CHAPTER IX.—MR. MACKELLAR’S JOURNEY WITH THE MASTER.
The chaise came to the door in a strong drenching mist. We took ourleave in silence: the house of Durrisdeer standing with dropping guttersand windows closed, like a place dedicate to melancholy. I observed theMaster kept his head out, looking back on these splashed walls andglimmering roofs, till they were suddenly swallowed in the mist; and Imust suppose some natural sadness fell upon the man at this departure; orwas it some provision of the end? At least, upon our mounting the longbrae from Durrisdeer, as we walked side by side in the wet, he beganfirst to whistle and then to sing the saddest of our country tunes, whichsets folk weeping in a tavern, _Wandering Willie_. The set of words heused with it I have not heard elsewhere, and could never come by anycopy; but some of them which were the most appropriate to our departurelinger in my memory. One verse began—
Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces, Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.
And ended somewhat thus—
Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland, Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold. Lone let it stand, now the folks are all departed, The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.
I could never be a judge of the merit of these verses; they were sohallowed by the melancholy of the air, and were sung (or rather“soothed”) to me by a master-singer at a time so fitting. He looked inmy face when he had done, and saw that my eyes watered.
“Ah! Mackellar,” said he, “do you think I have never a regret?”
“I do not think you could be so bad a man,” said I, “if you had not allthe machinery to be a good one.”
“No, not all,” says he: “not all. You are there in error. The malady ofnot wanting, my evangelist.” But methought he sighed as he mounted againinto the chaise.
All day long we journeyed in the same miserable weather: the mistbesetting us closely, the heavens incessantly weeping on my head. Theroad lay over moorish hills, where was no sound but the crying ofmoor-fowl in the wet heather and the pouring of the swollen burns.Sometimes I would doze off in slumber, when I would find myself plungedat once in some foul and ominous nightmare, from the which I would awakestrangling. Sometimes, if the way was steep and the wheels turningslowly, I would overhear the voices from within, talking in that tropicaltongue which was to me as inarticulate as the piping of the fowls.Sometimes, at a longer ascent, the Master would set foot to ground andwalk by my side, mostly without speech. And all the time, sleeping orwaking, I beheld the same black perspective of approaching ruin; and thesame pictures rose in my view, only they were now painted upon hillsidemist. One, I remember, stood before me with the colours of a trueillusion. It showed me my lord seated at a table in a small room; hishead, which was at first buried in his hands, he slowly raised, andturned upon me a countenance from which hope had fled. I saw it first onthe black window-panes, my last night in Durrisdeer; it haunted andreturned upon me half the voyage through; and yet it was no effect oflunacy, for I have come to a ripe old age with no decay of myintelligence; nor yet (as I was then tempted to suppose) a heaven-sentwarning of the future, for all manner of calamities befell, not thatcalamity—and I saw many pitiful sights, but never that one.
It was decided we should travel on all night; and it was singular, oncethe dusk had fallen, my spirits somewhat rose. The bright lamps, shiningforth into the mist and on the smoking horses and the hodding post-boy,gave me perhaps an outlook intrinsically more cheerful than what day hadshown; or perhaps my mind had become wearied of its melancholy. Atleast, I spent some waking hours, not without satisfaction in mythoughts, although wet and weary in my body; and fell at last into anatural slumber without dreams. Yet I must have been at work even in thedeepest of my sleep; and at work with at least a measure of intelligence.For I started broad awake, in the very act of crying out to myself
Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child,
stricken to find in it an appropriateness, which I had not yesterdayobserved, to the Master’s detestable purpose in the present journey.
We were then close upon the city of Glascow, where we were soonbreakfasting together at an inn, and where (as the devil would have it)we found a ship in the very article of sailing. We took our places inthe cabin; and, two days after, carried our effects on board. Her namewas the _Nonesuch_, a very ancient ship and very happily named. By allaccounts this should be her last voyage; people shook their heads uponthe quays, and I had several warnings offered me by strangers in thestreet to the effect that she was rotten as a cheese, too deeply loaden,and must infallibly founder if we met a gale. From this it fell out wewere the only passengers; the Captain, McMurtrie, was a silent, absorbedman, with the Glascow or Gaelic accent; the mates ignorant roughseafarers, come in through the hawsehole; and the Master and I were castupon each other’s company.
