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The Ladies Lindores, Vol. 3 (of 3)

by Mrs. Oliphant · English · Gutenberg #47593 · 453,250 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Ladies Lindores, Vol. 3 (of 3)

Author: Mrs. Oliphant


        
Release date: December 8, 2014 [eBook #47593]
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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LADIES LINDORES, VOL. 3 (OF 3) ***

                      THE LADIES LINDORES

                        BY MRS OLIPHANT


    IN THREE VOLUMES
    VOL. III.

    WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
    EDINBURGH AND LONDON
    MDCCCLXXXIII

    _ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 'BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE'_


    "TWO OF THE SWEET'ST COMPANIONS IN THE WORLD."
                                            --_Cymbeline_.




THE LADIES LINDORES.




CHAPTER XXXII.


Left to themselves, Millefleurs and Beaufort stood opposite to each
other for a moment with some embarrassment. To have anything to do with
a quarrel is always painful for the third person; and it was so entirely
unexpected, out of the way of all his habits, that Beaufort felt himself
exceptionally incapable of dealing with it. "Millefleurs," he said with
hesitation, "I don't understand all this. That was a very strange tone
to take in speaking to--a friend."

He felt for the first time like a tutor discharging an uncomfortable
office, knowing that it must be done, yet that he was not the man to do
it, and that of all the youthful individuals in the world, the last
person to be so lectured was Millefleurs.

"Naturally you think so. The circumstances make all the difference,
don't you know," said Millefleurs, with his ordinary composure. "And the
situation. In 'Frisco it might not have been of any great consequence.
Helping a bully out of the world is not much of a crime there. But then
it's never hushed up. No one makes a secret of it: that is the thing
that sets one's blood up, don't you know. Not for Torrance's sake--who,
so far as I can make out, was a cad--or poor Lady Car's, to whom it's
something like a deliverance----"

"Torrance!" cried Beaufort, with a gasp. "Lady--Car! Do you mean to
say----"

"Then----" said Millefleurs, "he never told you? That is a curious piece
of evidence. They do things straightforward in Denver City--not like
that. He never spoke of an event which had made the country ring----"

"Torrance!" repeated Beaufort, bewildered. The world seemed all to reel
about him. He gazed at his companion with eyes wide opened but scarcely
capable of vision. By-and-by he sat down abruptly on the nearest chair.
He did not hear what Millefleurs was saying. Presently he turned to him,
interrupting him unconsciously. "Torrance!" he repeated; "let there be
no mistake. You mean the man--to whom Carry--Lady Caroline--was
married?"

Millefleurs fixed upon him his little keen black eyes. He recalled to
himself tones and looks which had struck him at the moment, on which he
had not been able to put any interpretation. He nodded his head without
saying anything. He was as keen after any piece of human history as a
hound on a scent. And now he was too much interested, too eager for new
information, to speak.

"And it happened," said Beaufort, "on Thursday--on the day I arrived?"
He drew a long breath to relieve his breast, then waved his hand. "Yes;
if that is all, Erskine told me of it," he said.

"You have something to do with them also, old fellow," said Millefleurs,
patting him on the shoulder. "I knew there was something. Come along and
walk with me. I must see it out; but perhaps we had better not meet
again just now--Erskine and I, don't you know. Perhaps I was rude. Come
along; it is your duty to get me out of harm's way. Was there anything
remarkable, by the way, in the fact that this happened just when you
arrived?"

Beaufort made no reply; he scarcely heard, so violently were his pulses
beating in his ears, so high was the tide of new life rising in his
veins. Who can think of the perplexities, even the dangers, of another,
when something unparalleled, something that stirs up his very being, has
happened to himself? But he allowed himself to be led out into the open
air, which was a relief--to the road leading to Lindores, from which
they soon came in sight of Tinto dominating the country round from its
platform. Millefleurs stopped at the point where this first came in
view, to point out how high it rose above the river, and how the path
ascended through the overhanging woods. The Scaur itself was visible
like a red streak on the face of the height. "You can see for yourself
that horse or man who plunged over that would have little hope,"
Millefleurs said. But Beaufort did not hear him. He stood and gazed,
with a sense of freedom and possibility which went to his head like
wine. Even the ordinary bonds of nature did not seem to hold him. His
mind seemed to expand and float away over the wide country. Of all
people in the world he was the last who could cross that distance
actually, who could present himself to the lady there--the widow--the
woman who had married Torrance. He could not offer his services or his
sympathy to Carry; he alone of all the world was absolutely shut out
from her, more than a stranger: and yet he stood gazing at the place
where she was, feeling himself go out upon the air, upon the empty
space, towards her. The sensation dizzied his brain and bewildered all
his faculties. Millefleurs flowed on, making a hundred remarks and
guesses, but Beaufort did not hear him. He would have said afterwards,
that as he never spoke, it was impossible he could have betrayed
himself. But he betrayed himself completely, and something more than
himself, to the keen little eyes of Millefleurs.

The day passed as days full of agitation pass--looking long, protracted,
endless--blank hours of suspense following the moment of excitement. Sir
James Montgomery had gone away shaking his good grey head. He had not
believed John Erskine's story--that is, he believed that there was
something suppressed. He had listened with the profoundest interest up
to a certain point, but after that he had shaken his head. "You would
have done better to tell me everything," he said, as he went away. "It
would have been more wise--more wise." He shook his head; the very truth
of the story went against it. There was so much that fitted into the
hypothesis of the country-side. But then there came that _suppressio
veri_ which took all the value from the statement. Sir James went away
fully determined to repeat the story in the most favourable way--to give
the best representation of it possible; but he was not satisfied. It was
with a most serious face that he mounted his horse and rode away,
shaking his head from time to time. "No, no," he said to himself, "that
will never hold water--that will never hold water!" When this interview
was over, John went back to his library and sat down in his usual chair
with a sense of exhaustion and hopelessness which it would be difficult
to describe. He had told his story as best he could, searching his
memory for every detail; but he had not been believed. He had gone on,
growing impassioned in his self-defence--growing indignant, feeling
himself powerless in face of that blank wall of incredulity, that steady
incapacity to believe. "Why should I tell you a lie?" he cried, at last.
"Do not you see? Have you not said that it was for my interest to tell
you the truth?" "I am not saying you have told a lie," Sir James said,
always shaking his head. "No, no--no lie. You will never be accused of
that." When he went away, he had laid his heavy old hand on John's
shoulder. "My poor lad, if you had only had the courage to open your
heart all the way!" he said. John felt like a victim in the hands of the
Inquisition. What did they want him to confess? Half maddened, he felt
as if a little more pressure, a few more twists of the screw, would make
him accuse himself of anything, and confess all that they might require.

He did not know how long he sat there, silent, doing nothing, not even
thinking anything, alone with himself and the cloud that hung over his
life, with a consciousness that all his movements were watched, that
even this would be something against him, a proof of that remorse which
belongs to guilt. And thus the slow moments, every one slower than the
other, more full of oppression, rolled over him. Beaufort had
disappeared, and did not return till late in the afternoon, when the
twilight was falling. A few words only passed between them, and these
related solely to Beaufort's thoughts, not to Erskine's.

"It is _her_ husband who has been killed," Beaufort said; "you never
told me."

"I could not tell you. It was too extraordinary; it was an impiety,"
John said.

But neither did he ask himself what he meant, nor did Beaufort ask him.
They said nothing more to each other, except such civilities as are
indispensable when men eat together,--for they dined all the same,
notwithstanding the circumstances. In every crisis men must still dine;
it is the only thing that is inevitable, in trouble or in joy.

And then the night followed. Night is horrible, yet it is consolatory to
those who are in suspense. John could not suppose that his trials were
over, that nothing was to follow; but by ten o'clock or so he said to
himself, with relief, that nothing could happen to-night. Rolls, too,
had evidently arrived at the same conclusion. He was heard to close and
bolt the door ostentatiously while it was still early, and there was
something in the very noise he made which proclaimed the satisfaction
with which he did it. But after this there was a long black evening
still, and hours of darkness, to follow, which John did not know how to
get through. Almost he had made up his mind to step out of the window at
midnight, as Rolls had suggested, and withdraw from all this alarm and
unjust suspicion. He did go out, and felt the cool freshness of the
night caress him, hot and weary as he was, and thought with a sigh of
distant places far away, where he might be safe from all these frets and
passions. But he knew, if he did so, that his cause would be lost for
ever--that nothing could save him or his reputation. Perhaps in no case
could anything save him: but if he fled, his ruin was certain. "What did
it matter," he thought, with bitterness, "that he had no witnesses to
produce, that nobody would believe him? And if he were condemned, what
would any one care? His mother, indeed, would feel the shame, but more
the shame than anything else; and her name was not Erskine, nor that of
any of her family. There was no one who actually belonged to him in the
wide world, to whom his living or dying could be of any consequence." As
he stood alone with these bitter thoughts, on the terrace, looking out
upon the night, feeling the wind blow upon him from the fields of sleep,
but no other trace in the darkness of the great wide landscape which he
knew lay stretched out like a map under cover of the clouds, something
breathed another name in his ear. Ah! how did he know if she would care?
Sometimes he had thought so, hoped so, vaguely, with a tremor of alarmed
delight. But if this shadow of crime came over him, would Edith stoop
under it to say a word of consolation?--would she? could she? He stood
still for a long time on the terrace, with the lighted window and common
life behind him, and all the secrets of the hidden night before, and
asked himself what she would do. What would she do? That question, and
not the other, was, after all, the great one in life.

Next morning John awoke with the sense of a coming trial, which made his
heart jump in his breast the moment he opened his eyes, though it was
some time before he recollected what it was. But he did so at last, and
accepted the certainty with outward calm. He came down-stairs with a
steady conviction of what was about to happen. To make up his mind to it
was something. He sat down at the breakfast-table opposite to
Beaufort--who was restless and uncomfortable--with a calm which he felt
to be fictitious, but which nevertheless was calm.

"You must remember," he said, "Beaufort, whatever happens, that
Dalrulzian is altogether at your command."

"What can happen?" Beaufort asked.

"I scarcely know. I can be taken away, I suppose, and examined
somewhere. You had better come with me. You are a barrister, and might
help; and besides, it will always be for your advantage to get a little
insight into Scotch law."

"I might be of use, perhaps; but in that case, you must tell me
everything," Beaufort said.

"I ask no better," said the young man; and he repeated the narrative
which he had told to Sir James Montgomery. "Don't you disbelieve me.
What I say to you is the whole truth," he said,--"everything that there
is to say."

"To disbelieve you would be impossible," said Beaufort, which was the
first gleam of consolation he had. They had a long consultation, some of
which was surprised by Rolls, who went and came, busy about the door,
with sombre and undisguised anxiety.

Beaufort scouted the idea that there could be any question of murder.
"Had you done as they suppose--seized the bridle in self-defence, and
forced the horse a step too far--it would still only be accident," he
said,--"at the very worst and bitterest, manslaughter; though I don't
see how it could bear even such a verdict as that. There is no occasion
for unnecessary alarm. Anything more is impossible."

At this moment Rolls came in; his countenance was lightened, yet
excited. "There is one--that would like to speak to you, sir," he said.

There could be no doubt as to what the summons was. Rolls lingered
behind when his master, with changing colour, but self-possession, left
the room. He came up to Beaufort stealthily. "Sir," he said--"sir, will
_yon_ be all true?"

"What? Neither Mr Erskine nor myself is in the habit of saying what is
not true."

"That's no doubt the case. I'm saying nothing of him; but you might have
smoothed it off a bit, just to soothe him. Will it be all exact yon you
said about manslaughter? Manslaughter is just culpable homicide, so far
as I can see. And what's the punishment for manslaughter (as you call
it), if you'll be so kind as say?"

"That depends on the gravity of the case, on the character of the judge,
on many things. A year's, two years' imprisonment--perhaps only a month
or two. I have known it but a day."

"And previous character would be taken into account?" said Rolls; "and
aggravation, and--many a thing more?"

"No doubt; it is a thing upon which no certain rule can be observed. It
may be next to no harm at all, or it may be close upon murder. In such a
case as this, severity is very unlikely."

"But it will make a pairting," said Rolls, solemnly, "atween him and all
he maist cares for. I'm no' of the young maister's mind myself. There
are some would have set him far better, and in every way more suitable;
but what a man likes himself, it's that will please him, and no' what
another man likes. It takes us a' a lang time," said Rolls, shaking his
head, "to learn that. Many's the one in my place would think here's just
a grand opportunity to pairt him and--them; but you see I take his ain
wishes into consideration."

The old servant spoke less to Beaufort than to himself; but the visitor
was not accustomed to hold such colloquies with a family butler. He
stared, then grew impatient, and disposed to resent the old fellow's
familiarity. The next moment the bell rang, and Rolls hurried away.
Beaufort followed him out into the hall, where a man was standing
evidently on guard. John was at the door of the drawing-room, pale, but
perfectly composed. "The dogcart immediately," he said to Rolls, and
beckoned to Beaufort to come in. "I am going before the
sheriff-substitute about this matter," he said. "Beaufort, you will come
with me. Mr Granger, this is my friend Mr Beaufort, an English
barrister. He may go with me, I suppose, to watch over my interests? You
see that what we were threatened with yesterday has come to pass."

"I see, indeed," said Beaufort, "with sorrow and surprise. What is it
that has to be done now?"

"The sheriff will make no objection," said the head of the county
police, a plain, grave man, with regret in his face. "It's my duty to
take Mr Erskine before the sheriff. The result of the examination will
be, let us hope, that he'll come cannily home again, when all has been
inquired into in due form. There is no reason to take a gloomy view. The
sheriff will maybe find there's no case: and I'm sure I wish so with all
my heart."

They all sat round with the utmost gravity to listen to this little
speech. It was not a moment for light-heartedness. John sat between the
table and the door, in perfect self-command, yet very pale.
Notwithstanding all the respect shown to him, and the good feeling from
which he had everything to hope, the most innocent of men may be excused
a feeling of dismay when he is, to all intents and purposes, arrested on
a criminal charge, with issues to his good fame and social estimation,
even if nothing more, which it is impossible to calculate. They sat in
silence while the dogcart was getting ready, a strange little company.
After a while, the officer, to lessen the embarrassment of the moment,
and make everything pleasant, began to address various little remarks
about the weather and other commonplace topics to the two gentlemen,
such as, "This is a very agreeable change from all the wet we've been
having;" or, "The news this morning is more satisfactory about that
Afghan business." The responses made, as may be supposed, were not very
effusive. It was a relief when the dogcart came to the door. Old Rolls
stood and watched it go down the avenue, with his countenance firmly
set, and a stern resolution gathering about his mouth. Bauby stole out
and stood by his side in the morning light, with her apron to her eyes,
and her capacious bosom convulsed with sobs. "Eh, that I should have
lived to see this day, and shame come to oor dwallin'!" cried Bauby;
"and as bonny a young lad as ever steppit, and as good!"

"Hold your peace, woman!" said her brother; "ye may see shame come
nearer hame or a's done."

"Eh, Tammas, man! what do you ca' nearer hame? My heart's just broken;
and what will his mammaw say?" the faithful creature cried.

Meanwhile it might have been a party of pleasure that threaded its way
among the trees, somewhat closely packed in the dogcart, but no more
than they might have been, starting for the moors. John Erskine drove
himself to the examination which was to decide his fate one way or
another, with all the appearance of a perfectly free agent. The horse
was fresh, the morning bright; and though the four men were a heavy
load, they skimmed along the country road as gaily as if all had been
well. Tinto was visible for the greater part of the way. They passed by
the very gates of Lindores. John had shaken himself together as he took
the reins in his hand, and with perhaps a little unconscious bravado,
paused now and then to indicate a favourite point of view to his friend.
But he had harder work in store. Just before they reached Dunearn, he
perceived drawn up by the roadside Lady Lindores's carriage, in which
Edith was seated alone. Impossible to describe the feelings with which,
as across a gulf of pain and trouble, the unfortunate young man, at this
crisis of his fate, looked at the girl with whom, when he last saw her,
he had been so near the edge of a mutual understanding. It was
impossible for him now to do other than draw up by the side of the
carriage to speak to her; and there, in the hearing of the two men who
formed his escort, and whose presence was heavy on his heart, the
following conversation took place. Edith looked up at him with a smile
and an expression of pleasure which brightened her whole aspect. She was
in mourning, and somewhat pale.

"I am waiting for mamma," she said. "One of her pensioners is ill in
that cottage. I was glad of the chance of bringing her out for a little
air. We are with poor Carry, you know."

"How is Lady Caroline?" John asked.

"Oh, well enough, when one considers all things," said Edith, hastily;
and to escape that subject, which was not to be entered on before
strangers, she said, "You are going to Dunearn?"

"On painful business," he said. "I wonder if I may ask you one thing?"
She looked up at him with a smile which said much--a smile of trust and
belief, which might have encouraged any man to speak. Edith had no fear
of what he might ask her. For John it was more difficult to command
himself and his voice at that moment than at any previous one since his
trial began. He cleared his throat with an effort, and his voice was
husky. "You will hear things said of me--that may make you turn from--an
old friend altogether. I want you not to believe them. And tell Lady
Lindores. Do not believe them. It is not true."

"Mr Erskine, what is it--what is it? You may be sure I shall believe
nothing against you--nor mamma either! Is it--is it----" her eyes fixed
upon him anxiously and upon the stranger beside him, whose face was
unknown to her, and who sat blank and passive like a servant, yet who
was not a servant. Edith rose in the carriage in her great anxiety, and
gazed as if she would have read a volume in John's face. What it cost
him to look at her and to keep a kind of smile on his, it would be hard
to tell.

"I cannot enter into explanations now. I may not be able to do so soon.
Only--tell Lady Lindores."

She held out her hand to him, which he stooped to touch--it was all he
could do--and once more gave him an anxious, tender smile. "You may
trust both mamma and me," she said.

And in another moment, so it seemed, the dogcart stopped again. John
went over the streets of Dunearn like a man in a dream--in a sort of
exquisite anguish, a mingled sweetness and bitterness such as never went
into words. Their looks seemed to cling together, as, with a start, the
horse went on; and now they stopped again and got down--for a very
different encounter. Even now, however, John's progress was to be
interrupted. Some one called to him as he was about to go into the
sheriff's court in the little Town-house of Dunearn. "Is that you, John
Erskine? and what has brought you here?" in peremptory tones. He turned
round quickly. It was Miss Barbara in her pony-carriage, which Nora was
driving. The old lady leaned across the young one and beckoned to him
with some impatience. "Come here. What are you doing in Dunearn without
coming to me? It's true I'm out, and you would not have found me; but
Janet would have understood to be prepared for your luncheon. And what's
your business in the Town-house this fine morning, and with strange
company?" Miss Barbara said. She cast a keen glance at the man, who
stood aside respectfully enough, and yet, backed by his assistant, kept
a watchful eye on John.

"I am afraid I cannot wait to tell you now. It is not pleasant
business," John said.

"Come round here," said the old lady, imperiously; "can I keep on
skreighing to you before all the town? Come round here." Her keen eyes
took in the whole scene: John's glance at his grave companion, the most
imperceptible gesture with which that person made way for him. Miss
Barbara's perceptions were keen. She gripped her nephew by the arm.
"John Erskine, have ye done anything to bring ye within the power of the
law?"

"Nothing," he said firmly, meeting her eye.

"Then what does that man mean glowering at you? Lord guide us! what is
it, boy? It cannot be money, for money has none of these penalties now."

"It is not money--nor anything worth a thought."

"Mr Erskine," said the officer, civilly, "the sheriff is waiting." And
after that, there was no more to be said.




CHAPTER XXXIII.


