell lower
every day.  I was the one person on the surface of the globe that
comprehended him, and I was bound there should be yet another.
Whether he was to die there and his virtues perish:  or whether he
should save his days and come back to that inheritance of sorrows,
his right memory:  I was bound he should be heartily lamented in
the one case, and unaffectedly welcomed in the other, by the person
he loved the most, his wife.

Finding no occasion of free speech, I bethought me at last of a
kind of documentary disclosure; and for some nights, when I was off
duty and should have been asleep, I gave my time to the preparation
of that which I may call my budget.  But this I found to be the
easiest portion of my task, and that which remained - namely, the
presentation to my lady - almost more than I had fortitude to
overtake.  Several days I went about with my papers under my arm,
spying for some juncture of talk to serve as introduction.  I will
not deny but that some offered; only when they did my tongue clove
to the roof of my mouth; and I think I might have been carrying
about my packet till this day, had not a fortunate accident
delivered me from all my hesitations.  This was at night, when I
was once more leaving the room, the thing not yet done, and myself
in despair at my own cowardice.

"What do you carry about with you, Mr. Mackellar?" she asked.
"These last days, I see you always coming in and out with the same
armful."

I returned upon my steps without a word, laid the papers before her
on the table, and left her to her reading.  Of what that was, I am
now to give you some idea; and the best will be to reproduce a
letter of my own which came first in the budget and of which
(according to an excellent habitude) I have preserved the scroll.
It will show, too, the moderation of my part in these affairs, a
thing which some have called recklessly in question.


"Durrisdeer.
"1757.

"HONOURED MADAM,

"I trust I would not step out of my place without occasion; but I
see how much evil has flowed in the past to all of your noble house
from that unhappy and secretive fault of reticency, and the papers
on which I venture to call your attention are family papers, and
all highly worthy your acquaintance.

"I append a schedule with some necessary observations,
"And am,
"Honoured Madam,
"Your ladyship's obliged, obedient servant,
"EPHRAIM MACKELLAR.


"Schedule of Papers.

"A.  Scroll of ten letters from Ephraim Mackellar to the Hon. James
Durie, Esq., by courtesy Master of Ballantrae during the latter's
residence in Paris:  under dates . . . " (follow the dates) . . .
"Nota:  to be read in connection with B. and C.

"B.  Seven original letters from the said Mr of Ballantrae to the
said E. Mackellar, under dates . . . " (follow the dates.)

"C.  Three original letters from the Mr of Ballantrae to the Hon.
Henry Durie, Esq., under dates . . . " (follow the dates) . . .
"Nota:  given me by Mr. Henry to answer:  copies of my answers A 4,
A 5, and A 9 of these productions.  The purport of Mr. Henry's
communications, of which I can find no scroll, may be gathered from
those of his unnatural brother.

"D.  A correspondence, original and scroll, extending over a period
of three years till January of the current year, between the said
Mr of Ballantrae and - -, Under Secretary of State; twenty-seven in
all.  Nota:  found among the Master's papers."


Weary as I was with watching and distress of mind, it was
impossible for me to sleep.  All night long I walked in my chamber,
revolving what should be the issue, and sometimes repenting the
temerity of my immixture in affairs so private; and with the first
peep of the morning I was at the sick-room door.  Mrs. Henry had
thrown open the shutters and even the window, for the temperature
was mild.  She looked steadfastly before her; where was nothing to
see, or only the blue of the morning creeping among woods.  Upon
the stir of my entrance she did not so much as turn about her face:
a circumstance from which I augured very ill.

"Madam," I began; and then again, "Madam;" but could make no more
of it.  Nor yet did Mrs. Henry come to my assistance with a word.
In this pass I began gathering up the papers where they lay
scattered on the table; and the first thing that struck me, their
bulk appeared to have diminished.  Once I ran them through, and
twice; but the correspondence with the Secretary of State, on which
I had reckoned so much against the future, was nowhere to be found.
I looked in the chimney; amid the smouldering embers, black ashes
of paper fluttered in the draught; and at that my timidity
vanished.