_The Nonesuch_ carried a fair wind out of the Clyde, and for near upon aweek we enjoyed bright weather and a sense of progress. I found myself(to my wonder) a born seaman, in so far at least as I was never sick; yetI was far from tasting the usual serenity of my health. Whether it wasthe motion of the ship on the billows, the confinement, the salted food,or all of these together, I suffered from a blackness of spirit and apainful strain upon my temper. The nature of my errand on that shipperhaps contributed; I think it did no more; the malady (whatever it was)sprang from my environment; and if the ship were not to blame, then itwas the Master. Hatred and fear are ill bedfellows; but (to my shame beit spoken) I have tasted those in other places, lain down and got up withthem, and eaten and drunk with them, and yet never before, nor after,have I been so poisoned through and through, in soul and body, as I wason board the _Nonesuch_. I freely confess my enemy set me a fair exampleof forbearance; in our worst days displayed the most patient geniality,holding me in conversation as long as I would suffer, and when I hadrebuffed his civility, stretching himself on deck to read. The book hehad on board with him was Mr. Richardson’s famous _Clarissa_! and amongother small attentions he would read me passages aloud; nor could anyelocutionist have given with greater potency the pathetic portions ofthat work. I would retort upon him with passages out of the Bible, whichwas all my library—and very fresh to me, my religious duties (I grieve tosay it) being always and even to this day extremely neglected. He tastedthe merits of the word like the connoisseur he was; and would sometimestake it from my hand, turn the leaves over like a man that knew his way,and give me, with his fine declamation, a Roland for my Oliver. But itwas singular how little he applied his reading to himself; it passed highabove his head like summer thunder: Lovelace and Clarissa, the tales ofDavid’s generosity, the psalms of his penitence, the solemn questions ofthe book of Job, the touching poetry of Isaiah—they were to him a sourceof entertainment only, like the scraping of a fiddle in a change-house.This outer sensibility and inner toughness set me against him; it seemedof a piece with that impudent grossness which I knew to underlie theveneer of his fine manners; and sometimes my gorge rose against him asthough he were deformed—and sometimes I would draw away as though fromsomething partly spectral. I had moments when I thought of him as of aman of pasteboard—as though, if one should strike smartly through thebuckram of his countenance, there would be found a mere vacuity within.This horror (not merely fanciful, I think) vastly increased mydetestation of his neighbourhood; I began to feel something shiver withinme on his drawing near; I had at times a longing to cry out; there weredays when I thought I could have struck him. This frame of mind wasdoubtless helped by shame, because I had dropped during our last days atDurrisdeer into a certain toleration of the man; and if any one had thentold me I should drop into it again, I must have laughed in his face. Itis possible he remained unconscious of this extreme fever of myresentment; yet I think he was too quick; and rather that he had fallen,in a long life of idleness, into a positive need of company, whichobliged him to confront and tolerate my unconcealed
aversion. Certain,at least, that he loved the note of his own tongue, as, indeed, heentirely loved all the parts and properties of himself; a sort ofimbecility which almost necessarily attends on wickedness. I have seenhim driven, when I proved recalcitrant, to long discourses with theskipper; and this, although the man plainly testified his weariness,fiddling miserably with both hand and foot, and replying only with agrunt.
After the first week out we fell in with foul winds and heavy weather.The sea was high. The _Nonesuch_, being an old-fashioned ship and badlyloaden, rolled beyond belief; so that the skipper trembled for his masts,and I for my life. We made no progress on our course. An unbearableill-humour settled on the ship: men, mates, and master, girding at oneanother all day long. A saucy word on the one hand, and a blow on theother, made a daily incident. There were times when the whole crewrefused their duty; and we of the afterguard were twice got underarms—being the first time that ever I bore weapons—in the fear of mutiny.