Rolls went up-stairs and dressed himself in his best--his "blacks,"
which he kept for going to funerals and other solemnities--not the dress
in which he waited at table and did his ordinary business. The coat,
with its broad, square tails, gave him an appearance something between
that of a respectable farmer and a parish minister--a little too solemn
for the one, too secular for the other; and to show that he was "his own
man," and for to-day at least no man's servant, he enveloped his throat
in a large black silk neckerchief, square in shape, and folded like a
substantial bandage with a little bow in the front. His forehead was
lined with thought. When he had finished his toilet, he opened the large
wooden "kist" which stood in a corner of his room, and was the final
receptacle of all his worldly goods. Out of that he took a blue-spotted
handkerchief, in which a pocket-book was carefully wrapped up, and took
from it a few somewhat dirty pound-notes. Then restoring the
pocket-book, he locked the kist carefully, and went down-stairs with the
key--a very large one--in his hand. This he gave to Bauby, who still
hung about the door with her apron to her eyes. "You should go ben to
your work, my woman," said Rolls, "and no make the worst of what's
happened: in a' likelihood the master will be back afore the dinner's
ready." "Do you think that, Tammas? do you really think that?" cried
Bauby, brightening up and showing symptoms of an inclination to cry for
joy as she had done for sorrow. "I'm no' saying what I think. I'm
thinking mony things beyond the power o' a woman person to faddom," said
Rolls, solemnly. "And if the maister should be back, it's real possible
I mayna be back. You'll just behave conformably, and put forrit Marget.
If she wasna so frightened, she's no' a bad notion at a' of waiting at
table. And if there's ony question where I am, or what's become of
me----"

"Oh, Tammas, what will I say? It will be the second time in a week.
He'll no' like it," cried Bauby, diverted from one trouble to another.
The absence of her brother when the dinner was ready was almost as
extraordinary as her master's conveyance away to unknown dangers by the
functionaries of the law.

"If he's here to be angry, a' will be well," said Rolls, grimly; and
then he handed her the key. "If there should be any question about me,
when I'm no', here to answer for myself, you'll inform whoever it
concerns that the kist is yours and everything in it, in proof of which
you'll produce the key. That's no' to say but what you'll respect the
bits of things in it, and hand me back possession when I come, soon or
late," said Rolls. "You'll mind what I say to you, Bauby. It's yours in
the one case, but no' in the other. You'll take possession if there is
ony other claimant; but me being back, you'll respect my rights."

"I wuss I would ken what you meant first," said Bauby, gazing at him
wistfully. Rolls had an air of satisfaction on his face for the first
time: he was pleased to have puzzled her. His face relaxed almost into a
smile as he said, "According to a' probabilities, you'll soon understand
that."

With these words he set out from the hall-door, walking very
deliberately, and crushing the pebbles under his feet at every step. He
had taken his best silk umbrella, which, loosened from its habitual
folds, and used as a stick, made a sort of flapping accompaniment to his
progress, like a large bird walking by him. As he turned from the door
the solemnity of his aspect returned. He walked slowly, thinking as he
went--thinking so profoundly that he scarcely saw Peggy at the lodge,
and passed her, taking no notice of her in the gravity of his
preoccupation. She said afterwards that it was awfu' evident he had
something on his mind. She told Jean Tamson, who was in the lodge at the
moment--come for a crack, and talking of nothing else but this very
subject,--"I wouldna wonder," she said, "but Mr Rolls kens more about it
than any of us." This at least was what she informed the world she had
said to her gossip when all was known.

It was four miles to Dunearn; but old Rolls was a steady, good walker,
with no irregularity about him. Every step he took was just of the same
length as the step before. Yard for yard he did his four miles in the
regulated time, neither shorter nor longer. When he arrived at the
Town-house, there was a little flutter about the door as of people
dispersing; but there had not been any number of people, and though the
rumour of what had transpired had begun to blow about the place, there
were not as yet many gazers. By-and-by, as he stood outside, his master
came out, with one of the emissaries of the morning close by him, and
Beaufort behind. John Erskine was pale; but there was a sort of smile on
his face--a smile which had no pleasure in it, but some contempt, and
that sort of outward looking to heaven and earth, with the head held
high, and the nostrils somewhat dilated, which is so often the
aspect of a man unjustly accused. He was making light of it to
himself--persuading himself that it was nothing and meant nothing. He
saw Rolls standing by, and waved his hand to him. "What! have you walked
all this way," he said, "old Truepenny,"--with something of the same
levity of despair which dictated the same words to Hamlet,--"to see the
last of me?"

"It's not come to that, sir, I hope," said Rolls, with a seriousness
which was as solemn as if what John had said was real. The young man
laughed.

"You will pack my portmanteau and send it after me: I suppose I may be
allowed that?" he said. The officer who was in attendance bowed his
head. The people about gathered round, staring at John with too much
surprise to express any other emotion; and by-and-by the party drove off
again, nobody apparently divining exactly what it all meant. There were
a number of petty cases to be tried by the sheriff, who was in the
Town-house, as it was called, and as many different interests as there
were loungers about. Rolls went in with hesitating steps after his
master had disappeared. The old man had come, in full expectation of the
event which had happened; but fact is always different from
anticipation. When he saw what he had only looked for, the effect upon
him was something overwhelming. He stood staring and gaping in the
little crowd which gradually drew together, realising only after it was
over what had taken place before their eyes. "What's wrang with the
young maister, Mr Rolls?" said one of the bystanders. "Let me be!" cried
the old man, shaking himself free; and he went into the Town-house with
tottering steps. He had intended taking certain bold and immediate
steps, carrying out the project he had been framing in his mind; but his
nerves were shaken when the moment came. The law terrified him. If his
master, in all the strength and confidence of his youth, was thus
peremptorily dealt with, what aggravations might not he, an old and
humble individual--nothing but a servant--look for? He was cowed. He
stole up to an attendant and made faltering inquiries. "What will they
have settled about yon case?" he said. "About what case?--the
sheep-lifting, or the unlawfu' wounding, or the robbery at Willyam
Tamson's----" "Nane o' thae things--nane o' thae things," said old
Rolls. "It's about young Mr Erskine of Dalrulzian." "Oh, ay, ay," said
the attendant, shaking his head; "that's very serious. The circumstances
a' point to some agent mair than accident--that's what the sherra says,
and he canna see his way to discharging the panel." "The panel![1]--he's
nae panel!--mind what you're saying," cried Rolls. "Well, maybe that's
going owre fast. I would say the gentleman under suspicion. He maun just
bide the result of a mair formal examination--that's a' I can tell ye;
I have nae time to enter into particulars," the official said.

[Footnote 1: _Scotticè_, accused.]

Rolls, who had meant such heroic things, turned away tremulously. He
went out again, scarcely knowing where he was going, into the streets of
Dunearn. There everybody looked at him with curious eyes. The town had
at last become conscious of what had happened: from a public-house in
the environs a stone had been thrown at John Erskine as he went past,
and hootings had risen on his path. This roused the population fully,
and now the streets were full of groups discussing the matter. Torrance,
as has been said, was popular in his way, especially now in that warmth
of pity and charity which follows a sudden and unexpected death; and
John Erskine was comparatively unknown. The tide was strongly against
him, as a semi-foreigner--a man who had come from "abroad." "He'll find
here that gentle and simple must keep the laws alike," said one. "A man
daurna ride roughshod over his fellows here."

Old Rolls heard the growl of popular excitement, and it alarmed him
still more. "If it was me they would tear me in bits," he said to
himself. His alarm on this point, as much as his original intention,
drove him in at Mr Monypenny's door, which was in his way. He was afraid
of being recognised as the butler at Dalrulzian ("for everybody kens
me," he said to himself, with mingled pride and panic), and he was
anxious to consult the "man of business" who had Dalrulzian estate in
his hands.

Mr Monypenny was out; and Rolls requested permission to sit down and
wait. He had a long time of quiet to think over his plan again, and he
did think it over, and recovered his courage. After a time Mrs
Monypenny, hearing who it was, sent to request him to have some cold
beef in the kitchen, an offer of which Rolls availed himself at once.
"For what is the use of punishing yourself?" he said. "A man's more
qualified for everything when he has eaten his dinner." He was very
serious, and unlike his usual cheerfully communicative mood, in Mr
Monypenny's kitchen. The maids did not know what had come over him. To
have such a grand subject of discourse as his master's arrest, and yet
to be so silent, struck them with astonishment; but they, too, remarked
his perturbed countenance afterwards, and said to one another, "I told
you there was mair in him than met the eye."

Meanwhile Miss Barbara and her young companion had been driving up and
down in the pony-carriage in a state of great excitement. They had
passed the Town-house half-a-dozen times, always looking for the
reappearance of John; but he, as was to be expected, had come out and
gone away in the interval between. Miss Barbara had maintained during
the whole time a lively monologue, scarcely interrupted by her young
companion. "I've heard what they daured to say," Miss Barbara cried; "as
if one of my family would stoop to soil his fingers with any Tinto of
them all! What were the Torrances but bonnet-lairds till old Torrance
married the railway man's daughter? But I never thought they would have
dared to do anything against an Erskine. Times are changed. (Go round by
the Stone Bridge, Nora; it's an easier road for the pony.) What would my
father have said if he had heard a descendant of his evened with one of
that race? That's what your Radicalism comes to."

"But death is the same, whether it comes to a saint or--a bully; and
life has to be protected," said Nora, fired with political ardour.

"Life--and death. They're grand words to use: a drunk man falling over a
steep bank that it was the wonder of the whole country-side he had not
gone over years and years before."

Nora did not say any more. She was not so warm a partisan as Miss
Barbara's companion ought to have been. She drove along quietly, taking
no further part in the talk, which the old lady maintained alone. "How
can I go in to my peaceful house and eat my comfortable dinner, not
knowing but my own flesh and blood may be shut up in a jail?" she said.
Then she added quickly, "There's that lad, young Rintoul. I'm not fond
of any of his family; but I suppose he's a gentleman. He'll go in and
ask what has happened. Fast--to your right hand, Nora. Now draw up. He
sees what I mean. Lord Rintoul," added Miss Barbara, "I have a favour to
ask of you. You may have heard my nephew John Erskine's name bandied
about these late days. He's been in the Town-house before the sheriff
and the procurator-fiscal this hour and a half or more. It's not for me
to ask the town-bodies about what has happened. Will you go and bring me
word?"

Rintoul stood silent for a moment before he made any reply. Her voice
seemed to have called him from painful reflections of his own, the chain
of which he could not in a moment break. He gave her a half-bewildered
look, then turned to Nora, who looked at him more gently, with
sympathetic eyes. How haggard he looked, and worn!--he who had been so
ruddy and manly, only too much flesh and blood, almost too little
inclination to be moved by emotion or sentiment,--was all this because
of the sudden death of his brother-in-law, a man for whom he cared
nothing? Nora was extraordinarily impressed by Rintoul's changed
appearance. Miss Barbara, preoccupied by her own anxieties, scarcely
noticed him at all.

"In the Town-house with the sheriff? What does that mean?"

"I forgot you were English," said Miss Barbara with a touch of contempt.
"It means some examination of witnesses anent the death of Pat Torrance,
your brother-in-law. What my nephew should have to do with it, I cannot
tell you. It's just that I would have you inquire."

"He can have nothing to do with it," said Rintoul; and then he stopped
short, and the momentary animation died out of his face. He shivered as
he stood in the sunshine, which was as warm as September ever is in
Scotland. "It must be a mistake; we have heard nothing of this," he
said. "I am sure Carry--would be averse to any fuss. It was such a thing
for her that there was no coroner's inquest. I made sure we were all
safe. You must be mistaken," he said.

"Lord Rintoul," said Nora, who was given to opposition, "though there is
no coroner's inquest, there must be justice; and if they think Mr
Erskine has anything to do with it----"

"He has nothing to do with it," said Rintoul, with petulant impatience.
Miss Barbara stretched her hand over Nora to grasp his, but this gesture
seemed to drive him back into himself. He withdrew a little from the
side of the pony-carriage, and made a pretence of not seeing the old
lady's outstretched hand. Miss Barbara was shocked, and gave him a
curious look; but she was not prepared for disrespect, and did not
expect it. She went on more eagerly than before--

"And here I am helpless," she said. "I cannot go in myself. I will not
send Nora. Will you do my errand, Lord Rintoul? Bring me word, not here,
but to my house. I am going home."

He gave a little bow of assent, and stood on the pavement looking after
them as they drove away. He stood longer than was necessary for that,
till they had disappeared round the corner of the High Street, till the
children about--of whom there was always a large supply in
Dunearn--began to gape at him with expectations of amusement. "Look at
the man glowering frae him," these spectators cried, and a small pebble
tumbled along the flags where he stood--a harmless experiment to see if
there was any fun in him. He did not notice this, nor any other outside
occurrence, but after a while got slowly under way again, as if the
operation was difficult, and went on to the Town-house. When he got
there, he went in reluctantly, with evident disinclination. The
attendant who had talked to Rolls made way for him respectfully. The
other people about opened the doors and took off their hats to the young
potentate. A small case which was going on at the time was even
suspended while the sheriff, not nearly so great a man, answered his
lordship's questions in his own person. "Yes, there has been an
examination," the sheriff said. "The circumstances are very suspicious.
I have thought it best to order that young Erskine should be detained
till there can be a more complete investigation. That, it is to be
hoped, will clear the matter up; but if not----"

Lord Rintoul's fair and ruddy countenance was dark with anxiety and
pain. "You cannot mean," he said, "that you believe Erskine----"

"I believe nothing but what there is evidence for," the sheriff said.
"We are not men of theories, Lord Rintoul. Experience shows every day
that men do the most unlikely things. I hear he's shown an
_animus_,--and there are two or three points very strange. I saw it my
duty to give orders that he should be detained----"

"You have sent him to prison, do you mean?" There was a sharp tone as of
personal anguish in Rintoul's voice. "But you'll admit him to bail? My
father, I, Millefleurs, any gentleman in the country----"

"Will be his bail? I doubt if it's a bailable offence: but if Lord
Lindores were willing to do that, no doubt it would have a good effect.
However, nothing can be done before the investigation," said the
sheriff; "a day or two will do the young man no harm."

This was all he could elicit. The sheriff was a man who had a great idea
of his office, and it was not often that he had a case so interesting
and important. The attendants thought Lord Rintoul had been drinking, as
he stumbled out. He went along the quiet street with an uncertain step,
now and then taking off his hat that the air might refresh him. He, too,
stopped at Mr Monypenny's door, as Rolls had done a very short time
before. It was afternoon now, and the shadows were lengthening as he
reached Miss Barbara's house. What a sunny glimpse there was from door
to door, across the little hall to the garden, where the brightness of
the autumn flowers made a flush of colour! Rintoul saw a figure against
the light which was not Miss Barbara's. There was in him a forlorn
desire for consolation. "Don't tell Miss Barbara I am here just yet," he
said hastily to the maid, and opened the glass-door, beyond which Nora
stood among all the geraniums and mignonette. There was no agitation
about her. She was not sufficiently interested in John Erskine to be
deeply troubled by the idea of annoyance to him as his old aunt was, or
alarmed by a passing shadow upon his name. She was serene and calm in
this quiet world of flowers and greenness where no trouble was. She
welcomed him with a smile. "Miss Barbara is very anxious," she said.
"She has gone up-stairs to rest, but I am to let her know when you
come."

"Wait a little," he said, glad of the interval; "_you_ are not anxious."

"Not so much. Of course I am interested in my friends' friends--but I
don't know very much of Mr Erskine," said Nora, unable to divest herself
altogether of the imaginative offence that lay between John and her.
"And it cannot do him much harm, can it? It will only be
disagreeable--till the facts are known. Young men," she said, with a
smile, "have a right to have something unpleasant happen to them now and
then; they have so much the best of it in other ways."

"Do you think so," he said, with a seriousness which put her levity to
shame. "To be sent to prison--to have a stigma put upon you--perhaps to
be tried for your life!--that is rather worse than mere unpleasantness."

Nora was greatly impressed, not only by the gravity of what he said, but
the air with which he said it. "It surely cannot be so bad as that: and
he--is innocent, Lord Rintoul?"

"I have no doubt of it," cried Rintoul, eagerly,--"no doubt of it! If
there is any one to blame, it is some one--whom most likely nobody
suspects. What would you think of the man who had done it, and yet said
nothing, but let John Erskine suffer for his fault?"

"I do not believe," said Nora, like Desdemona, "that there could be any
such man. It is impossible. You think too badly of human nature. How
can you suppose another would do what you know you would not do
yourself? Oh no, no, never! Lord Rintoul----" She paused after this
little outburst, and drawing a step nearer to him, asked in a low and
horror-stricken tone--"Do you really think that poor Mr Torrance
was--murdered?"

"No, no!" he cried almost violently--"no, no!" He stopped short, with a
dryness in his throat, as if he could not speak; then resumed, in a
quieter tone--"But I think in all likelihood there was, as people
imagine, a quarrel, a scuffle--and that somebody--took hold of the
mare's bridle----"

"Some tramp, no doubt," said Nora, sympathetically, much affected by his
emotion, "who perhaps doesn't even know----"

"That is it," said Rintoul, eagerly--"who perhaps never dreamt at the
moment. And even if he knows now, such a man might think, as you did,
that it would come to nothing with Erskine. I believe it will come to
nothing--a day, or two days, in prison."

"But if it should turn out more serious," said Nora, "even a
tramp--would give himself up, surely--would never let an innocent man
suffer?"

"We must hope so, at least," said Lord Rintoul. His countenance had
never relaxed all this time. It was almost solemn, set, and rigid--the
muscles about his mouth unmoving. "There should not be any question
about right and wrong, I know," he said, "but such a man might say to
himself--he might think--Young Erskine is a gentleman, and I'm only a
common fellow--they will treat him better than they would treat me. He
might say to himself----"

"I cannot believe it," cried Nora. "In such a case there could be no
question of what any one would do. It is like A B C. What! let another
man suffer for something you have done! Oh no, no--even in the nursery
one knows better than that!"

"I don't think," said Rintoul, "that you ever can understand all the
excuses a man will make for himself till you've been in the same
position. Things look so different when you've done it--from what they
do when some one else has done it. There are so many things to be taken
into consideration. Punishment is not the same to all; it might ruin
one, and not do much harm to another. A man might feel justified, or at
least there would be excuses for him, if he let another bear the
punishment which would not hurt _him_ much, but would be destructive to
himself. Of course it would be his business to make it up somehow."

"Lord Rintoul, this is dreadful doctrine!" said Nora; "if it were
carried out, then you might do any wickedness you wished, and hire
somebody to be punished instead of you." She laughed half nervously,
shaking off the graver turn the conversation had taken. "But this is
absurd," she said; "of course you don't mean that. I think I know what
you mean;--but I must not delay longer, I must tell Miss Barbara."

"Don't disturb her now," said Rintoul, eagerly. "Besides, I really have
not time. If you would say that it is unfortunately true--that Erskine
is--detained till there can be a full investigation. I am hurrying off
to get bail for him, for of course they must accept bail--and it will
only be for a few days. The investigation--at which we shall all be
examined," he said, with a nervous tremor,--"will clear up everything, I
hope."

"I hope so, with all my heart," said Nora, waving her hand to him as he
hurried away. Rintoul had reached the garden door on his way out, when
he suddenly paused, and came back to her, and took that hand, holding it
for a moment between his own.

"All this is very hard upon me," he said, incoherently; "it gives me a
great deal of misery. Feel for me--stand by me. Will you, Nora? I don't
care for the rest, if you----"

And he wrung her hand almost violently, dropped it, and hurried away.
The girl stood looking after him with wonder and dismay, and yet with a
gush of a different kind of feeling, which filled her heart with a
confusing warmth. "A great deal of misery!" Was it the tenderness of his
heart for his sister, for the unfortunate man who had been summoned out
of the world so abruptly--though he did not love him--and for his friend
who was unjustly accused, which made Rintoul say this? But anyhow, Nora
was not capable of resisting such an appeal. Poor Rintoul: though he did
not show it to any one, how tender he was, how full of sympathy! John
Erskine (against whom she could not help entertaining a little grudge)
died out of her mind altogether. She was so much more sorry for the
other, who felt it so deeply though it was not his concern.




CHAPTER XXXIV.