"Good God, madam," cried I, in a voice not fitting for a sick-room,
"Good God, madam, what have you done with my papers?"

"I have burned them," said Mrs. Henry, turning about.  "It is
enough, it is too much, that you and I have seen them."

"This is a fine night's work that you have done!" cried I.  "And
all to save the reputation of a man that ate bread by the shedding
of his comrades' blood, as I do by the shedding of ink."

"To save the reputation of that family in which you are a servant,
Mr. Mackellar," she returned, "and for which you have already done
so much."

"It is a family I will not serve much longer," I cried, "for I am
driven desperate.  You have stricken the sword out of my hands; you
have left us all defenceless.  I had always these letters I could
shake over his head; and now - What is to do?  We are so falsely
situate we dare not show the man the door; the country would fly on
fire against us; and I had this one hold upon him - and now it is
gone - now he may come back to-morrow, and we must all sit down
with him to dinner, go for a stroll with him on the terrace, or
take a hand at cards, of all things, to divert his leisure!  No,
madam!  God forgive you, if He can find it in His heart; for I
cannot find it in mine."

"I wonder to find you so simple, Mr. Mackellar," said Mrs. Henry.
"What does this man value reputation?  But he knows how high we
prize it; he knows we would rather die than make these letters
public; and do you suppose he would not trade upon the knowledge?
What you call your sword, Mr. Mackellar, and which had been one
indeed against a man of any remnant of propriety, would have been
but a sword of paper against him.  He would smile in your face at
such a threat.  He stands upon his degradation, he makes that his
strength; it is in vain to struggle with such characters."  She
cried out this last a little desperately, and then with more quiet:
"No, Mr. Mackellar; I have thought upon this matter all night, and
there is no way out of it.  Papers or no papers, the door of this
house stands open for him; he is the rightful heir, forsooth!  If
we sought to exclude him, all would redound against poor Henry, and
I should see him stoned again upon the streets.  Ah! if Henry dies,
it is a different matter!  They have broke the entail for their own
good purposes; the estate goes to my daughter; and I shall see who
sets a foot upon it.  But if Henry lives, my poor Mr. Mackellar,
and that man returns, we must suffer:  only this time it will be
together."

On the whole I was well pleased with Mrs. Henry's attitude of mind;
nor could I even deny there was some cogency in that which she
advanced about the papers.

"Let us say no more about it," said I.  "I can only be sorry I
trusted a lady with the originals, which was an unbusinesslike
proceeding at the best.  As for what I said of leaving the service
of the family, it was spoken with the tongue only; and you may set
your mind at rest.  I belong to Durrisdeer, Mrs. Henry, as if I had
been born there."

I must do her the justice to say she seemed perfectly relieved; so
that we began this morning, as we were to continue for so many
years, on a proper ground of mutual indulgence and respect.

The same day, which was certainly prededicate to joy, we observed
the first signal of recovery in Mr. Henry; and about three of the
following afternoon he found his mind again, recognising me by name
with the strongest evidences of affection.  Mrs. Henry was also in
the room, at the bedfoot; but it did not appear that he observed
her.  And indeed (the fever being gone) he was so weak that he made
but the one effort and sank again into lethargy.  The course of his
restoration was now slow but equal; every day his appetite
improved; every week we were able to remark an increase both of
strength and flesh; and before the end of the month he was out of
bed and had even begun to be carried in his chair upon the terrace.