In the midst of our evil season sprang up a hurricane of wind; so thatall supposed she must go down. I was shut in the cabin from noon of oneday till sundown of the next; the Master was somewhere lashed on deck.Secundra had eaten of some drug and lay insensible; so you may say Ipassed these hours in an unbroken solitude. At first I was terrifiedbeyond motion, and almost beyond thought, my mind appearing to be frozen.Presently there stole in on me a ray of comfort. If the _Nonesuch_foundered, she would carry down with her into the deeps of that unsoundedsea the creature whom we all so feared and hated; there would be no moreMaster of Ballantrae, the fish would sport among his ribs; his schemesall brought to nothing, his harmless enemies at peace. At first, I havesaid, it was but a ray of comfort; but it had soon grown to be broadsunshine. The thought of the man’s death, of his deletion from thisworld, which he embittered for so many, took possession of my mind. Ihugged it, I found it sweet in my belly. I conceived the ship’s lastplunge, the sea bursting upon all sides into the cabin, the brief mortalconflict there, all by myself, in that closed place; I numbered thehorrors, I had almost said with satisfaction; I felt I could bear all andmore, if the _Nonesuch_ carried down with her, overtook by the same ruin,the enemy of my poor master’s house. Towards noon of the second day thescreaming of the wind abated; the ship lay not so perilously over, and itbegan to be clear to me that we were past the height of the tempest. AsI hope for mercy, I was singly disappointed. In the selfishness of thatvile, absorbing passion of hatred, I forgot the case of our innocentshipmates, and thought but of myself and my enemy. For myself, I wasalready old; I had never been young, I was not formed for the world’spleasures, I had few affections; it mattered not the toss of a silvertester whether I was drowned there and then in the Atlantic, or dribbledout a few more years, to die, perhaps no less terribly, in a desertedsick-bed. Down I went upon my knees—holding on by the locker, or else Ihad been instantly dashed across the tossing cabin—and, lifting up myvoice in the midst of that clamour of the abating hurricane, impiouslyprayed for my own death. “O God!” I cried, “I would be liker a man if Irose and struck this creature down; but Thou madest me a coward from mymother’s womb. O Lord, Thou madest me so, Thou knowest my weakness, Thouknowest that any face of death will set me shaking in my shoes. But, lo!here is Thy servant ready, his mortal weakness laid aside. Let me givemy life for this creature’s; take the two of them, Lord! take the two,and have mercy on the innocent!” In some such words as these, only yetmore irreverent and with more sacred adjurations, I continued to pourforth my spirit. God heard me not, I must suppose in mercy; and I wasstill absorbed in my agony of supplication when some one, removing thetarpaulin cover, let the light of the sunset pour into the cabin. Istumbled to my feet ashamed, and was seized with surprise to find myselftotter and ache like one that had been stretched upon the rack. SecundraDass, who had slept off the effects of his drug, stood in a corner notfar off, gazing at me with wild eyes; and from the open skylight thecaptain thanked me for my supplications.
“It’s you that saved the ship, Mr. Mackellar,” says he. “There is nocraft of seamanship that could have kept her floating: well may we say,‘Except the Lord the city keep, the watchmen watch in vain!’”
I was abashed by the captain’s error; abashed, also, by the surprise andfear with which the Indian regarded me at first, and the obsequiouscivilities with which he soon began to cumber me. I know now that hemust have overheard and comprehended the peculiar nature of my prayers.It is certain, of course, that he at once disclosed the matter to hispatron; and looking back with greater knowledge, I can now understandwhat so much puzzled me at the moment, those singular and (so to speak)approving smiles with which the Master honoured me. Similarly, I canunderstand a word that I remember to have fallen from him in conversationthat same night; when, holding up his hand and smiling, “Ah! Mackellar,”said he, “not every man is so great a coward as he thinks he is—nor yetso good a Christian.” He did not guess how true he spoke! For the factis, the thoughts which had come to me in the violence of the stormretained their hold upon my spirit; and the words that rose to my lipsunbidden in the instancy of prayer continued to sound in my ears: withwhat shameful consequences, it is fitting I should honestly relate; for Icould not support a part of such disloyalty as to describe the sins ofothers and conceal my own.