Beaufort drove home on that eventful afternoon by himself. He had left
his friend in the county jail, in a state in which surprise was still
perhaps the predominant feeling. John had said little on the way, except
to point out, with something which perhaps bore the character of
bravado, the new features of the landscape beyond Dunearn. "It is an
opportunity for you to see a little more of the country," he said, with
a smile. Something of the same indignant amusement which had been his
first apparent sensation on hearing the sheriff's decision was still in
his manner now. He held his head high and a little thrown back, his
nostrils were dilated, his eyes more widely open and alert than usual,
and a smile in which there was a little scorn was upon his face. Those
who did not know John or human nature might have thought him unusually
triumphant, excited by some occurrence which enhanced instead of
humiliating his pride. "I cannot tell you how surprised I am to see you
here, Mr Erskine," said the governor of the jail with consternation.
"You cannot be more surprised than I am," said John. He gave his orders
about the things he wanted in the same tone, taking no notice of the
anxious suggestion that it would only be for a few days. He was too
deeply offended with fate to show it. He only smiled and said, "The
first step is so extraordinary that I prefer not to anticipate the
next." "But they must allow you bail," said Beaufort; "that must be my
first care." John laughed. He would not condescend to be anxious. "Or
hang me," he said; "the one just as sensible as the other." Beaufort
drove away with the strangest feelings, guiding his friend's horse along
the road with which he was so little acquainted, but from which
presently he saw the great house of Tinto on one side, and on the other
the towers of Lindores appearing from among the trees. How hard it was
to keep his thoughts to John, with these exciting objects on either side
of him! This country road, which all its length kept him in sight of the
big castellated front of Tinto, with its flag half-mast high--the house
in which she was who had been his love and promised bride--seemed to
Beaufort to have become the very thread of his fate. That Carry should
be there within his reach, that she should be free and mistress of
herself, that there should be even a certain link of connection which
brought him naturally once more within the circle of her immediate
surroundings, was so wonderful that everything else seemed of less
importance. He could not disengage his thoughts from this. He was not a
man in whose mind generosity was the first or even a primary quality,
and it is so difficult to think first of another when our own affairs
are at an exciting stage. The only step which he could think of for
John's advantage confused him still more, for it was the first direct
step possible to put him once more in contact with Carry. He turned up
the avenue of Lindores with a thrill of sensation which penetrated his
whole being. He was relieved indeed to know that the ladies were not
there--that he would not at least be exposed to their scrutiny, and to
the self-betrayal that could scarcely fail to follow; but the very sight
and name of the house was enough to move him almost beyond his errand.
The last rays of the sunset had gone out, and the autumn evening began
to darken by the time he got there. He went on like a man in a dream,
feeling the very air about him tremulous with his fate, although he made
an attempt to think of John first. How could he think of anything but of
Carry, who was free? or recollect anything except that the mistress of
this house had allowed him to call her mother; and that even its lord,
before he was its lord, had not refused to permit the suggestion of a
filial relationship? There was a carriage already standing before the
door when he drove up, but his mind was by this time too much excited to
be moved by any outside circumstance. But when he stepped into the hall
upon his mission, and, following the servant to the presence of Lord
Lindores, suddenly found himself face to face with the two ladies going
out, Beaufort's agitation was extreme. They were returning to Tinto,
after a day's expedition in search of those "things" which seem always
necessary in every domestic crisis. Lady Lindores recognised him with a
start and cry of amazement. "Mr Beaufort! you here!" she cried, unable
to contain herself. She added, "at such a time!" in a lower tone, with
the self-betrayal to which impulsive persons are always liable, and with
so much indignation mingled with her astonishment, that a man in full
possession of his faculties might have drawn from it the most favourable
auguries. But Beaufort, to do him justice, was not cool enough for this.
He said hurriedly, "I came on Thursday--I knew nothing. I came--because
it was impossible to help it." Edith had come close up behind her
mother, and grasped her arm, half in support, half in reproof. "You knew
Mr Beaufort was coming, mamma; why should you be surprised?" she said,
with a certain disdain in the tone with which she named him. Edith was
unreasonable, like all the rest. She would have had him throw away
everything rather than come here to interfere with Carry's comfort,
notwithstanding that her own father had invited him to come, and though
it had been explained to her that all his prospects depended upon the
favour of the Duke, Lord Millefleurs's gracious papa. Her idea was, that
a man should have thrown away all that, rather than put himself in a
false position, or expose a woman whom he had once loved to
embarrassment and pain. They were all unreasonable together, but each in
his or her characteristic way. After these first utterances of
agitation, however, they all stopped short and looked at each other in
the waning light, and awoke to a recollection of the ordinary
conventionalities which in such circumstances are so great a relief to
everybody concerned.

"We must not detain you, Mr Beaufort," Lady Lindores said; "you were
going to my husband--or Lord Millefleurs--who is still here."

The last four words were said with a certain significance, as if
intended for a hint,--persuade him, they seemed to say, that this is not
a time to remain here. "It is getting late, mother," said Edith, with a
touch of impatience.

"One moment, Lady Lindores. I must tell you why I have come: not for
myself--to ask help for Erskine, whom I have just left in custody,
charged with having occasioned somehow--I can't tell you how--the death
of--the late accident--your son-in-law," Beaufort stammered out.

The next moment he seemed to be surrounded by them, by their cries of
dismay, by their anxious questions. A sharp keen pang of offence was the
first feeling in Beaufort's mind,--that John should be so much more
interesting to them than he was! It gave him a shock even in the
excitement of the moment.

"This was what he meant"--he could at last hear Edith distinctly after
the momentary babel of mutual exclamations--"this was what he meant:
that we might hear something, which he might not be able to explain, but
that we were to believe in him--you and I, mamma."

"Of course we believe in him," cried Lady Lindores; "but something else
must be done, something more. Come this way, Mr Beaufort; Lord Lindores
is here."

She called him Mr Beaufort without any hesitation now--not pausing, as
she had done before, with the more familiar name on her lips. It was
John who was in the foreground now--John who, perhaps, for anything they
knew, had caused the event which had put them in mourning. With a
whimsical mortification and envy, Beaufort exaggerated in his own mind
the distress caused by this event. For the moment he looked upon it as a
matter of real loss and pain to this unthinking family who showed such
interest in the person who perhaps----But the sentiment did not go so
far as to be put into words; it resolved itself into a half-indignant
wonder at the interest taken in John, and sense of injured superiority
on his own account--he, of whom no man could say that he had been
instrumental in causing the death even of a dog.

Lady Lindores led the way hastily into the library, where three figures
were visible against the dim light in the window as the others came in.
Lord Lindores, seated in his chair; little Millefleurs, leaning against
the window, half turned towards the landscape; and in front of the
light, with his back to it, Rintoul, who was speaking. "With you as
bail," he was saying, "he may be set free to-night. Don't let him be a
night in that place."

"Are you speaking of John Erskine, Robin, my dear boy? Oh, not a night,
not an hour! Don't lose any time. It is too dreadful, too preposterous.
Your father will go directly. Take the carriage, which is at the door.
If we are a little late, what does it matter?" said Lady Lindores,
coming forward, another shadow in the dim light. Millefleurs turned half
round, but did not come away from the window on which he was leaning.
He was somewhat surprised too, very curious, perhaps a trifle indignant,
to see all this fuss made about Erskine. He drew up his plump little
person, altogether indifferent to the pronounced manifestation of all
its curves against the light, and looked beyond Lady Lindores to
Edith,--Edith, who hurried after her mother, swift and silent, as if
they were one being, moved by the same unnecessary excitement.
Millefleurs had not been in a comfortable state of mind during these
last days. The delay irritated him; though Lord Lindores assured him
that all was well, he could not feel that all was well. Why should not
Edith see him, and give him his answer? She was not so overwhelmed with
grief for that brute. What did it mean? And now, though she could not
see him on such urgent cause, she was able to interest herself in this
eager way on behalf of John Erskine! Millefleurs was very tolerant, and
when the circumstances demanded it, could be magnanimous, but he thought
he had reason of offence here.

There was a momentary pause--enough to show that Lord Lindores did not
share the feeling so warmly expressed. "I am surprised that you should
all be so inconsiderate," he said; "you, at least, Rintoul, who
generally show more understanding. I have understood that Erskine had
laid himself under suspicion. Can you imagine that I, so near a
connection of poor Torrance, am the right person to interfere on behalf
perhaps of his--murd--that is to say, of the cause--of the
instrument----"

"It is impossible," cried Edith, with such decision that her soft voice
seemed hard--"impossible! Can any one suppose for a moment----"

"Be silent, Edith," cried her father.

"Why should she be silent?" said Lady Lindores. "Robert, think what you
are saying. We have all known John Erskine for years. He is as incapable
as I am--as unlikely as any one of us here. Because you are so near a
connection, is not that the very reason why you should interfere? For
God's sake, think of that poor boy in prison--in prison! and lose no
time."

"I will do it, mother," said Rintoul.

"Oh, God bless you, my boy! I knew you were always right at heart."

"Rintoul," said his father, "enthusiasm of this sort is new in you. Let
us take a little common-sense into the question. In the first place,
nothing can be done to-night--that is evident. Then consider a moment:
what does 'in prison' mean? In the governor's comfortable rooms, where
he will be as well off as at home; and probably--for he is not without
sense--will be taking the most reasonable view of the matter. He will
know perfectly well that if he deserves it he will find friends; in
short, that we are all his friends, and that everybody will be too glad
to assist him--as soon as he has cleared himself----"

"As soon as he wants it no longer," cried Lady Lindores.

"My dear, you are always violent; you are always a partisan," said her
husband, drawing back his chair a little, with the air of having ended
the discussion; and there was a pause--one of those breathless pauses of
helplessness, yet rebellion, which make sick the hearts of women. Lady
Lindores clasped her hands together with a despairing movement. "This is
the curse of our life," she cried. "I can do nothing; I cannot go
against your father, Edith, and yet I am neither a fool nor a child. God
help us women! we have to stand by, whatever wrong is done, and
submit--submit. That is all that is left for us to do----"

"Submit!" Edith said. She was young and strong, and had not learned her
lesson. It galled her beyond endurance. She stood and looked round her,
seeing the whiteness of the faces, but little else in the evening gloom.
Was it true that there was nothing--nothing in her power? In poetry, a
girl can throw herself on her knees, can weep and plead--but only weep
and plead; and she, who had not been trained to that, who was conscious
of her individuality, her independent mind and judgment in every
nerve--heaven above! was she as helpless still? She stood breathless
for a moment, with wondering eyes fixed on the darkness, with a gasp of
proud resistance to fate. Submit to injustice, to cruel heartlessness of
those who could aid, to still more cruel helplessness--impotence, on her
own part? She stood for a moment gazing at the blank wall that seemed to
rise before her, as the poor, the helpless have to do,--as women have to
do in all circumstances. It was her first experience in this kind. She
had been proud to know that she was not as Carry, that no tyranny could
crush her spirit: but this was different. She had not anticipated such a
trial as this. There came from her bosom one sob of supreme pain which
she could not keep in. Not for John only, whom she could not help in his
moment of need, but for herself also--to feel herself impotent,
helpless, powerless as a child.

Millefleurs came forward from the window hurriedly. Perhaps being so
much a man of his time it was he who understood that gasp of suffering
best. He said, "Lady Edith, if I can help----" quickly, on the impulse
of the moment; then, thorough little gentleman as he was, checked
himself. "Lady Lindores, though I am a stranger, yet my name is good
enough. Tell me what to do and I will do it. Perhaps it is better that
Lord Lindores should not commit himself. But I am free, don't you know,"
he said, with something of the easy little chirrup of more ordinary
times. Why was it that, at such a moment, Edith, of all others, in her
personal despair, should burst out into that strange little laugh? She
grasped her mother's arm with both hands in her excitement. Here was a
tragic irony and ridicule penetrating the misery of the crisis like a
sharp arrow which pricked the girl to the very heart.

This sympathiser immediately changed the face of affairs. Lord Lindores,
indeed, continued to hold himself apart, pushing back his chair once
more; but even to Lord Lindores, Millefleurs made a difference. He said
no more about enthusiasm or common-sense, but listened, not without an
occasional word of direction. They clustered together like a band of
shadows against the great window, which was full of the paleness of the
night. Beaufort, who was the person most acquainted with all the
circumstances, recovered his sense of personal importance as he told his
story. But after all, it was not as the narrator of John Erskine's story
that he cared to gain importance in the eyes of Carry's family, any more
than it was as bail for John Erskine that Lord Millefleurs desired to
make himself agreeable to the ladies at Lindores. Both of the strangers,
thus caught in the net of difficulties and dangers which surrounded
their old comrade, resented it more or less; but what could they do?
Edith took no further part in the consultation. She retired behind her
mother, whose arm she continued to hold firm and fast in both her hands.
When she was moved by the talk going on at her side she grasped that arm
tightly, which was her only sign of emotion, but for the rest retired
into the darkness where no one could see, and into herself, a still more
effectual retirement. Lady Lindores felt that her daughter's two hands
clasping her were like a sort of anchor which Edith had thrown out in
her shipwreck to grasp at some certainty. She bore the pressure with a
half smile and sigh. She too had felt the shipwreck with keen passion,
still more serious than that of Edith: but she had no one to anchor to.
She felt this, half with a grateful sense of what she herself was still
good for; but still more, perhaps, with that other personal sense which
comes to most--that with all the relationships of life still round her,
mother and wife, she, for all solace and support, was like most of us
virtually alone.




CHAPTER XXXV.


"Your master is just a young fool. Why, in the name of a' that's
reasonable," cried Mr Monypenny, "did he not send for me?"

"Sir," said Rolls, "you're too sensible a man not to know that the last
thing a lad is likely to do is what's reasonable, especially when he's
in that flurry, and just furious at being blamed."

Mr Monypenny was walking up and down his business room with much haste
and excitement. His house was built on the side of a slope, so that the
room, which was level with the road on one side, was elevated on the
upper floor at the other, and consequently had the advantage of a view
bounded, as was general, by "that eternal Tinto," as he was in the habit
of calling it. The good man, greatly disturbed by what he heard, walked
to his window and stared out as Rolls spoke. And he shook his fist at
the distant object of so many troubles. "Him and his big house and his
ill ways--they've been the trouble of the country-side those fifteen
years and more," cried the excited "man of business"; "and now we're not
done with him, even when he's dead."

"Far from done with him," said Rolls, shaking his head. He was seated on
the edge of a chair with his hat in his lap and a countenance of dismay.
"If I might make so bold as to ask," he said, "what would ye say, sir,
would be done if the worst came to the worst? I'm no' saying to Mr
Erskine indiveedually," added Rolls--"for it's my belief he's had
nothing ado with it--but granting that it's some person and no mere
accident----"

"How can I tell--or any man?" said Mr Monypenny. "It depends entirely on
the nature of the act. It's all supposition, so far as I can see. To
pitch Pat Torrance over the Scaur, him and his big horse, with murderous
intent, is more than John Erskine could have done, or any man I know.
And there was no quarrel or motive. Culpable homicide----"

"That'll be what the English gentleman called manslaughter."

"Manslaughter is a wide word. It would all depend on the circumstances.
A year; maybe six months only----If it were to turn out so--which I do
not for a moment believe----" said Mr Monypenny, fixing his eyes upon
Rolls with a determination which betrayed internal feebleness of belief.

"Nor me, sir--nor me!" cried Rolls, with the same look. They were like
two conspirators regarding each other with the consciousness of the
plot, which, even between themselves, each eyeing the other, they were
determined to deny.

"But if by any evil chance it were to turn out so--I would advise a
plain statement," said Mr Monypenny--"just a plain statement, concealing
nothing. That should have been done at the moment: help should have been
sought at the moment; there's the error. A misadventure like that might
happen to any man. We might any of us be the means of such an accident:
but panic is just the worst policy. Panic looks like guilt. If he's been
so far left to himself as to take fright--to see that big man on his big
horse thunderin' over the Scaur would be enough to make any man lose his
head," the agent added, with a sort of apology in his tone.

"If you could think of the young master as in that poseetion," said
Rolls.

"Which is just impossible," Mr Monypenny said, and then there was a
little pause. "The wisest thing," he went on, "would be, just as I say,
a plain statement. Such and such a thing happened. I lost my head. I
thought there was nothing to be done. I was foolish enough to shrink
from the name of it, or from the coolness it would make between me and
my friends. Ay, very likely that might be the cause--the coolness it
would make between him and the family at Lindores----"

"You're meaning always if there was onything in it at a'?"

"That is what I'm meaning. I will go and see him at once," Mr Monypenny
said, "and that is the advice I will give. A plain story whatever it may
be--just the facts; neither extenuate nor set down aught in malice. And
as for you, Rolls, that seem to be mixed up in it yourself----"

"Ay, sir; I'm mixed up in it," said Rolls, turning upon him an inquiring
yet half-defiant glance.

"It was you that found the body first. It was you that met your master
at the gate. You're the most important witness, so far as I can see.
Lord bless us, man!" said Mr Monypenny, forgetting precaution, "had you
not the judgment, when you saw the lad had been in a tuilzie, to get him
out of other folk's sight, and keep it to yourself?"

"There was John Tamson as well as me," said Rolls, very gravely; and
then he added, "but ye canna see yet, Mr Monypenny, how it may a' turn."

"I see plenty," said the man of business, impatiently; and then he
added, "the best thing you can do is to find out all you can about the
ground, and other details. It was always unsafe; and there had been a
great deal of rain. Very likely it was worse than ordinary that day. And
call to mind any circumstances that might tell on our side. Ye had
better come to me and make me acquainted with all your observations.
Neglect nothing. The very way the beast was lying, if ye can rightly
remember, might be a help. You're not without sense, Rolls. I've always
had a high opinion of your sense. Now here's a chance for you to prove
it----And come back to me, and we'll judge how the evidence tends.
There's no need," he said, standing at the window once more with his
back to his pupil, "to bring out any points that might turn--the other
way."

"I'm not just such a fool as--some folk think," said Rolls; "and yet,"
he added, in an undertone, "for a' that, you canna see, Mr Monypenny,
how it may all turn----"

"Don't haver, Rolls," said the agent, turning upon him angrily; "or
speak out what you mean. There is no man can say how a thing will turn
but he that has perfect knowledge of all the circumstances--which is not
my case."

"That's what I was saying, sir," said Rolls, with a tranquil assumption
which roused Mr Monypenny's temper; but the old man was so solemn in his
air of superior knowledge, so full of sorrowful decision and
despondency, that anger seemed out of place. The other grew alarmed as
he looked at him.

"For God's sake, man," he cried, "if there's anything behind that I
don't know, tell it! let me hear the worst. We must know the worst, if
it's to make the best of it. Hide nothing from me."

"I give ye my word, sir, I'll hide nothing--when the time comes," said
Rolls, with a sigh; "but I canna just unburden my bozume at this moment.
There's mair thought needful and mair planning. And there's one thing I
would like to make sure of, Mr Monypenny. If I'm put to expenses, or
otherwise laid open to risk and ootlay--there's no doubt but it would be
made up to me? And if, as might happen, anything serious was to
befall----without doubt the young maister would think himself bound to
take good care o' Bauby? She's my sister, maybe you'll mind: an
aixcellent housekeeper and a good woman, though maybe I should leave her
praises to ither folk. You see he hasna been brought up in the midst o'
his ain folk, so to speak, or I would have little doubt."

"I cannot conceive what you mean, Rolls. Of course I know Bauby and her
cookery both; but what risk you should run, or what she can have to do
with it! Your expenses of course," said the agent, with a contemptuous
wave of his hand, "you may be sure enough of. But you must have done
pretty well in the service of the Dalrulzian family, Rolls. I'm
surprised that you should think of this at such a moment----"

"That's just what I expectit, sir," said Rolls; "but maybe I ken my ain
affairs best, having no man of business. And about Bauby, she's just
what I care for most. I wouldna have her vexed or distresst for siller,
or put out of her ordinar. The maister he's but a young man, and no'
attached to us as he would have been had he been brought up at hame.
It's a great drawback to a young lad, Mr Monypenny"--Rolls broke off his
personal argument to say sententiously--"not to be brought up at hame."

"Because he does not get the chance of becoming attached to his
servants?" said Mr Monypenny, with an impatient laugh. "Perhaps it may
be so, but this is a curious moment to moralise on the subject."

"No' so curious as you think, sir; but I will not weary you," said
Rolls, with some dignity. "When I was saying ootlay, I meant mair than
just a sixpence here or there. But Bauby's the grand question. I'm in a
strange kind of a poseetion, and the one thing I'm clear in is my duty
to her. She's been a rael guid sister to me; aye made me comfortable,
studiet my ways, took an interest in all my bits o' fykes. I would ill
like either scorn or trouble to come to Bauby. She's awfu'
soft-hearted," said the old butler, solemnly gazing into vacancy with a
reddening of his eyes. Something of that most moving of all sentiments,
self-pity, was in his tone. He foresaw Bauby's apron at her eyes for
him, and in her grief over her brother, his own heart was profoundly
moved. "There will be some things that nobody can save her from: but for
all that concerns this world, if I could be sure that nothing would
happen to Bauby----"

"Well, Rolls, you're past my comprehension," said Mr Monypenny; "but so
far as taking care of Bauby in case anything happens to you--though what
should happen to you I have yet to learn."