It was perhaps at this time that Mrs. Henry and I were the most
uneasy in mind.  Apprehension for his days was at an end; and a
worse fear succeeded.  Every day we drew consciously nearer to a
day of reckoning; and the days passed on, and still there was
nothing.  Mr.  Henry bettered in strength, he held long talks with
us on a great diversity of subjects, his father came and sat with
him and went again; and still there was no reference to the late
tragedy or to the former troubles which had brought it on.  Did he
remember, and conceal his dreadful knowledge? or was the whole
blotted from his mind?  This was the problem that kept us watching
and trembling all day when we were in his company and held us awake
at night when we were in our lonely beds.  We knew not even which
alternative to hope for, both appearing so unnatural and pointing
so directly to an unsound brain.  Once this fear offered, I
observed his conduct with sedulous particularity.  Something of the
child he exhibited:  a cheerfulness quite foreign to his previous
character, an interest readily aroused, and then very tenacious, in
small matters which he had heretofore despised.  When he was
stricken down, I was his only confidant, and I may say his only
friend, and he was on terms of division with his wife; upon his
recovery, all was changed, the past forgotten, the wife first and
even single in his thoughts.  He turned to her with all his
emotions, like a child to its mother, and seemed secure of
sympathy; called her in all his needs with something of that
querulous familiarity that marks a certainty of indulgence; and I
must say, in justice to the woman, he was never disappointed.  To
her, indeed, this changed behaviour was inexpressibly affecting;
and I think she felt it secretly as a reproach; so that I have seen
her, in early days, escape out of the room that she might indulge
herself in weeping.  But to me the change appeared not natural; and
viewing it along with all the rest, I began to wonder, with many
head-shakings, whether his reason were perfectly erect.

As this doubt stretched over many years, endured indeed until my
master's death, and clouded all our subsequent relations, I may
well consider of it more at large.  When he was able to resume some
charge of his affairs, I had many opportunities to try him with
precision.  There was no lack of understanding, nor yet of
authority; but the old continuous interest had quite departed; he
grew readily fatigued, and fell to yawning; and he carried into
money relations, where it is certainly out of place, a facility
that bordered upon slackness.  True, since we had no longer the
exactions of the Master to contend against, there was the less
occasion to raise strictness into principle or do battle for a
farthing.  True, again, there was nothing excessive in these
relaxations, or I would have been no party to them.  But the whole
thing marked a change, very slight yet very perceptible; and though
no man could say my master had gone at all out of his mind, no man
could deny that he had drifted from his character.  It was the same
to the end, with his manner and appearance.  Some of the heat of
the fever lingered in his veins:  his movements a little hurried,
his speech notably more voluble, yet neither truly amiss.  His
whole mind stood open to happy impressions, welcoming these and
making much of them; but the smallest suggestion of trouble or
sorrow he received with visible impatience and dismissed again with
immediate relief.  It was to this temper that he owed the felicity
of his later days; and yet here it was, if anywhere, that you could
call the man insane.  A great part of this life consists in
contemplating what we cannot cure; but Mr. Henry, if he could not
dismiss solicitude by an effort of the mind, must instantly and at
whatever cost annihilate the cause of it; so that he played
alternately the ostrich and the bull.  It is to this strenuous
cowardice of pain that I have to set down all the unfortunate and
excessive steps of his subsequent career.  Certainly this was the
reason of his beating McManus, the groom, a thing so much out of
all his former practice, and which awakened so much comment at the
time.  It is to this, again, that I must lay the total lose of near
upon two hundred pounds, more than the half of which I could have
saved if his impatience would have suffered me.  But he preferred
loss or any desperate extreme to a continuance of mental suffering.

All this has led me far from our immediate trouble:  whether he
remembered or had forgotten his late dreadful act; and if he
remembered, in what light he viewed it.  The truth burst upon us
suddenly, and was indeed one of the chief surprises of my life.  He
had been several times abroad, and was now beginning to walk a
little with an arm, when it chanced I should be left alone with him
upon the terrace.  He turned to me with a singular furtive smile,
such as schoolboys use when in fault; and says he, in a private
whisper and without the least preface:  "Where have you buried
him?"

I could not make one sound in answer.

"Where have you buried him?" he repeated.  "I want to see his
grave."

I conceived I had best take the bull by the horns.  "Mr. Henry,"
said I, "I have news to give that will rejoice you exceedingly.  In
all human likelihood, your hands are clear of blood.  I reason from
certain indices; and by these it should appear your brother was not
dead, but was carried in a swound on board the lugger.  But now he
may be perfectly recovered."