The wind fell, but the sea hove ever the higher. All night the_Nonesuch_ rolled outrageously; the next day dawned, and the next, andbrought no change. To cross the cabin was scarce possible; oldexperienced seamen were cast down upon the deck, and one cruelly mauledin the concussion; every board and block in the old ship cried out aloud;and the great bell by the anchor-bitts continually and dolefully rang.One of these days the Master and I sate alone together at the break ofthe poop. I should say the _Nonesuch_ carried a high, raised poop.About the top of it ran considerable bulwarks, which made the shipunweatherly; and these, as they approached the front on each side, randown in a fine, old-fashioned, carven scroll to join the bulwarks of thewaist. From this disposition, which seems designed rather for ornamentthan use, it followed there was a discontinuance of protection: and that,besides, at the very margin of the elevated part where (in certainmovements of the ship) it might be the most needful. It was here we weresitting: our feet hanging down, the Master betwixt me and the side, and Iholding on with both hands to the grating of the cabin skylight; for itstruck me it was a dangerous position, the more so as I had continuallybefore my eyes a measure of our evolutions in the person of the Master,which stood out in the break of the bulwarks against the sun. Now hishead would be in the zenith and his shadow fall quite beyond the_Nonesuch_ on the farther side; and now he would swing down till he wasunderneath my feet, and the line of the sea leaped high above him likethe ceiling of a room. I looked on upon this with a growing fascination,as birds are said to look on snakes. My mind, besides, was troubled withan astonishing diversity of noises; for now that we had all sails spreadin the vain hope to bring her to the sea, the ship sounded like a factorywith their reverberations. We spoke first of the mutiny with which wehad been threatened; this led us on to the topic of assassination; andthat offered a temptation to the Master more strong than he was able toresist. He must tell me a tale, and show me at the same time how cleverhe was and how wicked. It was a thing he did always with affectation anddisplay; generally with a good effect. But this tale, told in a high keyin the midst of so great a tumult, and by a narrator who was one momentlooking down at me from the skies and the next up from under the soles ofmy feet—this particular tale, I say, took hold upon me in a degree quitesingular.
“My friend the count,” it was thus that he began his story, “had for anenemy a certain German baron, a stranger in Rome. It matters not whatwas the ground of the count’s enmity; but as he had a firm design to berevenged, and that with safety to himself, he kept it secret even fromthe baron. Indeed, that is the first principle of vengeance; and hatredbetrayed is hatred impotent. The count was a man of a curious, searchingmind; he had
something of the artist; if anything fell for him to do, itmust always be done with an exact perfection, not only as to the result,but in the very means and instruments, or he thought the thingmiscarried. It chanced he was one day riding in the outer suburbs, whenhe came to a disused by-road branching off into the moor which lies aboutRome. On the one hand was an ancient Roman tomb; on the other a desertedhouse in a garden of evergreen trees. This road brought him presentlyinto a field of ruins, in the midst of which, in the side of a hill, hesaw an open door, and, not far off, a single stunted pine no greater thana currant-bush. The place was desert and very secret; a voice spoke inthe count’s bosom that there was something here to his advantage. Hetied his horse to the pine-tree, took his flint and steel in his hand tomake a light, and entered into the hill. The doorway opened on a passageof old Roman masonry, which shortly after branched in two. The counttook the turning to the right, and followed it, groping forward in thedark, till he was brought up by a kind of fence, about elbow-high, whichextended quite across the passage. Sounding forward with his foot, hefound an edge of polished stone, and then vacancy. All his curiosity wasnow awakened, and, getting some rotten sticks that lay about the floor,he made a fire. In front of him was a profound well; doubtless someneighbouring peasant had once used it for his water, and it was he thathad set up the fence. A long while the count stood leaning on the railand looking down into the pit. It was of Roman foundation, and, like allthat nation set their hands to, built as for eternity; the sides werestill straight, and the joints smooth; to a man who should fall in, noescape was possible. ‘Now,’ the count was thinking, ‘a strong impulsionbrought me to this place. What for? what have I gained? why should I besent to gaze into this well?’ when the rail of the fence gave suddenlyunder his weight, and he came within an ace of falling headlong in.Leaping back to save himself, he trod out the last flicker of his fire,which gave him thenceforward no more light, only an incommoding smoke.