"That is just so," said Rolls, getting up slowly. There was about him
altogether a great solemnity, like a man at a funeral, Mr Monypenny said
afterwards. "I cannot expect you to know, sir--that's atween me and my
Maker. I'm no' going back to Dalrulzian. I cannot have my mind disturbed
at this awfu' moment, as ye say, with weemen and their ways. If ye see
the English gentleman, ye'll maybe explain. Marget has a very guid
notion o' waitin'; she can do all that's necessary; and for me, I've
ither work in hand."

"You must not look at everything in so gloomy a spirit, Rolls," said Mr
Monypenny, holding out his hand. He was not in the habit of shaking
hands with the butler, but there are occasions when rules are
involuntarily broken through.

"No' a gloomy spirit, sir, but awfu' serious," said Rolls. "You'll tell
the young maister no' to be down-hearted, but at the same time no' to be
that prood. Help may come when it's little looked for. I'm no' a man of
mony words, but I've been, as you say, sir, attached to the family all
my days, and I have just a feeling for them more than common. The
present gentleman's mother--her that married the English minister--was
no' just what suited the house. Dalrulzian was nothing to her; and
that's what I compleen o', that the young man was never brought up at
hame, to have confidence in his ain folk. It would have been greatly for
his advantage, sir," continued Rolls, "if he had but had the discernment
to see that our bonnie Miss Nora was just the person;--but I mustna
think now of making conditions," he said, hurriedly--"we'll leave that
to his good sense. Mony thanks to you, sir, for hearing me out, and
shaking my hand as ye've done; though there's maybe things I have said
that are a wee hard to understand."

"Ay, Rolls," said Mr Monypenny, laughing, "you're just like the other
prophets; a great deal of what you've said is Greek and Hebrew to me."

"No doubt, no doubt," said Rolls, shaking his head; there was no smile
in him, not a line in his countenance that marked even incipient humour.
Whatever he meant it was deadly earnest to Rolls. Mr Monypenny stood
and watched him go out, with a laugh gurgling low down in his throat.
"He was always a conceited body," he said to himself. But his
inclination to laughter subsided as his visitor disappeared. It was no
moment for laughing. And when Rolls was gone, the temptation to
speculate on his words, and put meaning into them, subsided also, and Mr
Monypenny gave himself up with great seriousness to consider the
position. He ordered his little country carriage--something of the
phaeton order, but not elegant enough for classification--and drove away
as quickly as his comfortable cob would consent to go, to where John
was. Such a thing had not happened to any person of importance in the
county since he could remember. Debt, indeed--debt was common enough,
and plenty of trouble always, about money, Mr Monypenny said to himself,
shaking his head, as he went along. There had been borrowings and
hypothecations of all sorts enough to make a financier's hair stand on
end; but crime never! Not that men were better here than in other
quarters; but among the gentry that had never happened. The good man ran
on, in a rambling inaudible soliloquy, or rather colloquy with himself,
as he drove on, asking how it was, after all, that incidents of the kind
were so rare among the gentry. Was the breed better? He shook his head,
remembering himself of various details which interfered with so easy a
solution. Or was it that things were more easily hushed up? or that
superior education enforced a greater respect for the world's opinion,
and made offences of this sort almost impossible? It was a strange thing
(he thought) when you came to think of it. A fellow, now, like the late
Tinto would have been in every kind of scrape had he been a poor man;
but somehow, being a rich one, he had kept out of the hands of the law.
Such a thing never happened from year's end to year's end. And to think
now that it was not one of our ordinary Scots lairds, but the pink of
education and good breeding, from England and abroad! This gave a
momentary theoretical satisfaction to his musings by the way. But
immediately after, he thought with self-reproach that it was young
Erskine of whom he was permitting himself such criticism: young
Dalrulzian, poor lad! all the more to be pitied that he had been brought
up, as Rolls said, away from home, and with no father to look after him.
The cob was used to take his own way along those roads which he knew so
well, but at this point Mr Monypenny touched him with the indignity of a
whip, and hurried along. He met Beaufort returning, driving, with a
little hesitation at the corner of the road, John's dogcart homeward;
and Mr Monypenny thought he recognised the dogcart, but he did not stop
to say anything to the stranger, who naturally knew nothing of him. Nor
was his interview with John at all satisfactory when he came to his
journey's end. The young man received his man of business with that air
of levity which, mixed with indignation, had been his prevailing mood
since his arrest. He laughed when he said, "This is a curious place to
receive you in," and for some time he would scarcely give any heed to
the anxious questions and suggestions of Mr Monypenny. At length,
however, this veil was thrown off, and John permitted the family friend,
of whose faithfulness he could have no doubt, to see the depth of
wounded feeling that lay below. "Of course it can be nothing to me," he
said, still holding his head high. "They cannot prove a falsehood,
however they may wish it; but to think that of all these men with whom I
have eaten and drunk, who have professed to welcome me for my father's
sake--to think that not one of them would step in to stand by a fellow,
or give him the least support----"

"When you reflect that even I knew nothing about it," said Mr
Monypenny--"not a word--till old Rolls came----"

"Did you hear none of the talk?" said John. "I did not hear it, indeed,
but I have felt it in the air. I knew there was something. Everybody
looked at me suspiciously; the very tone of their voice was changed--my
own servants----"

"Your servants are very anxious about you, Mr Erskine, if I may judge
from old Rolls. I have seldom seen a man so overcome; and if you will
reflect that your other friends throughout the county can have heard
nothing, any more than myself----"

"Then you did not hear the talk?" said John, somewhat eagerly. Mr
Monypenny's countenance fell.

"I paid no attention to it. There's some story for ever going on in the
country-side. Wise men just shut their ears," he said.

"Wise men are one thing and friends another," said John. "Had I no one
who could have told me, at least, on how small a thread my reputation
hung? I might have gone away," he said, with some vehemence, "at the
height of it. If business, or even pleasure, had called me, no doubt I
should, without a notion of any consequences. When I think of that I
shiver. Supposing I had gone away?"

"In that case," said Mr Monypenny, clearing his throat; but he never got
any further. This alarm affected him greatly. He began to believe that
his client might be innocent altogether--an idea which, notwithstanding
all the disclaimers which he and Rolls had exchanged, had not crossed
his mind before; but when he heard John's story, his faith was shaken.
He listened to it with the deepest interest, waiting for the moment
when the confession would be made. But when it ended, without any end,
so to speak, and John finally described Torrance as riding up towards
the house, while he himself went down, Mr Monypenny's countenance fell.
He was disappointed. The tale was such as he expected, with this
important difference--it wanted a conclusion. The listener gave a gasp
of interest when the crisis arrived, but his interest flagged at once
when it was over, and nothing had happened. "And then?" he said,
breathlessly. And then?--but there was no _then_. John gazed at him
wondering, not perceiving the failure of the story. "That is all," he
said. Mr Monypenny grew almost angry as he sat gazing at him across the
table.

"I have just been telling Rolls," he said, "that the best policy in such
a case is just downright honest truth. To get into a panic and keep back
anything is the greatest mistake. There is no need for any panic. You
will be in the hands of those that take a great interest in you, Mr
John--begging your pardon for using that name."

"You do not seem satisfied with what I have told you," John said.

"Oh, _me_! it's little consequence what I think; there's plenty to be
thought upon before me. I would make no bones about it. In most things
the real truth is the best, but most especially when you're under an
accusation. I'm for no half measures, if you will let me say so."

"I will let you say whatever you please--so long as you understand what
I am saying. I have told you everything. Do I look like a man in a
panic?" said John.

"Panic has many meanings. I make no doubt you are a brave man, and ready
to face fire and sword if there was any need. But this is different. If
you please, we'll not fail to understand each other for want of plain
speaking. Mr Erskine, I make no doubt that's all as true as gospel; but
there's more to come. That's just a part of the story, not the whole."

"I don't mean to be offended by anything you say," said John,
cheerfully. "I feel that it means kindness. There is nothing more to
come. It is not a part, but the whole. It is the truth, and everything I
know."

Mr Monypenny did not look up; he was drumming his foot softly against
the table, and hanging his head with a despondent air as he listened. He
did not stop the one nor raise the other, but went on working his under
lip, which projected slightly. There is no such tacit evidence of
dissatisfaction or unbelief. Some little sign invariably breaks the
stillness of attention when the teller of a tale comes to its end, if
his story has been believed. There is, if no words, some stir, however
slight--movement of one kind or another, if only the change of an
attitude. But Mr Monypenny did not pay this usual tribute when John's
voice stopped. It was a stronger protest than if he had said, "I don't
believe you," in ordinary words.

"I understand," said John, after a pause of a full minute, which seemed
to him an hour. He laughed with something between despair and defiance.
"Your mode of communication is very unmistakable, Mr Monypenny. It is
Scotch, I suppose. One has always heard of Scotch caution and
cannyness." If he had not been very bitter and sore at heart he would
not have snatched at this aimless weapon of offence.

"Mr Erskine," said the agent, "a sneer is always easy. Gibes break no
bones, but neither have they any healing in them. You may say what you
like to me, but an argument like that will do you terrible little good
with them that will have to judge at the end. I am giving no opinion
myself. On my own account I will speak frankly. I would rather not have
heard this story--unless I was to hear----"

"What?" cried John, in the heat of personal offence.

"More," said Mr Monypenny, regretfully--"more; just another dozen words
would have been enough; but if there is no more to say----"

"I am not a man to make protestations of truth. There is no more to say,
Mr Monypenny."

"Well-a-well," said the agent gloomily, shaking his head; "we must take
just what is given--we must try to make the best of it. And you think
there's nothing can be _proved_ against you?" he said, with a slight
emphasis. It required all John's self-command to keep his temper. He had
to remind himself forcibly of the true and steady and long-tried
kindness with which this doubter had stood by him, and cared for his
interests all his life--a wise steward, a just guardian. These thoughts
kept unseemly expressions from his lips, but he was not the less sore at
heart. Even after the first blow of the criminal examination and his
detention in prison, it had all seemed to him so simple. What could be
necessary but to tell his story with sufficient distinctness (in which
he thought he had failed before the sheriff)? Surely truth and falsehood
were distinguishable at a glance, especially by those who are accustomed
to discriminate between them. But the blank of unbelief and
disappointment with which Mr Monypenny heard his story chilled him to
the heart. If he did not believe him, who would? He was angry, but anger
is but a temporary sentiment when the mind is fairly at bay and finds
itself hemmed in by difficulties and danger. He began to realise his
position, the place in which he was, the circumstances surrounding him,
as he had not yet done. The sheriff himself had been very civil, and
deeply concerned to be the means of inflicting such an affront upon a
county family; and he had added encouragingly that, on his return to
Dunearn, in less than a week, when all the witnesses were got together,
there was little doubt that a different light might be thrown on the
affair; but Mr Monypenny's question was not so consolatory. "You think
there's nothing can be _proved_ against you?" John had been gazing at
his agent across the table while all these painful reflections went
through his mind.

"I must be careful what I say. I am not speaking as a lawyer," he said,
with an uncomfortable smile. "What I meant was, that nothing could be
proved which was untrue."

The agent shook his head. "When it's circumstantial evidence, you can
never build upon that," he said. "No man saw it, you may say; but if all
the facts point that way, it goes far with a jury. There are some other
things you will perhaps tell me. Had you any quarrel ever with poor
Tinto? Was there ill blood between you? Can any man give evidence, for
example, 'I heard the panel say that he would have it out with Pat
Torrance'? or----"

"For heaven's sake, what is the panel? and what connection is there
between poor Torrance and----"

"Sir," said Mr Monypenny, sternly, "this is no time for jests; the panel
is a Scotch law term, meaning the defender; or what you call the
defendant in England. It's a terrible loss to a young man to be
unacquainted even with the phraseology of his own country."

"That is very true," John said, with a laugh; "but at least it is no
fault of mine. Well, suppose I am the panel, as you say--that does not
make me a vulgar brawler, does it, likely to display hostile intentions
in that way? You may be sure no man can say of me that I threatened to
have it out with Pat Torrance----"

"It was inadvertent--it was inadvertent," said Mr Monypenny, waving his
hand, with a slight flush of confusion; "I daresay you never said
Pat--but what has that to do with it?--you know my meaning. Is there any
one that can be produced to say----"

"I have quarrelled with Torrance almost as often as I have met him,"
said John, with obstinate decision. "I thought him a bully and a cad. If
I did not tell him so, it was out of regard for his wife, and he was at
liberty to find out my sentiments from my looks if it pleased him. I
have never made the least pretence of liking the man."

Mr Monypenny went on shaking his head. "All this is bad," he said,
"bad!--but it does not make a quarrel in the eye of the law," he added,
more cheerfully; and he went on putting a variety of questions, of which
John grew very weary. Some of these questions seemed to have very little
bearing upon the subject; some irritated him as betraying beyond all a
persistent doubt of his own story. Altogether, the first dreary
afternoon in confinement was not made much more endurable by this visit.
The room in which John had been placed was like the parlour of a
somewhat shabby lodging-house--not worse than he had inhabited many a
time while travelling. But the idea that he could not step outside, but
was bound to this enclosure, was first ludicrous, and then intolerable.
The window was rather higher than usual, and there were bars across it.
When it became dark, a paraffin-lamp, such as is now universal in the
country--smelling horribly, as is, alas! too universal also--was brought
in, giving abundance of light, but making everything more squalid than
before. And as Mr Monypenny made his notes, John's heart sank, and his
impatience rose. He got up and began to pace about like a wild beast in
a cage, as he said to himself. The sensation was more extraordinary than
can be imagined. Not to be able, whatever might happen, to leave this
shabby room. Whosoever might call to you, whatsoever might appeal to
you, to be fixed there, all your impulses checked, impotent, unable for
the first time in your life to do what you had done every day of your
life, to move out and in, to and fro as you pleased! John felt that if
he had been a theatrical felon in a play, manacled and fettered, it
would have been easier, more comprehensible. But to know that these four
walls were his absolute boundaries, and that he could not go beyond
them, was more astounding than any other sensation that had ever
happened to him in his life. And when Mr Monypenny, with his careful
brow, weighted with doubts and fears, unable to clear his countenance
from the disapprobation that clouded it, got up to take his leave, and
stood holding his client's hands, overwhelmed with sympathy, vexation,
dissatisfaction, and pity, the impatience and bitter sense of the
intolerable in John's mind could scarcely be restrained. "Whatever there
may be more to say, whatever may come to your mind, you have but to send
me a word, and I'll be at your call night or day," Mr Monypenny said.

"It is very unlikely that I should have anything more to say," said
John; "but must I stay here?" It seemed incredible to him that he should
be left even by his own "man of business." He had seen Beaufort go away
with a sort of contemptuous certainty of speedy liberation; but Mr
Monypenny had said nothing about liberation. "Surely there is nothing to
prevent bail being accepted?" he said, with an eagerness he could not
disguise.

"I will see about it," Mr Monypenny said. But the good agent went away
with a dissatisfied countenance; and with a feeling that he must break
through the walls or the barred window, must make his escape
somehow--could not, would not, endure this extraordinary intolerable new
thing--John Erskine heard the key turn in his door, and was left shut up
with the paraffin-lamp, flaming and smelling more than ever, a prisoner
and alone. Whether it was more ludicrous or more terrible, this annoying
impossible farce-tragedy, it was hard to say.




CHAPTER XXXVI.


The day after John's incarceration was the funeral day at Tinto. The
whole country was moved by this great ceremonial. The funeral was to be
more magnificent than ever funeral had been before for hundreds of miles
around; and the number of the procession which followed the remains was
greater than that of any assembly known in the country since the '45,
when the whole district on one side or the other was "out." That
everybody concerned should have found it impossible to think of John in
the county jail, in face of the necessity of "showing respect" on this
great occasion to the memory of Torrance, was natural. It was, indeed,
out of the question to make any comparison between the two necessities.
After all, what did it matter for one day? Those who were out of prison,
and had never been in prison, and whose imagination was not affected
like John's by that atmosphere of restraint, did not see any great harm
that could happen. And the ceremony was one which could not be
neglected. A Scotch funeral is somewhat terrible to those who have been
accustomed to the pathetic and solemn ritual of the English Church; but
there was something, too, impressive to the imagination, in that silent
putting away of the old garment of humanity,--a stern submission, an
acceptance of absolute doom, which, if it suggested little consolation,
at least shed a wonderful awe on that conclusion no longer to be
disturbed by mortal prayers or hopes. But Dr Stirling, the parish
minister, was of the new school of the Scotch Church, and poor
Torrance's body became, as it were, the flag of a religious party as it
was laid in the grave. The great dining-room at Tinto, the largest room
in the county, was crowded with a silent assembly gathered round the
coffin while the first portion of the ceremony was carried out. It was
such a scene as would have filled the heart of the dead man with
exultation. Not one of the potentates of the county was absent; and
behind them, in close ranks, with scarcely standing-room, came the
smaller notabilities--bonnet lairds, village doctors, clergymen,
schoolmasters, lost in the sea of the tenantry behind. At the upper end
of the room, a very unusual group, stood the ladies. Lady Caroline in
her widow's weeds, covered with crape from head to foot, her tall
willowy figure drooping under the weight of those long clinging funeral
robes, her face perfectly pale and more abstract and high-bred than
ever, encircled by the whiteness of the cap--with her two little
children standing by, and her mother and sister behind to support
her--thrilled many an honest heart in the assembly. Women so seldom take
part in funeral ceremonies in Scotland, that the farmers and
country-folk were touched beyond measure by this apparition. It was
described in scores of sympathetic houses for long after: "A snowdrift
could not be whiter than the face of her; and the twa little bairns,
puir things, glowering frae them, the image of poor Tinto himsel'." If
there was any sceptic ready to suggest "that my leddy was never so happy
a wife to be sic a mournin' widow," the spectators had a ready answer:
"Eh, but she would be thinking to herself if I had maybe been a wee
better to him----" Thus the popular verdict summed up the troubled
story. Lady Caroline was pale enough for the _rôle_ of the most
impassioned mourner. She might have been chilled to stone by grief and
pain for anything that was apparent. She did not speak or take notice of
any one, as was natural. Even for her father she had not a word; and
when her little boy was led away to follow his father to the grave, she
sank into a chair, having, no doubt, the sympathetic bystanders thought,
done all that her strength was capable of. This roused a very warm
sympathetic feeling for Lady Car throughout all the country-side. If it
had not been just perhaps a love-match, she had done her duty by Tinto,
poor fellow! She had kept him in the right way as far as a woman could;
and what was scarcely to be expected, but pleased the lookers-on most of
all, she had presented an aspect of utter desolation at his funeral. All
that a widow could feel was in her face,--or so at least the bystanders
thought.

The solemn procession filed out of the room: little Tom Torrance
clinging to his grandfather's hand, looking out with big projecting eyes
like his father's upon all the wonderful scene, stumping along at the
head of the black procession. Poor little Tommy! he had a feeling of his
own importance more than anything else. His little brain was confused
and buzzing. He had no real association in his mind between the black
thing in front of him and papa; but he knew that he had a right to walk
first, to hold fast hold of grandpapa's finger, and keep with his little
fat legs in advance of everybody. It is difficult to say how soon this
sense of importance makes up for other wants and troubles. Tommy was
only four, but he felt it; and his grandfather, who was nearly fifteen
times as old, felt it too. He felt that to have this child in his hands
and the management of a great estate for so long a minority, was worth
something in the list of his ambitions; and thus they all went forth,
trooping into the long line of carriages that shone in the veiled
autumnal sunlight, up and down the avenue among the trees in endless
succession. Even to get them under way was no small matter; and at the
lodge gates and down the road there was almost as great a crowd of women
and poor people waiting to see them go by. John Tamson's wife, by whose
very cottage the mournful line passed, was full of tragic consciousness.
"Eh!" she said, with bated breath, "to think that yon day when our John
brought ben young Dalrulzian a' torn and disjasket to hae the dirt
brushed off o' him--that yon day was the beginning of a'----" "Hold your
tongue, woman," said John Tamson; "what has the ane to do with the
ither? Ye're pitting things thegither that hae nae natural sequence; but
ye ken naething of logic." "No' me," said the woman; "and I wuss that
poor young lad just kent as little. If he hadna been so book-learned he
would have been mair friendly-like with them that were of his ain kind
and degree." And as the black line went past, which after a while became
tedious, she recounted to her gossips once more the story which by this
time everybody knew, but all were willing to hear over again under the
excitement of this practical commentary. "Losh! would he leave him lying
there and never cry for help?" some of the spectators said. "It was
never our master that did that," said Peggy Blair from the Dalrulzian
lodge, who had declared boldly from the beginning that she "took nae
interest" even in this grand funeral. "And if it wasna your maister, wha
was it that came ben to me with the red moul on his claes and his coat
a' torn?" said Janet Tamson. "I wasna here and I canna tell," Peggy
said, hot and furious. "I would never say what might happen in a moment
if a gentleman was angry--and Pat Torrance had an awfu' tongue, as the
haill county kens--but leave a man groanin' at the fit o' a rock, that's
what our maister never did, if I were to die for't," the woman cried.
This made a little sensation among the beholders; but when it was
remarked that Dalrulzian was the only gentleman of the county who was
absent from the funeral, and half-a-dozen voices together proclaimed the
reason,--"He couldna be twa places at once; he's in the jyel for
murder," Peggy was quenched altogether. Grief and shame were too much
for her. She continued to sob, "No' our master!" till her voice ceased
to be articulate in the midst of her tears.