What there was in his countenance I could not read.  "James?" he
asked.

"Your brother James," I answered.  "I would not raise a hope that
may be found deceptive, but in my heart I think it very probable he
is alive."

"Ah!" says Mr. Henry; and suddenly rising from his seat with more
alacrity than he had yet discovered, set one finger on my breast,
and cried at me in a kind of screaming whisper, "Mackellar" - these
were his words - "nothing can kill that man.  He is not mortal.  He
is bound upon my back to all eternity - to all eternity!" says he,
and, sitting down again, fell upon a stubborn silence.

A day or two after, with the same secret smile, and first looking
about as if to be sure we were alone, "Mackellar," said he, "when
you have any intelligence, be sure and let me know.  We must keep
an eye upon him, or he will take us when we least expect."

"He will not show face here again," said I.

"Oh yes he will," said Mr. Henry.  "Wherever I am, there will he
be."  And again he looked all about him.

"You must not dwell upon this thought, Mr. Henry," said I.

"No," said he, "that is a very good advice.  We will never think of
it, except when you have news.  And we do not know yet," he added;
"he may be dead."

The manner of his saying this convinced me thoroughly of what I had
scarce ventured to suspect:  that, so far from suffering any
penitence for the attempt, he did but lament his failure.  This was
a discovery I kept to myself, fearing it might do him a prejudice
with his wife.  But I might have saved myself the trouble; she had
divined it for herself, and found the sentiment quite natural.
Indeed, I could not but say that there were three of us, all of the
same mind; nor could any news have reached Durrisdeer more
generally welcome than tidings of the Master's death.

This brings me to speak of the exception, my old lord.  As soon as
my anxiety for my own master began to be relaxed, I was aware of a
change in the old gentleman, his father, that seemed to threaten
mortal consequences.

His face was pale and swollen; as he sat in the chimney-side with
his Latin, he would drop off sleeping and the book roll in the
ashes; some days he would drag his foot, others stumble in
speaking.  The amenity of his behaviour appeared more extreme; full
of excuses for the least trouble, very thoughtful for all; to
myself, of a most flattering civility.  One day, that he had sent
for his lawyer and remained a long while private, he met me as he
was crossing the hall with painful footsteps, and took me kindly by
the hand.  "Mr. Mackellar," said he, "I have had many occasions to
set a proper value on your services; and to-day, when I re-cast my
will, I have taken the freedom to name you for one of my executors.
I believe you bear love enough to our house to render me this
service."  At that very time he passed the greater portion of his
days in clamber, from which it was often difficult to rouse him;
seemed to have losst all count of years, and had several times
(particularly on waking) called for his wife and for an old servant
whose very gravestone was now green with moss.  If I had been put
to my oath, I must have declared he was incapable of testing; and
yet there was never a will drawn more sensible in every trait, or
showing a more excellent judgment both of persons and affairs.

His dissolution, though it took not very long, proceeded by
infinitesimal gradations.  His faculties decayed together steadily;
the power of his limbs was almost gone, he was extremely deaf, his
speech had sunk into mere mumblings; and yet to the end he managed
to discover something of his former courtesy and kindness, pressing
the hand of any that helped him, presenting me with one of his
Latin books, in which he had laboriously traced my name, and in a
thousand ways reminding us of the greatness of that loss which it
might almost be said we had already suffered.  To the end, the
power of articulation returned to him in flashes; it seemed he had
only forgotten the art of speech as a child forgets his lesson, and
at times he would call some part of it to mind.  On the last night
of his life he suddenly broke silence with these words from Virgil:
"Gnatique pratisque, alma, precor, miserere," perfectly uttered,
and with a fitting accent.  At the sudden clear sound of it we
started from our several occupations; but it was in vain we turned
to him; he sat there silent, and, to all appearance, fatuous.  A
little later he was had to bed with more difficulty than ever
before; and some time in the night, without any more violence, his
spirit fled.