‘Was I sent here to my death?’ says he, and shook from head to foot. Andthen a thought flashed in his mind. He crept forth on hands and knees tothe brink of the pit, and felt above him in the air. The rail had beenfast to a pair of uprights; it had only broken from the one, and stilldepended from the other. The count set it back again as he had found it,so that the place meant death to the first comer, and groped out of thecatacomb like a sick man. The next day, riding in the Corso with thebaron, he purposely betrayed a strong preoccupation. The other (as hehad designed) inquired into the cause; and he, after some fencing,admitted that his spirits had been dashed by an unusual dream. This wascalculated to draw on the baron—a superstitious man, who affected thescorn of superstition. Some rallying followed, and then the count, as ifsuddenly carried away, called on his friend to beware, for it was of himthat he had dreamed. You know enough of human nature, my excellentMackellar, to be certain of one thing: I mean that the baron did not resttill he had heard the dream. The count, sure that he would never desist,kept him in play till his curiosity was highly inflamed, and thensuffered himself, with seeming reluctance, to be overborne. ‘I warnyou,’ says he, ‘evil will come of it; something tells me so. But sincethere is to be no peace either for you or me except on this condition,the blame be on your own head! This was the dream:—I beheld you riding,I know not where, yet I think it must have been near Rome, for on yourone hand was an ancient tomb, and on the other a garden of evergreentrees. Methought I cried and cried upon you to come back in a very agonyof terror; whether you heard me I know not, but you went doggedly on.The road brought you to a desert place among ruins, where was a door in ahillside, and hard by the door a misbegotten pine. Here you dismounted(I still crying on you to beware), tied your horse to the pine-tree, andentered resolutely in by the door. Within, it was dark; but in my dreamI could still see you, and still besought you to hold back. You feltyour way along the right-hand wall, took a branching passage to theright, and came to a little chamber, where was a well with a railing. Atthis—I know not why—my alarm for you increased a thousandfold, so that Iseemed to scream myself hoarse with warnings, crying it was still time,and bidding you begone at once from that vestibule. Such was the word Iused in my dream, and it seemed then to have a clear significancy; butto-day, and awake, I profess I know not what it means. To all my outcryyou rendered not the least attention, leaning the while upon the rail andlooking down intently in the water. And then there was made to you acommunication; I do not think I even gathered what it was, but the fearof it plucked me clean out of my slumber, and I awoke shaking andsobbing. And now,’ continues the count, ‘I thank you from my heart foryour insistency. This dream lay on me like a load; and now I have toldit in plain words and in the broad daylight, it seems no greatmatter.’—‘I do not know,’ says the baron. ‘It is in some points strange.A communication, did you say? Oh! it is an odd dream. It will make astory to amuse our friends.’—‘I am not so sure,’ says the count. ‘I amsensible of some reluctancy. Let us rather forget it.’—‘By all means,’says the baron. And (in fact) the dream was not again referred to. Somedays after, the count proposed a ride in the fields, which the baron(since they were daily growing faster friends) very readily accepted. Onthe way back to Rome, the count led them insensibly by a particularroute. Presently he reined in his horse, clapped his hand before hiseyes, and cried out aloud. Then he showed his face again (which was nowquite white, for he was a consummate actor), and stared upon the baron.‘What ails you?’ cries the baron. ‘What is wrong with you?’—‘Nothing,’cries the count. ‘It is nothing. A seizure, I know not what. Let ushurry back to Rome.’ But in the meanwhile the baron had looked abouthim; and there, on the left-hand side of the way as they went back toRome, he saw a dusty by-road with a tomb upon the one hand and a gardenof evergreen trees upon the other.—‘Yes,’ says he, with a changed voice.‘Let us by all means hurry back to Rome. I fear you are not well inhealth.’—‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ cries the count, shuddering, ‘back to Romeand let me get to bed.’ They made their return with scarce a word; andthe count, who should by rights have gone into society, took to his bedand gave out he had a touch of country fever. The next day the baron’shorse was found tied to the pine, but himself was never heard of fromthat hour.—And, now, was that a murder?” says the Master, breakingsharply off.