Dr Stirling was seated in full canonicals--black silk gown and cambric
bands--in one of the first carriages. It was he that his wife looked for
when the procession passed the manse; and she put on her black bonnet,
and covered herself with a veil, and went out very solemnly to the
churchyard to see the burial. But it was not the burial she thought of,
nor poor Tinto, nor even Lady Car, for whom all day she had been
uttering notes of compassion: it was the innovation of the funeral
service which occupied the mind of the minister's wife. With mingled
pride and trembling she heard her husband in the silence begin his
prayer by the side of the vault. It was a beautiful prayer--partly, no
doubt, taken from the English liturgy, for which, she said, "the Doctor
always had a high admiration;" but partly--"and that was far the
best"--his own. It was the first time anything of the kind had been done
in the county; and if ever there could be a funeral important enough for
the introduction of a new ceremonial to mark it, it was this one: but
what if the Presbytery were to take notice of the innovation? Perhaps
the thrill of excitement in her enhanced the sense of the greatness of
the step which the Doctor was taking, and his nobility in doing it. And
in her eyes no ritual could have been more imposing. There were a great
many of the attendants who thought it was "just Poppery," and a most
dangerous beginning; but they were all hushed and reverential while the
minister's voice went on.

When every one had left, and the house was perfectly silent after the
hum and sound of so many feet, Lady Car herself went forward to the
window and drew up the blind which covered it. The gloom disappeared,
and the noonday sunshine streamed in in a moment. It was premature, and
Lady Lindores was grieved that she had not been quick enough to
forestall her daughter; for it would have been better, she thought, if
her hand had been the first to let in the light, and not that of the
new-made widow. Carry went further, and opened the window. She stepped
out upon the heavy stone balcony outside, and received the light full
upon her, raising her head to it, and basking in the sunshine. She
opened her pale lips to draw in great draughts of the sweet autumn air,
and threw up her arms to the sunshine and to the sky. Lady Lindores
stepped out after her, laying her hand upon her arm, with some alarm.
"Carry--my darling, wait a little----" Carry did not make any reply. She
said, "How long is it, mother?" still looking up into the clear depths
of the sky. "How long is what, my love?" They were a strange group. A
spectator might have thought that the pale creature in the midst, so
ethereal, so wan, wrapped in mourning so profound, had gone distraught
with care; while her child at her feet sat on the carpet in front of the
window, the emblem of childish indifference, playing with her new
shoes, which glittered and pleased her; and the two attendant figures,
the anxious mother and sister, kept watch behind. In Carry the mystery
all centred; and even those two who were nearest to her were bewildered,
and could not make her out. Was she an Ophelia, moved out of her sweet
wits by an anguish beyond bearing? Was she a woman repentant, appealing
to heaven for forgiveness? Carry was none of these things. She who had
been so dutiful all her life, resisting nobody, fulfilling all
requirements to the letter, bearing the burden of all her
responsibilities without rebellion or murmur, had ceased in a moment to
consider outside necessities, even the decorum of her sorrowful
condition. She gave a long sigh, dismissing, as it were, a weight from
her breast. "It is five years and a half," she said. "I ought to
remember, I that have counted every day,--and now is it possible, is it
possible?"

"What, my dearest? Carry, come in; you are excited----"

"Not yet, mother. How soft the air is! and the sunshine flooding
everything. I have been shut up so long. I think the colours never were
so lovely before."

"Yes, my darling; you have been shut up for a whole week. I don't wonder
you are glad of the fresh air."

"A week!" Carry said. "Five years: I have got no good of the sunshine,
and never tasted the sweetness of the air, for five years. Let me feel
it now. Oh, how have I lived all this time! What a beautiful country it
is! what a glorious sky! and I have been in prison, and have never seen
them! Is it true? is it all over?--all, all?" She turned round and gazed
into the room where the coffin had been with a gaze full of meaning
which no one could mistake. _It_ was gone--all was gone. "You must not
be horrified, mother," she said. "Why should I be false now? I think if
it had lasted any longer I must have died or run away."

"Dear Carry, you would have done neither; you would have done your duty
to the end," her mother said, drawing Carry into her arms. "It is
excitement that makes you speak so."

"Not excitement, but deliverance," said Lady Car with solemnity. "Yes,
mother, you are right; I should have stood to the end; but do you think
that would have been a credit to me? Oh, you don't know how hard
falsehood is! Falsehood and slavery--they are the same thing; they make
your heart like iron: you have no feeling even when you ought perhaps to
have feeling. I am cruel now; I know you think I am cruel: but how can
one help it? slaves are cruel. I can afford to have a heart now."

"Come to your room, Carry. It is too dismal for you here."

"No, I don't think it is dismal. It is a fine handsome room--better than
a bedroom to sit in. It is not so much like a prison, and the view is
lovely. There is poor Edith looking at me with her pitiful face. Do you
think I ought to cry? Oh, I could cry well enough, if that were all--it
would be quite easy; but there is so much to smile about," said poor
Lady Car; then suddenly, leaning upon her mother's shoulder, she burst
into a flood of tears.

It was at this moment that the housekeeper came in, solemn in her new
mourning, which was almost as "deep" as Carry's, with a housemaid in
attendance, to draw up the blinds and see that the great room was
restored to order. The gentlemen were to return for the reading of the
will, and it was meet that all should be prepared and made ready. And
nothing could so much have touched the hearts of the women as to see
their mistress thus weeping, encircled in her mother's arms. "Poor
thing! he was not over good a man to her; but there's nae rule for
judging marriet folk. It's ill to hae and waur to want with them.
There's naebody," said the housekeeper, "but must respect my lady for
her feeling heart." Lady Caroline, however, would not take the credit of
this when she had retired to a more private room. She would not allow
her mother and sister to suppose that her tears were tears of sorrow,
such as a widow ought to shed. "You were right, mother--it is the
excitement," she avowed; "every nerve is tingling. I could cry and I
could laugh. If it had not been for your good training, mamma, I should
have had hysterics; but that would be impossible to your daughter. When
shall I be able to go away? I know: I will not go sooner than is right.
I will do nothing I ought not to do;--but you could say my nerves are
shattered, and that I want rest."

"And very truly, Carry," said Lady Lindores; "but we must know first
what the will is. To be sure, your fortune is secured. You will be well
off--better than any of us; but there may be regulations about the
children--there may be conditions."

"Could the children be taken from me?" Carry said, but not with any
active feeling; her powers of emotion were all concentrated on one
thought. Lady Lindores, who was watching her with all a mother's anxious
criticism, fearing to see any failure of right sentiment in her child,
listened with a sensation of alarm. She had never been contented with
herself in this particular. Carry's children had been too much the
children of Pat Torrance to awaken the grandmother's worship, which she
thought befitting, in her own heart. She felt a certain repulsion when
she looked at these black-browed, light-eyed creatures, who were their
father's in every feature--not Carry's at all. Was it possible that
Carry, too, felt the same? But by-and-by Carry took up that little
stolid girl on whom Lady Lindores could not place her tenderest
affections, do what she would, and pressed her pale cheek against that
undisturbed and solid little countenance. The child's face looked bigger
than her mother's, Lady Lindores thought--the one all mind and feeling,
the other all clay. She went and gave little Edith a kiss in her
compunction and penitence for this involuntary dislike; but fortunately
Carry herself was unconscious of it, and caressed her babies as if they
were the most delicate and beautiful in the world.

Carry was not present at the reading of the will. She shrank from it,
and no one insisted. There were father and brother to look after her
interests. Rintoul was greatly shaken by the events of the day. He was
ghastly pale, and very much excited and agitated. Whatever his sister
might do, Rintoul certainly exhibited the truest sentiment. Nobody had
given him credit for half so much feeling. He carried back his little
nephew asleep after the long drive home, and thrust him into Carry's
arms. "I am not much of a fellow," he said, stooping over her, with a
voice full of emotion, "but I'll do a father's part to him, if I'm good
enough for it, Carry." Carry by this time was quite calm, and wondered
at this exhibition of feeling, at which Lady Lindores shed tears, though
in her heart she wondered too, rejoicing that her inward rebellion
against Torrance's children was not shared by her son. "Robin's heart
was always in the right place," she said, with a warmth of motherly
approval, which was not diminished by the fact that Rintoul's emotion
made her still more conscious of the absence of "right feeling" in
herself. There was not much conversation between the ladies in the small
morning room to which they had withdrawn--a room which had never been
used and had no associations. Carry, indeed, was very willing to talk;
but her mother and sister did their best, with a natural prejudice and
almost horror of the manner in which she regarded her own circumstances,
to keep her silent. Even Edith, who would have dissolved the marriage
arbitrarily, did not like to hear her sister's cry of satisfaction over
the freedom which death had brought her. There was something impious and
cruel in getting free that way. If it had been by a divorce or
separation, Edith would have been as glad as any; but she was a girl
full of prejudices and superstitions, and this candour of Carry's was a
thing she shrank from as an offence to human nature. She kept
behind-backs, often with her little niece on her knee, but sometimes by
herself, keeping very quiet, revolving many thoughts in her heart; while
Lady Lindores kept close to Carry, like a sick-nurse, keeping watch over
all her movements. It was dusk when the reading of the will was over,
and the sound in the house of footsteps going and coming began to cease.
Then Lord Lindores came in with much subdued dignity of demeanour, like
an ambassador approaching a crowned head. He went up to Carry, who lay
back in a great easy-chair beside the fire with her hands clasped,
pursuing the thoughts which she was not permitted to express, and gave
her a formal kiss on the forehead: not that he was cold or unsympathetic
as a father, but he had been a little afraid of her since her marriage,
and she had not welcomed the condolences he had addressed to her when he
saw her first after Tinto's death.

"My dear," he said, "this is not a moment for congratulations: and yet
there is something to a woman in having earned the entire confidence of
her husband, which must be a subject of satisfaction----"

Carry scarcely moved in her stillness. She looked at him without
understanding what he meant. "It would be better, perhaps," she said,
"father, not to speak of the circumstances."

"I hope I am not likely to speak in a way that could wound your
feelings, Carry. Poor Patrick--has done you noble justice in his will."

A hysterical desire to laugh seized poor Lady Car. Lord Lindores himself
was a little confused by the name he had coined on the spot for his dead
son-in-law. He had felt that to call him Torrance would be cold, as his
wish was to express the highest approval; and Pat was too familiar. But
his "Poor Patrick" was not successful. And Carry knew that, even in the
midst of her family, she must not laugh that day, whatever might happen.
She stopped herself convulsively, but cried, "Papa, for heaven's sake,
don't talk to me any more!"

"Do you not see, Robert, that she is exhausted?" said Lady Lindores.
"She thinks nothing of the will. She is worn out with--all she has had
to go through. Let her alone till she has had time to recover a little."

His wife's interposition always irritated Lord Lindores. "I may surely
be permitted to speak to Carry without an interpreter," he said,
testily. "It is no doubt a very--painful moment for her. But if anything
could make up----Torrance has behaved nobly, poor fellow! It must be
gratifying to us all to see the confidence he had in her. You have the
control of everything during your boy's minority, Carry. Everything is
in your hands. Of course it was understood that you would have the
support of your family. But you are hampered by no conditions: he has
behaved in the most princely manner; nothing could be more gratifying,"
Lord Lindores said.

Carry sat motionless in her chair, and took no notice--her white hands
clasped on her lap; her white face, passive and still, showed as little
emotion as the black folds of her dress, which were like a tragic
framework round her. Lady Lindores, with her hand upon the back of her
daughter's chair, came anxiously between, and replied for her. She had
to do her best to say the right thing in these strange circumstances--to
be warmly gratified, yet subdued by the conventional gloom necessary to
the occasion. "I am very glad," she said--"that is, it is very
satisfactory. I do not see what else he could have done. Carry must have
had the charge of her own children--who else had any right?--but, as you
say, it is very gratifying to find that he had so much confidence----"

Lord Lindores turned angrily away. "Nerves and vapours are out of place
here," he said. "Carry ought to understand--but, fortunately, so long as
I know what I am about--the only one among you----"

At this Carry raised herself hastily in her chair. She said "Papa,"
quickly, with a half gasp of alarm. Then she added, without stopping,
almost running her words into each other in her eagerness, "They are my
children; no one else has anything to do with them; I must do
everything--everything! for them myself; nobody must interfere."

"Who do you expect to interfere?" said her father, sternly. He found
himself confronting his entire family as he turned upon Carry, who was
so strangely roused and excited, sitting up erect in her seat, clasping
her pale hands. Rintoul had gone round behind her chair, beside his
mother; and Edith, rising up behind, stood there also, looking at him
with a pale face and wide-open eyes. It was as if he had made an attack
upon her--he who had come here to inform her of her freedom and her
rights. This sudden siding together of all against one is bitter, even
when the solitary person may know himself to be wrong. But Lord Lindores
felt himself in the right at this moment. Supposing that perhaps he had
made a mistake in this marriage of Carry's, fate had stepped in and made
everything right. She was nobly provided for, with the command of a
splendid fortune--and she was free. Now at least his wisdom ought to be
acknowledged, and that he had done well for his daughter. But
notwithstanding his resentment, he was a little cowed "in the
circumstances" by this gathering of pale faces against him. Nothing
could be said that was not peaceful and friendly on the day that the
dead had gone out of the house.

"Do you think I am likely to wish to dictate to her," he said, with a
short laugh, "that you stand round to defend her from me? Carry, you are
very much mistaken if you think I will interfere. Children are out of my
way. Your mother will be your best adviser. I yield to her better
information now. You are tired, you are unhappy--you are--left
desolate----"

"Oh, how do you dare to say such words to me?" cried Carry, rising,
coming forward to him with feverish energy, laying her hands upon his
shoulders, as if to compel him to face her, and hear what she had to
say. "Don't you know--don't you know? I was left desolate when you
brought me here, five years--five dreadful years ago. Whose fault is
that? I am glad he is dead--glad he is dead! Could a woman be more
injured than that? But now I have neither father nor mother," she cried.
"I am in my own right; my life is my own, and, my children; I will be
directed no more."

All this time she stood with her hands on his shoulders, grasping him
unconsciously to give emphasis to her words. Lord Lindores was startled
beyond measure by this personal contact--by the way in which poor Carry,
always so submissive, flung herself upon him. "Do you mean to use
violence to me? do you mean to turn me out of your house?" he said.

"Oh, father!--oh, father! how can I forgive you?" Carry cried, in her
excitement and passion; and then she dropped her hands suddenly and
wept, and begged his pardon like a child. Lord Lindores was very glad to
take advantage of this sudden softening which he had so little expected.
He kissed her and put her back in her chair. "I would recommend you to
put her to bed," he said to his wife; "she has been overdone." And he
thought he had got the victory, and that poor Carry, after her little
explosion, was safe in his hands once more. He meant no harm to Carry.
It was solely of her good and that of her children that he thought. It
could do no harm either to the one or the other if they served his aims
too. He drove home with his son soon after, leaving his wife behind him:
it was proper that Carry should have her mother and sister with her at
so sad a time. And the house of Tinto, which had been so dark all these
nights, shone demurely out again this evening, at a window here and
there,--death, which is always an oppression, being gone from it, and
life resuming its usual sway. The flag still hung half-mast high,
drooping against the flagstaff, for there was no wind. "But I'm
thinking, my lord, well put it back to-morrow," said the butler as he
stood solemnly at the carriage-door. He stood watching it roll down the
avenue in that mood of genial exhaustion which makes men communicative.
"It's a satisfaction to think all's gane well and everybody satisfied,"
he said to his subordinate; "for a death in a family is worse to manage
than ony other event. You're no' just found fault with at the moment,
but it's minded against you if things go wrong, and your 'want o'
feelin'.' My lady will maybe think it want o' feelin' if I put up the
flag. But why should I no'? For if big Tinto's gane, there's wee Tinto,
still mair important, with all the world before him. And if I let it be,
they'll say it's neglect."

"My lady will never fash her head about it," said the second in command.

"How do you ken? Ah, my lad, you'll find a change. The master might give
you a damn at a moment, but he wasna hard to manage. We'll have all the
other family, _her_ family, to give us our orders now."




CHAPTER XXXVII.


It is a strange experience for a man whose personal freedom has never
been restrained to find himself in prison. The excitement and amazement
of the first day made it something so exceptional and extraordinary,
that out of very strangeness it was supportable: and Erskine felt it
possible to wind himself up to the necessity of endurance for one night.
But the dead stillness of the long, long morning that followed, was at
once insupportable and incomprehensible to him. What did it mean? He saw
the light brighten in his barred window, and persuaded himself, as long
as he could, that it was as yet too early for anything to be done; but
when he heard all the sounds of life outside, and felt the long moments
roll on, and listened in vain for any deliverance, a cold mist of
amazement and horror began to wrap John's soul. Was he to be left there?
to lie in jail like any felon, nobody believing him, abandoned by all?
He could not do anything violent to relieve his feelings; but it was
within him to have dashed everything wildly about the room,--to have
flown at the window and broken it to pieces,--to have torn linen and
everything else to shreds. He stood aghast at himself as this wild fury
of impatience and misery swept over him. He could have beaten his head
against the wall. To sit still, as a man, a gentleman, is compelled to
do, restraining himself, was more hard than any struggles of Hercules.
And those slow sunny moments stole by, each one of them as long as an
hour. The sun seemed to be stationary in the sky: the forenoon was a
century. When he heard some one at last approaching, he drew a long
breath of satisfaction, saying to himself that now at last the suspense
would be over. But when it proved to be Miss Barbara with her arms full
of provisions for his comfort, her maid coming after, bearing a large
basket, it is impossible to describe the disappointment, the rage that
filled him. The effort to meet her with a smile was almost more than he
was capable of. He did it, of course, and concealed his real feelings,
and accepted the butter and eggs with such thanks as he could give
utterance to; but the effort seemed almost greater than any he had ever
made before. Miss Barbara, for her part, considered it her duty to her
nephew to maintain an easy aspect and ignore the misery of the
situation. She exerted herself to amuse him, to talk as if nothing was
amiss. She told him of Tinto's grand funeral, with which the whole
country-side was taken up. "Everybody is there," Miss Barbara said, with
some indignation,--"great and small, gentle and simple, as if auld
Torrance's son was one of the nobles of the land."

"They care more for the dead than the living," John said, with a laugh.
It was well to laugh, for his lip quivered. No doubt this was the reason
why no one had leisure to think of him. And his heart was too full of
his own miseries to be capable of even a momentary compassion for the
fate of Torrance--a man not very much older than himself, prosperous and
rich and important--snatched in a moment from all his enjoyments. He had
been deeply awed and impressed when he heard of it first; but by this
time the honours paid to the dead man seemed to John an insult to his
own superior claims--he who was living and suffering unjustly. To think
that those who called themselves his friends should have deserted him to
show a respect which they could not feel for the memory of a man whom
they had none of them respected while he lived! He was no cynic, nor
fond of attributing every evil to the baseness of humanity, but he could
not help saying now, between his closed teeth, that it was the way of
the world.

He had another visitor in the afternoon, some time after Miss Barbara
took her departure, but not one of those he expected. To his great
surprise, it was the white erect head of old Sir James which was the
next he saw. The veteran came in with a grave and troubled countenance.
He gave a shudder when he heard the key turn in the door. "I have come
to see if there was--anything I could do for you?" Sir James said.

John laughed again. To laugh seemed the only possible way of expressing
himself. It is permissible for a man to laugh when a woman would cry,
and the meaning is much the same. This expressed indignation,
incredulity, some contempt, yet was softened by a gentler sentiment, at
sight of the old soldier's kind and benign but puzzled and troubled
face. "I don't know what any one can do for me but take me out of this,"
he said, "and no one seems disposed to do that."

"John Erskine," said the old General solemnly, "the circumstances are
very serious. If you had seen, as I have seen, a young, strong man laid
in his grave this day, with a little toddling bairn, chief mourner." His
voice broke a little, as he spoke. He waved his hand as if to put this
recollection away. "And your story was not satisfactory. It did not
commend itself to my mind. Have patience and hear me out. I came away
from you in displeasure, and I've done nothing but turn it over and
over in my thoughts ever since. It's very far from satisfactory; but I
cannot find it in my heart to disbelieve you," the old man cried, with a
quiver of emotion in his face. He held out his large, soft, old hand
suddenly as he spoke. John, who had been winding himself up to indignant
resistance, was taken entirely by surprise. He grasped that kind hand,
and his composure altogether failed him.

"I am a fool," he cried, dashing the tears from his eyes, "to think that
one day's confinement should break me down. God bless you, Sir James! I
can't speak. If that's so, I'll make shift to bear the rest."

"Ay, my lad, that's just so. I cannot disbelieve you. You're a
gentleman, John Erskine. You might do an act of violence,--any man might
be left to himself; but you would not be base, and lie. I have tried to
think so, but I cannot. You would never deceive an old friend."

"If I had murdered poor Torrance in cold blood, and meaning it," said
John, "there is no telling, I might have lied too."

"No, no, no," said Sir James, putting out his hand--"at the worst it was
never thought to be that; but you have no look of falsehood in you.
Though it's a strange story, and little like the truth, I cannot
disbelieve you. So now you will tell me, my poor lad, what I can do for
you. We're friends again, thank God! I could not bide to be
unfriends--and my old wife was at me night and day."

"If Lady Montgomery believes in me too----"

"Believes in you! she would give me no rest, I tell you--her and my own
spirit. She would not hear a word. All she said was, 'Hoots, nonsense,
Sir James!' I declare to you that was all. She's not what you call a
clever woman, but she would not listen to a word. 'Hoots, nonsense!'
that was all. We could not find it in our hearts."

He was a little disposed, now that he had made his avowal, to dwell upon
it, to the exclusion of more important matters; but when at last he
permitted John to tell him what his expectations had been, and what his
disappointment, as the long, slow morning stole over unbroken, Sir James
was deeply moved. "Why did not Monypenny come to me?" he said. "He was
taken up, no doubt, with what was going on to-day. But I would have been
your bail in a moment. An old friend like me--the friend not only of
your father, but of your grandfather before him!" But when he had said
so much he paused, and employed a little simple sophistry to veil the
position. "The sheriff will be round in the end of the week. I would not
trouble him, if I were you, before that. What's three or four days? You
will then come out with every gentleman in the county at your back. It's
not that I think it would be refused. People say so, but I will not
believe it, for one; only I would not stir if I were you. A day or two,
what does that matter? _My_ pride would be to bide the law, and stand
and answer to my country. That is what I would do. Of course I'll be
your caution, and any other half dozen men in the county; but I'll tell
you what I would do myself,--I would stand it out if I were you."

"You never were shut up in a jail, Sir James?"

"Not exactly in a jail," said the old soldier; "but I've been in prison,
and far worse quarters than this. To be sure, there's an excitement
about it when you're in the hands of an enemy----"

"In the hands of an enemy," cried John--"a thing to be proud of; but
laid by the heels in a wretched hole, like a poacher or a thief!"

"I would put up with it if I were you. There is nothing disgraceful in
it. It is just a mistake that will be put right. I will come and see
you, man, every day, and Lady Montgomery will send you books. I hope
they will not be too good books, John. That's her foible, honest woman.
You seem to be victualled for a siege," Sir James added, looking round
the room. "That is Miss Barbara Erskine, I will be bound."

"I felt disposed to pitch them all out of the window," said John.

"Nothing of the sort; though they're too good to fall into the hands of
the turnkeys. Keep up your heart, my fine lad. I'll see Monypenny
to-night before I dine, and if we cannot bring you out with flying
colours, between us, it will be a strange thing to me. Just you keep up
your heart," said Sir James, patting John kindly on the back as he went
away. "The sheriff will be round here again on the 25th, and we'll be
prepared for the examination, and bring you clear off. It's not so very
long to wait."

With this John was forced to be content. The 25th was four days off, and
to remain in confinement for four days more was an appalling
anticipation; but Sir James's visit gave him real cheer. Perhaps Mr
Monypenny, too, on thinking it over, might turn to a conviction of his
client's truth.

While Sir James rode home, pleased with himself that he had obeyed his
own generous impulse, and pleased with John, who had been so unfeignedly
consoled by it, Lord Lindores and his son were driving back from Tinto
together in the early twilight. There was not a word exchanged between
them as they drove down the long avenue in the shadow of the woods; but
as they turned into the lighter road, Lord Lindores returned to the
subjects which occupied his mind habitually. "That is a business well
over," he said, with a sigh of satisfaction. "It is always a relief when
the last ceremonies are accomplished; and though Carry chose to meet me
with heroics, it is very satisfactory to know that her position is so
good. One could never be sure with a man of Torrance's temper. He was as
likely as not to have surrounded his widow with annoyances and
restraints. He has erred just a little on the other side now, poor
fellow! Still he meant it, no doubt, for the best." Lord Lindores spoke
to his son with an ease and confidence which he could not feel with the
other members of his family. Rintoul himself, indeed, had been somewhat
incomprehensible for a little time past; but indigestion, or any other
trifling reason, might account for that. "And now that all is over, we
must think of other matters," he continued. "This business about Edith
must be settled. Millefleurs must have his answer. He has been very
patient; but a young fellow like that knows his own importance, and
Edith must hear reason. She will never have another such chance."

Rintoul made a little movement in his corner, which was all that stood
for a reply on his part; and his father could not even see the
expression of his face.

"I can only hope that she will be more amenable to his influence than to
mine," said Lord Lindores, with a sigh. "It is strange that she, the
youngest of my children, should be the one to give me the most trouble.
Rintoul, it is also time that I should speak to you about yourself. It
would give your mother and me great satisfaction to see you settled. I
married early myself, and I have never had any reason to repent it.
Provided that you make a wise choice. The two families will no doubt see
a great deal of each other when things are settled between Edith and
Millefleurs; and I hear on all hands that his sister, Lady Reseda--you
met her several times in town----"

"Yes,--I met her," said Rintoul, reluctantly. He turned once more in his
corner, as if he would fain have worked his way through and escaped; but
he was secured for the moment, and in his father's power.

"And you admired her, I suppose, as everybody does? She is something
like her brother; but what may perhaps be thought a little--well,
comical--in Millefleurs, is delightful in a girl. She is a merry little
thing, the very person I should have chosen for you, Rintoul: she would
keep us all cheerful. We want a little light-heartedness in the family.
And though your father is only a Scotch peer, your position is
unimpeachable; and I will say this for you, that you have behaved very
well; few young men would have conducted themselves so irreproachably in
such a sudden change of circumstances. I feel almost certain that
though a daughter of the Duke's might do better, you would not be looked
upon with unfavourable eyes."

"I--don't know them. I have only met them--two or three times----"

"What more is necessary? You will be Millefleurs's brother-in-law----"

"Are you so sure of that?" asked Rintoul. There was something in his
tone which sounded like nascent rebellion. Lord Lindores pricked up his
ears.

"I do not willingly entertain the idea that Edith would disobey me," he
said with dignity. "She has high-flown notions. They are in the air
nowadays, and will ruin the tempers of girls if they are not checked.
She makes a fight to have her own way, but I cannot believe that she
would go the length of downright disobedience. I have met with nothing
of the kind yet----"

"I think you are likely to meet with it now," said Rintoul; and then he
added, hastily, "Carry has not been an encouraging example."

"Carry!" said Lord Lindores, opening his eyes. "I confess that I do not
understand. Carry! why, what woman could have a nobler position? Perfect
control over a very large fortune, a situation of entire
independence--too much for any woman. That Carry's unexampled good
fortune should be quoted against me is extraordinary indeed."

"But," cried Rintoul, taken by surprise, "you could not hold up to Edith
the hope of what might happen if--Millefleurs were to----"

"Break his neck over a scaur," said Lord Lindores, almost with a sneer.
He felt his son shrink from him with an inarticulate cry, and with
instant perception remedied his error in taste, as he thought it. "I
ought not to speak so after such a tragedy; you are right, Rintoul. No:
Millefleurs is a very different person; but of course it is always a
consolation to know that whatever happens, one's child will be
abundantly and honourably provided for. My boy, let us look at the other
matter. It is time you thought of marrying, as I say."

Rintoul flung himself against the side of the carriage with a muttered
curse. "Marrying!--hanging is more what I feel like!" he cried.

"Rintoul!"

"Don't torture me, father. There is not a more wretched fellow on the
face of the earth. Link an innocent woman's name with mine? Ask a girl
to?----For heaven's sake let me alone--let me be!"

"What is the meaning of this?" Lord Lindores cried. "Are you mad,
Rintoul? I am altogether unprepared for heroics in you."

The young man made no reply. He put his head out to the rushing of the
night air and the soft darkness, through which the trees and distant
hills and rare passengers were all like shadows. He had looked stolidly
enough upon all the shows of the external world all his life, and
thought no more of them than as he saw them.

    "A primrose by the river's brim,
    A yellow primrose was to him."

There had been no images or similitudes in light or darkness; but now
another world had opened around him. He had a secret with the
silence--the speechless, inanimate things about knew something of him
which nobody else knew: and who could tell when they might find a voice
and proclaim it to the world? He uncovered his head to the air which
blew upon him and cooled his fever. The touch of that cool fresh wind
seemed the only thing in earth or heaven in which there was any
consolation. As for Lord Lindores, he sat back in his corner, more angry
than concerned, and more contemptuous than either. A woman has perhaps
some excuse for nerves; but that his son, upon whose plain understanding
he could always rely, and whose common-sense was always alive to the
importance of substantial arguments, should thus relapse into tragedy
like his sisters, was more than he could tolerate. He would not even
contemplate the idea that there was any cause for it. Rintoul had always
been well behaved. He was in no fear of any secrets that his son might
have to reveal.

"Rintoul," he said, after a pause, "if you have got into any scrape, you
should know well enough that I am not the sort of man to take it
tragically. I have no faith in making molehills into mountains. I don't
suppose you have done anything disgraceful. You must be off your head, I
think. What is it? You have been out of sorts for some time past."

These words came like beatings of a drum to Rintoul's ears, as he leant
out into the rushing and sweep of the night air. There was a composure
in them which brought him to himself. Anything disgraceful meant
cheating at cards, or shirking debts of honour, or cowardice.
Practically, these were about the only things disgraceful that a young
man could do. An "entanglement," a heavy loss at cards or on the turf,
any other minor vice, could be compounded for. Lord Lindores was not
alarmed by the prospect of an explanation with his son. But that Rintoul
should become melodramatic, and appeal to earth and heaven, was
contemptible to his father. This cool and common-sense tone had its
natural effect, Lord Lindores thought. Rintoul drew in his head, sat
back in his corner, and was restored to himself.

"I have been out of sorts," he said--"I suppose that's what it is. I see
everything _en noir_. All this business--seeing to things--the black,
the house shut up----"

"Let me warn you, Rintoul; don't cultivate your susceptibilities," said
his father. "What is black more than blue or any other colour? This sort
of thing is all very well for a woman; but I know what it is. It's
stomach--that is really at the bottom of all tragedy. You had better
speak to the doctor. And now, thank heaven, this Tinto business is over;
we can get back to the affairs of life."

The rest of the drive passed in complete silence. And all the time they
were together, Rintoul said not a word to his father about John Erskine.
His situation was altogether ignored between them. It was not that it
was forgotten. If these two men could have opened Dunnottar jail--nay,
could they have swept John Erskine away into some happy island where he
would have been too blessed to think anything more about them--they
would have done it,--the one with joyous alacrity, the other with
satisfaction at least. This gloomy incident was over, and Lord Lindores
had no desire to hear any more of it. It was just the end that anybody
might have expected Torrance to come to. Why could not the officious
blockheads of the country-side let the matter alone? But he did not
feel that desire to help and right John Erskine which his warm adoption
of the young man to his friendship would have warranted. For why? such
an incident, however it ended, would certainly spoil young Erskine's
influence in the county. He would be of no more advantage to any one. A
quarrel was nothing; but to escape from the consequences of that
quarrel, to let a man die at the foot of a precipice without sending
help to him, that was a thing which all the country-side turned against.
It was this that had roused so strong a feeling against John, and Lord
Lindores made up his mind philosophically, that though Erskine would
probably be cleared of all imputation of blood-guiltiness, yet, innocent
or guilty, he would never get over it, and, consequently, would be of no
further use in any public projects. At the same time, his own views had
changed in respect to the means of carrying these projects out. Lord
Millefleurs was a better instrument than country eminence. A seat gained
was of course always an appreciable advantage. But it was not certain
even that the seat could have been gained; and a son-in-law in hand is
better than many boroughs in the bush. The Duke could not ignore Lord
Lindores's claims if Edith was a member of the family. This was far more
important than anything that could concern John Erskine, though Lord
Lindores would have been heartily thankful--now that he was good for
nothing but to excite foolish sympathies--if he could have got John
Erskine happily out of the way.

Millefleurs had reached Lindores some time before: he had returned
direct from the funeral along with Beaufort, who, much marvelling at
himself, had stood among the crowd, and seen Carry's husband laid in his
grave. The sensation was too extraordinary to be communicated to any
one. It had seemed to him that the whole was a dream, himself a spectre
of the past, watching bewildered, while the other, whom he had never
seen, who was nothing but a coffin, was removed away and deposited among
the unseen. He had not been bold enough to go into the house to see
Carry, even from the midst of the crowd. Whether she was sorrowing for
her husband, or feeling some such thrills of excitement as were in his
own bosom at the thought that she was free, Beaufort could not tell; but
when he found himself seated at table that evening with her father and
brother, he could not but feel that his dream was going on, and that
there was no telling in what new scene it might unfold fresh wonders.
The four gentlemen dined alone, and they were not a lively party. After
dinner they gathered about the fireplace, not making any move towards
the forsaken drawing-room. "This is a sad sort of amusement to provide
for you," Lord Lindores said. "We hoped to have shown you the more
cheerful side of Scotch life."

"I have had a very good time: what you might call a lovely time," said
Millefleurs. Then he made a pause, and drawing closer, laid his plump
finger on Lord Lindores's arm. "I don't want to make myself a nuisance
now; but--not to be troublesome--if I am not likely soon to have an
opportunity of addressing myself to Lady Edith, don't you think I had
better go away?"

"You may well be tired of us; a house of mourning," said Lord Lindores,
with a smile of benevolent meaning. "It was not for this you came into
those wilds."

"They are far from being wilds: I have enjoyed myself very much," said
little Millefleurs. "All has been new; and to see a new country, don't
you know, is always the height of my ambition. But such a thing might
happen as that I wasn't wanted. When a lady means to have anything to
say to a fellow, I have always heard she lets him know. To say nothing
is, perhaps, as good a way of saying no as any. It may be supposed to
save a man's feelings----"

"Am I to understand that you have spoken to my daughter, Millefleurs?"

"I have never had the chance, Lord Lindores. On the very evening, you
will remember, when I hoped to have an explanation, this unfortunate
accident happened. I am very sorry for the gentleman whom, in the best
of circumstances, I can never now hope to call my brother-in-law; but
the position is perhaps a little awkward. Lady Edith is acquainted with
my aspirations, but I--know nothing; don't you know?" said the little
Marquis. He had his hand upon his plump bosom, and raised himself a
little on one foot as he spoke. "It makes a fellow feel rather
small--and, in my case, that isn't wanted," he added, cheerfully.
Nothing less like a despairing lover could be imagined; but though he
resembled a robin-redbreast, he was a man quite conscious of the
dignities of his position, and not to be played with. A cold chill of
alarm came over Lord Lindores.

"Edith will return to-morrow, or next day," he said; "or if you choose
to go to Tinto, her mother regards you so much as a friend and
favourite, that she will receive you gladly, I am sure. Go, then----"

"No," said Millefleurs, shaking his head, "no, that would be too strong.
I never saw the poor fellow but once or twice, and the last time I had
the misfortune to disagree with him; no--I can't convey myself to his
house to learn if I'm to be taken or not. It is a droll sort of
experience. I feel rather like a bale of goods, don't you know, on
approval," he said with a laugh. He took it with great good-humour; but
it was possible that even Millefleurs's good-humour might be exhausted.

"I undertake for it that you shall not have to wait much longer," said
Lord Lindores.




CHAPTER XXXVIII.


Rintoul had bad nights, and could not sleep. He had been in such
constant movement that day that he was fatigued, and had hoped for rest;
but after tossing on his uneasy bed, he got up again, as for several
nights past he had been in the habit of doing, and began to pace up and
down his room. The house was all buried in repose and silence--the woods
rustling round, the river flowing, the silence outside tingling with the
never altogether hushed movements of nature; but indoors nothing
stirring--all dark; nothing but the heavy breath of sleep within the
thick old walls. The fire was dying out on the hearth; the candles,
which he lighted hastily, did not half light the room, but rather
cleared a little spot in the darkness, and left all else in gloom. A
nervous tremor was upon the young man,--he to whom nerves had been all
folly, who had scoffed at them as affectation or weakness; but he had no
longer that command of himself of which he had once been proud. His
mind strayed involuntarily into thoughts which he would fain have shut
out. They dwelt upon one subject and one scene, which he had shut his
mind to a hundred times, only to feel it the next moment once more
absorbing every faculty. His shadow upon the window paced up and down,
up and down. He could not keep quiet. He did not care to have the door
of his room behind him, but kept it in sight as if he feared being taken
at a disadvantage. What did he fear? he could not tell. Imagination had
seized hold upon him--he who had never known what imagination was. He
could not rest for it. The quiet was full of noises. He heard the
furniture creaking, as it does at night, the walls giving out strange
echoes; and never having kept any vigil before, thought that these
strange voices of the night had to do with himself, and in his soul
trembled as if he had been surrounded by enemies or spies searching his
inmost thoughts.

Thus he walked up and down the room, keeping his face to the door. Did
he expect any one, anything to come in? No, no; nothing of the kind. But
it is certain that sometimes along the long passage he heard sounds as
of a horse's hoofs. He knew it was nonsense. It was the sound of the
river, to which he was perfectly accustomed; but yet it sounded somehow
like a horse's hoofs. He never would have been surprised at any moment
to see the door pushed open and something come in. He knew it was
ridiculous, but still he could not help the feeling. And the silence of
the house was a pain to him beyond telling. One of these nights one of
the servants had been ill, and Rintoul was glad. The sense that some one
was waking, moving about, was a relief. It seemed somehow to give him a
sort of security,--to deliver him from himself. But while he thus felt
the advantage of waking humanity near him, he was thankful beyond
description that the society of the house was diminished--that his
mother and Edith were away. He knew that they must have found him
out--if not what was in his mind, at least that there was something on
his mind. During the last twenty-four hours particularly they would have
been worse spies than the trees and the winds. How could he have kept
himself to himself in their presence, especially as they would have
besieged him with questions, with incitements to do something. They
would have assumed that they knew all about it in their ignorance. They!
They were always assuming that they knew. There was a fierce momentary
satisfaction in Rintoul's mind to think how completely out they would
be, how incapable of understanding the real state of the case. They
thought they knew everything! But he felt that there was a possibility
that he might have betrayed himself in the very pleasure he would have
had in showing them that they knew nothing. And it was better, far
better, that they should be out of the way.