“Are you sure he was a count?” I asked.
“I am not certain of the title,” said he, “but he was a gentleman offamily: and the Lord deliver you, Mackellar, from an enemy so subtile!”
These last words he spoke down at me, smiling, from high above; the next,he was under my feet. I continued to follow his evolutions with achildish fixity; they made me giddy and vacant, and I spoke as in adream.
“He hated the baron with a great hatred?” I asked.
“His belly moved when the man came near him,” said the Master.
“I have felt that same,” said I.
“Verily!” cries the Master. “Here is news indeed! I wonder—do I flattermyself? or am I the cause of these ventral perturbations?”
He was quite capable of choosing out a graceful posture, even with no oneto behold him but myself, and all the more if there were any element ofperil. He sat now with one knee flung across the other, his arms on hisbosom, fitting the swing of the ship with an exquisite balance, such as afeatherweight might overthrow. All at once I had the vision of my lordat the table, with his head upon his hands; only now, when he showed mehis countenance, it was heavy with reproach. The words of my ownprayer—_I were liker a man if I struck this creature down_—shot at thesame time into my memory. I called my energies together, and (the shipthen heeling downward toward my enemy) thrust at him swiftly with myfoot. It was written I should have the guilt of this attempt without theprofit. Whether from my own uncertainty or his incredible quickness, heescaped the thrust, leaping to his feet and catching hold at the samemoment of a stay.
I do not know how long a time passed by. I lying where I was upon thedeck, overcome with terror a
nd remorse and shame: he standing with thestay in his hand, backed against the bulwarks, and regarding me with anexpression singularly mingled. At last he spoke.
“Mackellar,” said he, “I make no reproaches, but I offer you a bargain.On your side, I do not suppose you desire to have this exploit madepublic; on mine, I own to you freely I do not care to draw my breath in aperpetual terror of assassination by the man I sit at meat with. Promiseme—but no,” says he, breaking off, “you are not yet in the quietpossession of your mind; you might think I had extorted the promise fromyour weakness; and I would leave no door open for casuistry to comein—that dishonesty of the conscientious. Take time to meditate.”
With that he made off up the sliding deck like a squirrel, and plungedinto the cabin. About half an hour later he returned—I still lying as hehad left me.
“Now,” says he, “will you give me your troth as a Christian, and afaithful servant of my brother’s, that I shall have no more to fear fromyour attempts?”
“I give it you,” said I.
“I shall require your hand upon it,” says he.
“You have the right to make conditions,” I replied, and we shook hands.
He sat down at once in the same place and the old perilous attitude.
“Hold on!” cried I, covering my eyes. “I cannot bear to see you in thatposture. The least irregularity of the sea might plunge you overboard.”
“You are highly inconsistent,” he replied, smiling, but doing as I asked.“For all that, Mackellar, I would have you to know you have risen fortyfeet in my esteem. You think I cannot set a price upon fidelity? Butwhy do you suppose I carry that Secundra Dass about the world with me?Because he would die or do murder for me to-morrow; and I love him forit. Well, you may think it odd, but I like you the better for thisafternoon’s performance. I thought you were magnetised with the TenCommandments; but no—God damn my soul!”—he cries, “the old wife has bloodin his body after all! Which does not change the fact,” he continued,smiling again, “that you have done well to give your promise; for I doubtif you would ever shine in your new trade.”