He did not, however, yield to this fever of the mind without doing what
he could manfully to subdue it. He made a great effort now to fix his
mind upon what his father had said to him--but the names of Millefleurs
and Lady Reseda only swept confusedly through his brain like straws upon
the surface of the stream. Sometimes he found himself repeating one of
them vaguely, like a sort of idiotical chorus, while the real current of
his thoughts ran on. Lady Reseda, Lady Reseda: what had she to do with
it?--or Millefleurs, Millefleurs!--they were straws upon the surface,
showing how rapidly the torrent ran, not anything he could catch hold
of. There was one name, however, round which that dark current of his
thoughts eddied and swirled as in a whirlpool--the name of John Erskine.
There could not be any doubt that _he_ had something to do with it. He
had thrust himself into a matter that did not concern him, and he was
paid for his folly. It was not _his_ place to stand up for Carry, to
resent her husband's rudeness--what had he to do with it? He was an
intrusive, officious fool, thrusting himself into other people's
business. If he brought himself into trouble by it, was that Rintoul's
fault? Was he bound to lay himself open to a great deal of annoyance
and embarrassment in order to save John Erskine from the consequences of
his own folly? This was the question that would not let him rest.
Nothing Rintoul had been a party to had compromised John Erskine. It was
all his own doing. Why did he, for his pleasure, take the Scaur road at
all? Why did he stop and quarrel, seeing the other was excited? Why rush
down in that silly way with his coat torn to make an exhibition of
himself? All these things were folly,--folly beyond extenuation. He
ought to have known better; and whatever followed, was it not his own
fault?

Along with this, however, there were other thoughts that flashed at
Rintoul, and would not let him carry on steadily to the conclusion he
desired. There are some things that are permissible and some that are
not permissible. A gentleman need not betray himself: it is not
indispensable that he should take the world into his confidence, if any
accident happens to him, and he gets himself into trouble; but he must
not let another get into trouble for him,--that comes into the category
of the "anything disgraceful" which Lord Lindores was assured his son
had never been guilty of. No! he had never done anything disgraceful.
How was he to escape it now? And then, looking back upon all the
circumstances, Rintoul sadly perceived what a fool he had been not to
put everything on a straightforward footing at once. He reflected that
he could have given almost any account of the occurrence he pleased.
There was nobody to contradict him: and all would have been over without
complication, without any addition from the popular fancy. It seemed to
him now, reflecting upon everything, all the details that had filled him
with an unreflecting panic then, that nothing could have been easier
than to explain the whole matter. But he had lost that good moment, and
if he made the confession now, every false conception which he had
feared would be realised. People would say, If this was all, why make
any mystery about it? Why expose another to disgrace and suffering?
Rintoul had not intelligence enough, though he had always plumed himself
on his common-sense, to thread his way among those conflicting
reasonings. He grew sick as the harpies of recollection and thought
rushed upon him from all quarters. He had no power to stand against
them,--to silence her who cried, "Why did you not do this?"--while he
held at bay the other who swooped down upon him, screaming, "How could
you do that?" When it grew more than he could bear he retreated to his
bed, and flung himself exhausted upon it, throwing out his arms with the
unconscious histrionic instinct of excitement, appealing to he knew not
what. How could he do this thing? How could he leave it undone? Rintoul
in his despair got up again and found an opiate which had been given
him when he had toothache, long ago, in days when toothache was the
worst torture he knew. He swallowed it, scarcely taking the trouble to
mark how much he was taking, though the moment after he took a panic,
and got up and examined the bottle to assure himself that all was right.
It was nearly daybreak by the time that this dose sent him to
sleep,--and he scarcely knew he had been asleep, so harassing were his
dreams, till he came to himself at last, to find that it was eleven
o'clock in a dull forenoon, his shutters all open, and the dim light
pouring in. The horrors of waking when the mind is possessed by great
misery is a well-worn subject,--everybody knows what it is to have Care
seated by his bedside, ready to pounce upon him when he opens his eyes;
but Rintoul had scarcely escaped from that dark companion. She had been
with him in his dreams: he felt her grip him now, with no surprise, if
with a redoublement of pain.

It was nearly mid-day when he got down-stairs, and he found nobody. His
father was out. Millefleurs was out. His breakfast was arranged upon a
little table near the fire, his letters laid ready, the county
newspaper--a little innocent broadsheet--by his plate. But he could not
take advantage of any of these luxuries; he swept his letters into his
pocket, flung the paper from him, then reflected that there might _be
something in it_, and picked it up again with trembling hands. There
was _something in it_. There was an account of the private examination
before the sheriff of Mr John Erskine of Dalrulzian on suspicion of
being concerned in the death of the late lamented Mr Torrance of Tinto.
"From circumstances which transpired," the sheriff, the newspaper
regretted to say, had thought it right to relegate Mr Erskine to
Dunnottar jail, there to await the result of a more formal inquiry, to
be held on the 25th at Dunearn. "We have little fear that a gentleman so
respected will easily be able to clear himself," it was added; and "a
tribute of respect to the late Patrick Torrance,--a name which, for
genial _bonhomie_ and sterling qualities, will long be remembered in
this county," wound up the paragraph. The greater portion of its
readers, already acquainted with the news by report, read it with
exclamations of concern, or cynical rustic doubt whether John Erskine
was so much respected, or Pat Torrance as sure of a place in the
county's memory, as the 'Dunearn Sentinel' said; but all Rintoul's blood
seemed to rush to his head and roar like a torrent in his ears as he
read the paragraph. He could hear nothing but that rushing of excitement
and the bewildered half-maddened thoughts which seemed to accompany it.
What was he to do? What was he to do?

There was a little interval, during which Rintoul literally did not
know what he was doing. His mind was not prepared for such an emergency.
He tossed about like a cork upon the boiling stream of his own
thoughts--helpless, bewildered, driven hither and thither. He only came
to himself when he felt the damp air in his face, and found himself
setting out on foot on the road to Dunearn: the irregular lines of the
housetops in front of him, the tall tower of the Town House pointing up
to the dull skies, standing out from the rest of the buildings like a
landmark to indicate what route he was to take. When he caught sight of
that he came violently to himself, and began at once to recover some
conscious control over his actions. The operations of his mind became
clear to him; his panic subsided. After all, who could harm John
Erskine? He had been very foolish; he had exposed himself to suspicion;
but no doubt a gentleman so respected would be able to clear himself--a
gentleman so respected. Rintoul repeated the words to himself, as he had
repeated the names of Millefleurs and Lady Reseda the night before. And
what would it matter to John Erskine to put off till the 25th his
emancipation and the full recognition of his innocence? If he had a bad
cold, it would have the same result--confinement to the house, perhaps
to his room. What was that? Nothing: a trifling inconvenience, that any
man might be subject to. And there could be no doubt that a gentleman
so respected----There would be evidence that would clear him: it was not
possible that any proof could be produced of a thing that never
happened; and the whole county, if need be, would bear witness to John
Erskine's character--that he was not quarrelsome or a brawler; that
there was no motive for any quarrel between him and----

Rintoul's feet, which had been going rapidly towards Dunearn, went on
slower and slower. He came to a pause altogether about a mile from the
town. Was it necessary to go any farther? What could he do to-day?
Certainly there would be no advantage to Erskine in anything he did
to-day. He turned round slowly, and went back towards Lindores. Walking
that way, there was nothing but the long sweep of the landscape between
him and Tinto, to which his eyes could not but turn as he walked slowly
on. The flag was up again--a spot of red against the dull sky--and the
house stood out upon its platform with that air of ostentation which
fretted the souls of the surrounding gentry. Rintoul could not bear the
sight of it: it smote him with a fierce impatience. Scarcely conscious
that his movement of hot and hasty temper was absurd, he turned round
again to escape it, and set his face towards the emblem of severe
justice and the law, the tower of the Town House of Dunearn. When this
second monitor made itself visible, a kind of dull despair took
possession of him. His steps were hemmed in on every side, and there was
no escape.

It was while he was moving on thus reluctantly, by a sort of vague
compulsion, that he recognised, with amazement, Nora Barrington coming
towards him. It was a piece of good fortune to which he had no right.
She was the only creature in the world whose society could have been
welcome to him. They met as they might have met in a fairy tale: fairy
tales are not over, so long as people do meet in this way on the
commonplace road. They had neither of them thought of any such
encounter--he, because his mind was too dolorous and preoccupied for any
such relief; she, because Rintoul seldom came into Dunearn, and never
walked, so that no idea of his presence occurred to her. She was going
to fulfil a commission of Miss Barbara's, and anxious if possible to see
Edith, which was far more likely than Edith's brother. They were both
surprised, almost beyond speech; they scarcely uttered any greeting. It
did not seem strange, somehow, that Rintoul should turn and walk with
her the way she was going, though it was not his way. And now a
wonderful thing happened to Rintoul. His ferment of thought subsided all
at once,--he seemed to have sailed into quiet seas after the excitement
of the head-long current which had almost dashed him to pieces. He did
not know what it meant. The storm ended, and there stole over him "a
sound as of a hidden brook, in the leafy month of June." And Nora felt a
softening of sympathetic feeling, she did not know why. She was sorry
for him. Why should she have been sorry for Lord Rintoul? He was
infinitely better off than she was. She could not account for the
feeling, but she felt it all the same. She asked him first how Lady
Caroline was--poor Lady Caroline!--and then faltered a little, turning
to her own affairs.

"I hope I shall see Edith before I go away. Do you know when they are
coming back? I am going home--very soon now," Nora said. She felt almost
apologetic--reluctant to say it,--and yet it seemed necessary to say it.
There were many people whom she might have met on the road to whom she
would not have mentioned the fact, but it seemed incumbent upon her now.

"Going away! No, that you must not do--you must not do it! Why should
you go away?" he cried.

"There are many reasons." Nora felt that she ought to laugh at his
vehemence, or that, perhaps, she should be angry; but she was neither
the one nor the other--only apologetic, and so sorry for him. "Of course
I always knew I should have to go: though I shall always think it home
here, yet it is not home any longer. It is a great pity, don't you
think, to live so long in a place which, after all, is not your home?"

"I cannot think it a great pity that you should have lived here," he
said. "The thing is, that you must not go. For God's sake, Nora, do not
go! I never thought of that; it is the last drop. If you knew how near I
am to the end of my strength, you would not speak of such a thing to
me."

"Lord Rintoul! I--don't understand. What can it matter?" cried Nora, in
her confusion. She felt that she should have taken a different tone. He
had no right to call her Nora, or to speak as if he had anything to do
with her coming or going. But the hurried tone of passion and terror in
his voice overwhelmed her. It was as if he had heard of the last
misfortune that could overwhelm a man.

"Matter! Do you mean to me? It may not matter to any one else; to me it
is everything," he said, wildly. "I shall give in altogether. I shall
not care what I do if you go away."

"Now, Lord Rintoul," said Nora, her heart beating, but trying to laugh
as she best could, "this, you must know, is nonsense. You cannot mean to
make fun of me, I am sure; but----I don't know what you mean. We had
better say no more about it." Then she melted again. She remembered
their last interview, which had gone to her heart. "I know," she said,
"that you have been in a great deal of trouble."

"You know," said Rintoul, "because you feel for me. Nobody else knows.
Then think what it will be for me if you go away--the only creature whom
I dare to speak to. Nora, you know very well I was always fond of
you--from the first--as soon as we met----"

"Don't, don't, Lord Rintoul! I cannot get away from you on this public
road. Have some respect for me. You ought not to say such things, nor I
to hear."

He looked at her, wondering. "Is it any want of respect to tell you that
you are the girl I have always wanted to marry? You may not feel the
same; it may be only your kindness: you may refuse me, Nora; but I have
always meant it. I have thought it was our duty to do the best we could
for the girls, but I never gave in to that for myself. My father has
spoken of this one and that one, but I have always been faithful to you.
That is no want of respect, though it is a public road. From the time I
first knew you, I have only thought of you."

What an ease it gave him to say this! All the other points that had so
occupied him before seemed to have melted away in her presence. If he
had but some one to stand by him,--if he had but Nora, who felt for him
always. It seemed that everything else would arrange itself, and become
less difficult to bear.

As for Nora, she had known very well that Rintoul was, as he said, fond
of her. It is so difficult to conceal that. But she thought he would
"get over it." She had said to herself, with some little scorn, that he
never would have the courage to woo a poor girl like herself,--a girl
without anything. He had a worldly mind though he was young, and Nora
had never allowed herself to be deluded, she thought.

"Don't you believe me?" he said, after a moment's pause, looking at her
wistfully, holding out his hand.

"Yes, I believe you, Lord Rintoul," said Nora; but she took no notice of
his outstretched hand, though it cost her something to be, as she said
to herself, "so unkind." "I do believe you; but it would never be
permitted, you know. You yourself would not approve of it when you had
time to think; for you are worldly-minded, Lord Rintoul: and you know
you ought to marry--an heiress--some one with money."

"You have a very good right to say so," he replied. "I have always
maintained that for the girls: but if you had ever taken any notice of
me, you would have found out that I never allowed it for myself. Yes, it
is quite true I am worldly-minded; but I never meant to marry money. I
never thought of marrying any one but you."

And now there was a pause again. He did not seem to have asked her any
question that Nora could answer. He had only made a statement to her
that she was the only girl he had ever wished to marry. It roused a
great commotion in her breast. She had always liked Rintoul, even when
his sisters called him a Philistine; and now when he was in trouble,
under some mysterious shadow, she knew not why, appealing to her
sympathy as to his salvation, it was not possible that the girl should
shut her heart against him. They walked on together for a few yards in
silence, and then she said, faltering, "I had better go back
now----I--did not expect to--meet any one."

"Don't go back without saying something to me. Promise me, Nora, that
you will not go away. I want you! I want you! Without you I should go
all wrong. If you saw me sinking in the water, wouldn't you put out your
hand to help me?--and that is nothing to what may happen. Nora, have you
the heart to go back without saying anything to me?" cried Rintoul, once
more holding out his hand.

There was nobody visible on the road, up or down. The turrets of
Lindores peeped over the trees in the distance, like spectators deeply
interested, holding their breath; at the other end the long thin tower
of the Town House seemed to pale away into the distance. He looked
anxiously into her face, as if life and death hung on the decision.
They had come to a standstill in the emotion of the moment, and stood
facing each other, trembling with the same sentiment. Nora held back
still, but there was an instinctive drawing closer of the two
figures--irresistible, involuntary.

"Your father will never consent," she said, with an unsteady voice; "and
my father will never allow it against his will. But, Lord Rintoul----"

"Not lord, nor Rintoul," he said.

"You never liked to be called Robin," Nora said, with a half malicious
glance into his face. But poor Rintoul was not in the humour for jest.
He took her hand, her arm, and drew it through his.

"I cannot wait to think about our fathers. I have such need of you,
Nora. I have something to tell you that I can tell to no one in the
world but you. I want my other self to help me. I want my wife, to whom
I can speak----"

His arm was quivering with anxiety and emotion. Though Nora was
bewildered, she did not hesitate--what girl would?--from the
responsibility thus thrust upon her. To be so urgently wanted is the
strongest claim that can be put forth upon any human creature.
Instinctively she gave his arm a little pressure, supporting rather than
supported, and said "Tell me," turning upon him freely, without blush or
faltering, the grave sweet face of sustaining love.




CHAPTER XXXIX.


Rolls disappeared on the evening of the day on which he had that long
consultation with Mr Monypenny. He did not return to Dalrulzian that
night. Marget, with many blushes and no small excitement, served the
dinner, which Bauby might be said to have cooked with tears. If these
salt drops were kept out of her sauces, she bedewed the white apron
which she lifted constantly to her eyes. "Maister John in jyal! and oor
Tammas gone after him; and what will I say to his mammaw?" Bauby cried.
She seemed to fear that it might be supposed some want of care on her
part which had led to this dreadful result. But even the sorrow of her
soul did not interfere with her sense of what was due to her master's
guest. Beaufort's dinner did not suffer, whatever else might. It was
scrupulously cooked, and served with all the care of which Marget was
capable; and when it was all over, and everything carefully put aside,
the women sat down together in the kitchen, and had a good cry over the
desolation of the house. The younger maids, perhaps, were not so deeply
concerned on this point as Bauby, who was an old servant, and considered
Dalrulzian as her home: but they were all more or less affected by the
disgrace, as well as sorry for the young master, who had "nae pride,"
and always a pleasant word for his attendants in whatever capacity.
Their minds were greatly affected, too, by the absence of Rolls. Not a
man in the house but the stranger gentleman! It was a state of affairs
which alarmed and depressed them, and proved, above all other signs,
that a great catastrophe had happened. Beaufort sent for the housekeeper
after dinner to give her such information as he thought necessary; and
Bauby was supported to the door by her subordinates, imploring her all
the way to keep up her heart. "You'll no' let on to the strange
gentleman." "Ye'll keep up a good face, and no' let him see how sair
cast down ye are," they said, one at either hand. There was a great deal
of struggling outside the door, and some stifled sounds of weeping,
before it was opened, and Bauby appeared, pushed in by some invisible
agency behind her, which closed the door promptly as soon as she was
within. She was not the important person Beaufort had expected to see;
but as she stood there, with her large white apron thrown over her arm,
and her comely countenance, like a sky after rain, lighted up with a
very wan and uncertain smile, putting the best face she could upon it,
Beaufort's sympathy overcame the inclination to laugh which he might
have felt in other circumstances, at the sight of her sudden entrance
and troubled clinging to the doorway. "Good evening," he said, "Mrs----"
"They call me Bauby Rolls, at your service," said Bauby, with a curtsey,
and a suppressed sob. "Mrs Rolls," said Beaufort, "your master may not
come home for a few days; he asked me to tell you not to be anxious;
that he hoped to be back soon; that there was nothing to be alarmed
about." "Eh! and was he so kind as think upon me, and him in such
trouble," cried Bauby, giving way to her emotions. "But I'm no alarmt;
no, no, why should I be?" she added, in a trembling voice. "He will be
hame, no doubt, in a day or twa, as ye say, sir, and glad, glad we'll a'
be. It's not that we have any doubt--but oh! what will his mammaw say to
me?" cried Bauby. After the tremulous momentary stand she had made, her
tears flowed faster than ever. "There has no such thing happened among
the Erskines since ever the name was kent in the country-side, and
that's maist from the beginning, as it's written in Scripture." "It's
all a mistake," cried Beaufort. "That it is--that it is," cried Bauby,
drying her eyes. And then she added with another curtsey, "I hope you'll
find everything to your satisfaction, sir, till the maister comes hame.
Tammas--that's the butler, Tammas Rolls, my brother, sir, if ye
please--is no' at hame to-night, and you wouldna like a lass aboot to
valet ye; they're all young but me. But if you would put out your cloes
to brush, or anything that wants doing, outside your door, it shall a'
be weel attended to. I'm real sorry there's no' another man aboot the
house: but a' that women can do we'll do, and with goodwill." "You are
very kind, Mrs Rolls," said Beaufort. "I was not thinking of myself--you
must not mind me. I shall get on very well. I am sorry to be a trouble
to you at such a melancholy moment." "Na, na, sir, not melancholy,"
cried Bauby, with her eyes streaming; "sin' ye say, and a'body must
allow, that it's just a mistake: we manna be put aboot by suchlike
trifles. But nae doubt it will be livelier and mair pleesant for
yoursel', sir, when Mr John and Tammas, they baith come hame. Would you
be wanting anything more to-night?" "Na, I never let on," Bauby said,
when she retired to the ready support of her handmaidens outside the
door--"no' me; I keepit a stout heart, and I said to him, 'It's of nae
consequence, sir,' I said,--'I'm nane cast down; it's just a
mistake--everybody kens that; and that he was to put his things outside
his door,' He got nothing that would go against the credit of the house
out of me."

But in spite of this forlorn confidence in her powers of baffling
suspicion, it was a wretched night that poor Bauby spent. John was
satisfactorily accounted for, and it was known where he was; but who
could say where Rolls might be? Bauby sat up half through the night
alone in the great empty kitchen with the solemn-sounding clock and the
cat purring loudly by the fire. She was as little used to the noises of
the night as Lord Rintoul was, and in her agony of watching felt the
perpetual shock and thrill of the unknown going through and through her.
She heard steps coming up to the house a hundred times through the
night, and stealing stealthily about the doors. "Is that you, Tammas?"
she said again and again, peering out into the night: but nobody
appeared. Nor did he appear next day, or the next. After her first
panic, Bauby gave out that he was with his master--that she had never
expected him--in order to secure him from remark. But in her own mind
horrible doubts arose. He had always been the most irreproachable of
men; but what if, in the shock of this catastrophe, even Tammas should
have taken to ill ways? Drink--that was the natural suggestion. Who can
fathom the inscrutable attractions it has, so that men yield to it who
never could have been suspected of such a weakness? Most women of the
lower classes have the conviction that no man can resist it. Heart-wrung
for his master, shamed to his soul for the credit of the house, had
Rolls, too, after successfully combating temptation for all his
respectable life, yielded to the demon? Bauby trembled, but kept her
terrors to herself. She said he might come back at any moment--he was
with his maister. Where else was it likely at such a time that he should
be?

But Rolls was not with his master. He was on the eve of a great and
momentous act. There were no superstitious alarms about him, as about
Rintoul, and no question in his mind what to do. Before he left
Dalrulzian that sad morning, he had shaped all the possibilities in his
thoughts, and knew what he intended; and his conversation with Mr
Monypenny gave substance and a certain reasonableness to his resolution.
But it was not in his nature by one impetuous movement to precipitate
affairs. He had never in his life acted hastily, and he had occasional
tremors of the flesh which chilled his impulse and made him pause. But
the interval, which was so bitter to his master, although all the
lookers-on congratulated themselves it could do him no harm, was exactly
what Rolls wanted in the extraordinary crisis to which he had come. A
humble person, quite unheroic in his habits as in his antecedents, it
was scarcely to be expected that the extraordinary project which had
entered his mind should have been carried out with the enthusiastic
impulse of romantic youth. But few youths, however romantic, would have
entertained such a purpose as that which now occupied Rolls. There are
many who would risk a great deal to smuggle an illustrious prisoner out
of his prison. But this was an enterprise of a very different kind. He
left Mr Monypenny with his head full of thoughts which were not all
heroic. None of his inquiries had been made without meaning. The
self-devotion which was in him was of a sober kind, not the devotion of
a Highland clansman, an Evan Dhu; and though the extraordinary expedient
he had planned appeared to him more and not less alarming than the
reality, his own self-sacrifice was not without a certain calculation
and caution too.

All these things had been seriously weighed and balanced in his mind. He
had considered his sister's interest, and even his own eventual
advantage. He had never neglected these primary objects of life, and he
did not do so now. But though all was taken into account and carefully
considered, Rolls's first magnanimous purpose was never shaken; and the
use he made of the important breathing-time of these intervening days
was characteristic. He had, like most men, floating in his mind several
things which he intended "some time" to do,--a vague intention which, in
the common course of affairs, is never carried out. One of these things
was to pay a visit to Edinburgh. Edinburgh to Rolls was as much as
London and Paris and Rome made into one. All his patriotic feelings, all
that respect for antiquity which is natural to the mind of a Scot, and
the pride of advancing progress and civilisation which becomes a man of
this century, were involved in his desire to visit the capital of his
own country. Notwithstanding all the facilities of travel, he had been
there but once before, and that in his youth. With a curious solemnity
he determined to make this expedition now. It seemed the most suitable
way of spending these all-important days, before he took the step beyond
which he did not know what might happen to him. A more serious visitor,
yet one more determined to see everything and to take the full advantage
of all he saw, never entered that romantic town. He looked like a rural
elder of the gravest Calvinistic type as he walked, in his black coat
and loosely tied white neckcloth, about the lofty streets. He went to
Holyrood, and gazed with reverence and profound belief at the stains of
Rizzio's blood. He mounted up to the Castle and examined Mons Meg with
all the care of a historical observer. He even inspected the pictures
in the National Collection with unbounded respect, if little knowledge,
and climbed the Observatory on the Calton Hill. There were many
spectators about the streets who remarked him as he walked about,
looking conscientiously at everything, with mingled amazement and
respect; for his respectability, his sober curiosity, his unvarying
seriousness, were remarkable enough to catch an intelligent eye. But
nobody suspected that Rolls's visit to Edinburgh was the solemn visit of
a martyr, permitting himself the indulgence of a last look at the scenes
that interested him most, ere giving himself up to an unknown and
mysterious doom.

On the morning of the 24th, having satisfied himself fully, he returned
home. He was quite satisfied. Whatever might now happen, he had
fulfilled his intention, and realised his dreams: nothing could take
away from him the gratification thus secured. He had seen the best that
earth contained, and now was ready for the worst, whatever that might
be. Great and strange sights, prodigies unknown to his fathers, were
befitting and natural objects to occupy him at this moment of fate. It
was still early when he got back: he stopped at the Tinto Station, not
at that which was nearest to Dalrulzian, and slowly making his way up by
the fatal road, visited the scene of Torrance's death. The lodge-keeper
called out to him, as he turned that way, that the road was shut up; but
Rolls paid no heed. He clambered over the hurdles that were placed
across, and soon reached the scene of the tragedy. The marks of the
horse's hoofs were scarcely yet obliterated, and the one fatal point at
which the terrified brute had dinted deeply into the tough clay, its
last desperate attempt to hold its footing, was almost as distinct as
ever.

The terrible incident with which he had so much to do came before him
with a confused perception of things he had not thought of at the time,
reviving, as in a dream, before his very eyes. He remembered that
Torrance lay with his head down the stream--a point which had not struck
him as important; and he remembered that Lord Rintoul had appeared out
of the wood at his cry for help so quickly, that he could not have been
far away when the accident took place. What special signification there
might be in these facts Rolls was not sufficiently clear-headed to see.
But he noted them with great gravity in a little notebook, which he had
bought for the purpose. Then, having concluded everything, he set out
solemnly on his way to Dunearn.

It was a long walk. The autumnal afternoon closed in mists; the moon
rose up out of the haze--the harvest moon, with a little redness in her
light. The landscape was dim in this mellowed vapour, and everything
subdued. The trees, with all their fading glories, hung still in the
haze; the river tinkled with a far-off sound; the lights in the cottages
were blurred, and looked like huge vague lamps in the milky air, as
Rolls trudged on slowly, surely, to the place of fate. It took him a
long time to walk there, and he did not hurry. Why should he hurry? He
was sure, went he ever so slowly, to arrive in time. As he went along,
all things that ever he had done came up into his mind. His youthful
extravagances--for Rolls, too, had once been young and silly; his
gradual settling into manhood; his aspirations, which he once had, like
the best; his final anchorage, which, if not in a very exalted post, nor
perhaps what he had once hoped for, was yet so respectable. Instead of
the long lines of trees, the hedgerows, and cottages which marked the
road, it was his own life that Rolls walked through as he went on. He
thought of the old folk, his father and mother; he seemed to see Bauby
and himself and the others coming home in just such a misty autumn night
from school. Jock, poor fellow! who had gone to sea, and had not been
heard of for years; Willie, who 'listed, and nearly broke the old
mother's heart. How many shipwrecks there had been among the lads he
once knew! Rolls felt, with a warmth of satisfaction about his heart,
how well it was to have walked uprightly, to have "won through" the
storms of life, and to have been a credit and a comfort to all belonging
to him. If anything was worth living for, that was. Willie and Jock had
both been cleverer than he, poor fellows! but they had both dropped, and
he had held on. Rolls did not want to be proud; he was quite willing to
say, "If it had not been for the grace of God!----" but yet it gave him
an elevating sense of the far superior pleasure it was to conquer your
inclinations in the days of your youth, and to do well whatever might
oppose. When the name of Rolls was mentioned by any one about Dunearn,
it would always be said that two of them had done very well--Tammas and
Bauby: these were the two. They had always held by one another; they had
always been respectable. But here Rolls stopped in his thoughts, taking
a long breath. After this, after what was going to happen, what would
the folk say then? Would a veil drop after to-day upon the unblemished
record of his life? He had never stood before a magistrate in all his
days--never seen how the world looked from the inside of a prison, even
as a visitor--had nothing to do, nothing to do with that side of the
world. He waved his hand, as if separating by a mystic line between all
that was doubtful or disreputable, and his own career. But now----Thus
through the misty darkening road, with now a red gleam from a smithy,
and now a softer glimmer from a cottage door, and anon the trees
standing out of the mists, and the landscape widening about him, Rolls
came on slowly, very seriously, to Dunearn. The long tower of the Town
House, which had seemed to threaten and call upon Lord Rintoul, was the
first thing that caught the eye of Rolls. The moon shone upon it, making
a white line of it against the cloudy sky.

Mr Monypenny was at dinner with his family. They dined at six o'clock,
which was thought a rather fashionable hour, and the comfortable meal
was just over. Instead of wine, the good man permitted himself one glass
of toddy when the weather grew cold. He was sitting between the table
and the fire, and his wife sat on the other side giving him her company
and consolation,--for Mr Monypenny was somewhat low and despondent. He
had been moved by Sir James Montgomery's warm and sudden partisanship
and belief of John Erskine's story; but he was a practical man himself,
and he could not, he owned, shaking his head, take a sensational view.
To tell him that there should have been just such an encounter as seemed
probable--high words between two gentlemen--but that they should part
with no harm done, and less than an hour after one of them be found
lying dead at the bottom of the Scaur--that was more than he could
swallow in the way of a story. To gain credence, there should have been
less or more. Let him hold his tongue altogether--a man is never called
upon to criminate himself--or let him say all. "Then you must just give
him a word, my dear, to say nothing about it," said Mrs Monypenny, who
was anxious too. "But that's just impossible, my dear, for he blurted it
all out to the sheriff just as he told it to me." "Do you not think it's
a sign of innocence that he should keep to one story, and when it's
evidently against himself, so far as it goes?" "A sign of innocence!" Mr
Monypenny said, with a snort of impatience. He took his toddy very
sadly, finding no exhilaration in it. "Pride will prevent him departing
from his story," he said. "If he had spoken out like a man, and called
for help like a Christian, it would have been nothing. All this fuss is
his own doing--a panic at the moment, and pride--pride now, and nothing
more."

"If ye please," said the trim maid who was Mr Monypenny's butler and
footman all in one--the "table-maid," as she was called--"there's one
wanting to speak to ye, sir. I've put him into the office, and he says
he can wait."

"One! and who may the one be?" said Mr Monypenny.

"Weel, sir, he's got his hat doon on his brows and a comforter aboot
his throat, and he looks sore for-foughten, as if he had travelled all
the day, and no' a word to throw at a dog; but I think it's Mr Rolls,
the butler at Dalrulzian."

"Rolls!" said Mr Monypenny. "I'll go to him directly, Jeanie. That's one
thing off my mind. I thought that old body had disappeared rather than
bear witness against his master," he said, when the girl had closed the
door.

"But oh, if he's going to bear witness against his master, it would have
been better for him to disappear," said the sympathetic wife. "Nasty
body! to eat folk's bread, and then to get them into trouble."

"Whesht with your foolish remarks, my dear: that is clean against the
law, and it would have had a very bad appearance, and prejudiced the
Court against us," Mr Monypenny said as he went away. But to tell the
truth, he was not glad; for Rolls was one of the most dangerous
witnesses against his master. The agent went to his office with a
darkened brow. It was not well lighted, for the lamp had been turned
down, and the fire was low. Rolls rose up from where he had been sitting
on the edge of a chair as Mr Monypenny came in. He had unwound his
comforter from his neck, and taken off his hat. His journey, and his
troubled thoughts, and the night air, had limped and damped him; the
starch was out of his tie, and the air of conscious rectitude out of
his aspect. He made a solemn but tremulous bow, and stood waiting till
the door was closed, and the man of business had thrown himself into a
chair. "Well, Rolls--so you have come back!" Mr Monypenny said.

"Ay, sir, I've come back. I've brought you the man, Mr Monypenny, that
did _yon_."

"Good Lord, Rolls! that did what? You take away my breath."

"I'll do it more or I'm done. The man that coupit yon poor lad Tinto and
his muckle horse ower the brae."

Mr Monypenny started to his feet. "Do you mean to tell me--Lord bless
us, man, speak out, can't ye! The man that----Are ye in your senses,
Rolls? And who may this man be?"

"You see before you, sir, one that's nae better than a coward. I thought
it would blow by. I thought the young master would be cleared in a
moment. There was nae ill meaning in my breast. I did the best I could
for him as soon as it was done, and lostna a moment. But my courage
failed me to say it was me----"

"You!" cried Monypenny, with a shout that rang through the house.

"Just me, and no other; and what for no' me? Am I steel and airn, to
take ill words from a man that was no master of mine? Ye can shut me up
in your prison--I meant him no hairm--and hang me if you like. I'll no'
let an innocent man suffer instead of me. I've come to give myself up."




CHAPTER XL.


"DEAR MR ERSKINE,--I do not know what words to use to tell you how
pained and distressed we are--I speak for my mother as well as
myself--to find that nothing has been done to relieve you from the
consequence of such a ridiculous as well as unhappy mistake. We found my
brother Robin as anxious as we were, or more so, if that were possible,
to set matters right at once; but unfortunately on the day after, the
funeral took up all thoughts: and what other obstacles intervened next
day I cannot rightly tell, but something or other--I am too impatient
and pained to inquire what--came in the way; and they tell me now that
to-morrow is the day of the examination, and that it is of no use now to
forestall justice, which will certainly set you free to-morrow. Oh, dear
Mr Erskine, I cannot tell you how sick and sore my heart is to think
that you have been in confinement (it seems too dreadful, too ludicrous,
to be true), in confinement all these long days. I feel too angry, too
miserable, to think of it. I have been crying, as if that would do you
any good, and rushing up and down abusing everybody. I think that in his
heart Robin feels it more than any of us: he feels the injustice, the
foolishness; but still he has been to blame, and I don't know how to
excuse him. We have not dared to tell poor Carry--though, indeed, I need
not attempt to conceal from you, who have seen so much, that poor Carry,
though she is dreadfully excited and upset, is not miserable, as you
would expect a woman to be in her circumstances. Could it be expected?
But I don't know what she might do if she heard what has happened to
you. She might take some step of her own accord, and that would be not
prudent, I suppose; so we don't tell her. Oh, Mr Erskine, did you ever
think how miserable women are? I never realised it till now. Here am I,
and, still more, here is my mother. She is not a child, or an incapable
person, I hope! yet she can do nothing--nothing to free you. She is as
helpless as if she were a baby. It seems to me ridiculous that Robin's
opinion should be worth taking, and mine not; but that is quite a
different matter. My mother can do nothing but persuade and plead with a
boy like Robin, to do that which she herself, at her age, wise as she
is, good as she is, cannot do. As you are a man, you may think this of
no importance; and mamma says it is nature, and cannot be resisted, and
smiles. But if you suppose she does not feel it!--if she could have been
your bail, or whatever it is, you may be sure you would not have been a
single night in _that_ place! but all that we can do is to go down on
our knees to the men who have it in their power, and I, unfortunately,
have not been brought up to go down on my knees. Forgive me for this
outburst. I am so miserable to think where you are, and why, and that
I--I mean _we_--can do nothing. What can I say to you? Dear Mr Erskine,
our thoughts are with you constantly. My mother sends you her love.

"EDITH."

       *       *       *       *       *

Edith felt perhaps that this was not a very prudent letter. She was not
thinking of prudence, but of relieving her own mind and comforting John
Erskine, oppressed and suffering. And besides, she was herself in a
condition of great excitement and agitation. She had been brought back
from Tinto, she and her mother, with a purpose. Perhaps it was not said
to her in so many words; but it was certainly conveyed to the minds of
the female members of the family generally that Millefleurs was at the
end of his patience, and his suit must have an answer once for all.
Carry had been told of the proposal by her mother, and had pledged
herself to say nothing against it. And she had kept her promise, though
with difficulty, reserving to herself the power to act afterwards if
Edith should be driven to consent against her will. "Another of us shall
not do it," Carry said; "oh, not if I can help it!" "I do not believe
that Edith will do it," said Lady Lindores; "but let us not
interfere--let us not interfere!" Carry, therefore, closed her mouth
resolutely; but as she kissed her sister, she could not help whispering
in her ear, "Remember that I will always stand by you--always, whatever
happens!" This was at Lindores, where Carry, pining to see once more the
face of the outer world since it had so changed to her, drove her mother
and sister in the afternoon, returning home alone with results which
were not without importance in her life. But in the meantime it is Edith
with whom we have to do. She reached home with the sense of having a
certain ordeal before her--something which she had to pass through, not
without pain--which would bring her into direct antagonism with her
father, and convulse the household altogether. Even the idea that she
must more or less vex Millefleurs distressed and excited her; for indeed
she was quite willing to admit that she was "very fond of" Millefleurs,
though it was ridiculous to think of him in any other capacity than that
of a brotherly friend. And it was at this moment she made the discovery
that, notwithstanding the promises of Rintoul and Millefleurs, nothing
had been done for John. The consequence was, that the letter which we
have just quoted was at once an expression of sympathy, very warm, and
indeed impassioned--more than sympathy, indignation, wrath, sentiments
which were nothing less than violent--and a way of easing her own
excited mind which nothing else could have furnished. "I am going to
write to John Erskine," she said, with the boldness produced by so great
a crisis; and Lady Lindores had not interfered. She said, "Give him my
love," and that was all. No claim of superior prudence, or even wisdom,
has been made for Lady Lindores. She had to do the best she could among
all these imperfections. Perhaps she thought that, having expressed all
her angry glowing heart to John, in the outflowing of impassioned
sympathy, the girl would be more likely, in the reaction and fear lest
she had gone too far, to be kind to Millefleurs; for who can gauge the
ebbings and flowings of these young fantastic souls? And as for Lady
Lindores's private sentiments, she would not have forced her daughter a
hairbreadth; and she had a good deal of pain to reconcile herself to
Millefleurs's somewhat absurd figure as the husband of Edith. But yet,
when all is said, to give your child the chance of being a duchess, who
would not sacrifice a little? If only Edith could make up her mind to
it! Lady Lindores went no further. Nevertheless, when the important
moment approached, she could not help, like Carry, breathing a word in
her child's ear, "Remember, there is no better heart in existence," she
said. "A woman could not have a better man." Edith, in her excitement,
grasped her mother's arms with her two hands; but all the answer she
gave was a little nervous laugh. She had no voice to reply.

"You will remember, Millefleurs, that my daughter is very
young--and--and shy," said Lord Lindores, on the other side. He was
devoured by a desire to say, "If she refuses you, never mind--I will
make her give in;" which indeed was what he had said in a kind of
paraphrase to Torrance. But Millefleurs was not the sort of person to
whom this could be said. He drew himself up a little, and puffed out his
fine chest, when his future father-in-law (as they hoped) made this
remark. If Edith was not as willing to have him as he was to have her,
she was not for Millefleurs. He almost resented the interference. "I
have no doubt that Lady Edith and I will quite understand each
other--whichever way it may be," Millefleurs added with a sigh, which
suited the situation. As a matter of fact, he thought there could not be
very much doubt as to the reply. It was not possible that they could
have made him stay only to get a refusal at the end--and Millefleurs
was well aware that the girls were very few who could find it in their
hearts to refuse a future dukedom: besides, had it not been a friendship
at first sight--an immediate liking, if not love? To refuse him now
would be strange indeed. It was not until after dinner that the fated
moment came. Neither Lord Lindores nor Rintoul came into the
drawing-room; and Lady Lindores, having her previous orders, left the
field clear almost immediately after the entrance of the little hero.
There was nothing accidental about it, as there generally is, or appears
to be, about the scene of such events. The great drawing-room, all
softly lighted and warm, was never abandoned in this way in the evening.
Edith stood before the fire, clasping her hands together nervously, the
light falling warm upon her black dress and the gleams of reflection
from its jet trimmings. They had begun to talk before Lady Lindores
retreated to the background to look for something, as she said; and
Millefleurs allowed the subject they were discussing to come to an end
before he entered upon anything more important. He concluded his little
argument with the greatest propriety, and then he paused and cleared his
throat.

"Lady Edith," he said, "you may not have noticed that we are alone." He
folded his little hands together, and put out his chest, and made all
his curves more remarkable, involuntarily, as he said this. It was his
way of opening a new subject, and he was not carried out of his way by
excitement as Edith was.

She looked round breathlessly, and said, "Has mamma gone?" with a little
gasp--a mixture of agitation and shame. The sense even that she was
false in her pretence at surprise--for did she not know what was
coming?--agitated her still more.

"Yeth," said Millefleurs, drawing out his lisp into a sort of sigh. "I
have asked that I might see you by yourself. You will have thought,
perhaps, that for me to stay here when the family was in--affliction,
was, to say the least, bad taste, don't you know?"

"No," said Edith, faltering, "I did not think so; I thought----"

"That is exactly so," said Millefleurs, seriously. "It is a great bore,
to be sure; but you and I are not like two nobodies. The truth is, I had
to speak to your father first: it seemed to be the best thing to
do,--and now I have been waiting to have this chance. Lady Edith, I hope
you are very well aware that I am--very fond of you, don't you know? I
always thought we were fond of one another----"

"You were quite right, Lord Millefleurs," cried Edith, nervously; "you
have been so nice--you have been like another brother----"

"Thanks; but it was not quite in that way." Here Millefleurs put out his
plump hand and took hers in a soft, loose clasp--

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