“I suppose,” said I, “I should ask your pardon and God’s for my attempt.At any rate, I have passed my word, which I will keep faithfully. Butwhen I think of those you persecute—” I paused.
“Life is a singular thing,” said he, “and mankind a very singular people.You suppose yourself to love my brother. I assure you, it is merelycustom. Interrogate your memory; and when first you came to Durrisdeer,you will find you considered him a dull, ordinary youth. He is as dulland ordinary now, though not so young. Had you instead fallen in withme, you would to-day be as strong upon my side.”
“I would never say you were ordinary, Mr. Bally,” I returned; “but hereyou prove yourself dull. You have just shown your reliance on my word.In other terms, that is my conscience—the same which starts instinctivelyback from you, like the eye from a strong light.”
“Ah!” says he, “but I mean otherwise. I mean, had I met you in my youth.You are to consider I was not always as I am to-day; nor (had I met inwith a friend of your description) should I have ever been so.”
“Hut, Mr. Bally,” says I, “you would have made a mock of me; you wouldnever have spent ten civil words on such a Square-toes.”
But he was now fairly started on his new course of justification, withwhich he wearied me throughout the remainder of the passage. No doubt inthe past he had taken pleasure to paint himself unnecessarily black, andmade a vaunt of his wickedness, bearing it for a coat-of-arms. Nor washe so illogical as to abate one item of his old confessions. “But nowthat I know you are a human being,” he would say, “I can take the troubleto explain myself. For I assure you I am human, too, and have myvirtues, like my neighbours.” I say, he wearied me, for I had only theone word to say in answer: twenty times I must have said it: “Give upyour present purpose and return with me to Durrisdeer; then I willbelieve you.”
Thereupon he would shake his head at me. “Ah! Mackellar, you might livea thousand years and never understand my nature,” he would say. “Thisbattle is now committed, the hour of reflection quite past, the hour formercy not yet come. It began between us when we span a coin in the hallof Durrisdeer, now twenty years ago; we have had our ups and downs, butnever either of us dreamed of giving in; and as for me, when my glove iscast, life and honour go with it.”
“A fig for your honour!” I would say. “And by your leave, these warlikesimilitudes are something too high-sounding for the matter in hand. Youwant some dirty money; there is the bottom of your contention; and as foryour means, what are they? to stir up sorrow in a family that neverharmed you, to debauch (if you can) your own nephew, and to wring theheart of your born brother! A footpad that kills an old granny in awoollen mutch with a dirty bludgeon, and that for a shilling-piece and apaper of snuff—there is all the warrior that you are.”
When I would attack him thus (or somewhat thus) he would smile, and sighlike a man misunderstood. Once, I remember, he defended himself more atlarge, and had some curious sophistries, worth repeating, for a lightupon his character.
“You are very like a civilian to think war consists in drums andbanners,” said he. “War (as the ancients said very wisely) is _ultimaratio_. When we take our advantage unrelentingly, then we make war. Ah!Mackellar, you are a devil of a soldier in the steward’s room atDurrisdeer, or the tenants do you sad injustice!”
“I think little of what war is or is not,” I replied. “But you weary mewith claiming my respect. Your brother is a good man, and you are a badone—neither more nor less.”
“Had I been Alexander—” he began.
“It is so we all dupe ourselves,” I cried. “Had I been St. Paul, itwould have been all one; I would have made the same hash of that careerthat you now see me making of my own.”
“I tell you,” he cried, bearing down my interruption, “had I been theleast petty chieftain in the Highlands, had I been the least king ofnaked negroes in the African desert, my people would have adored me. Abad man, am I? Ah! but I was born for a good tyrant! Ask Secundra Dass;he will tell you I treat him like a son. Cast in your lot with meto-morrow, become my slave, my chattel, a thing I can command as Icommand the powers of my own limbs and spirit—you will see no more thatdark side that I turn upon the world in anger. I must have all or none.But where all is given, I give it back with usury. I have a kinglynature: there is my loss!”
“It has been hitherto rather the loss of others,” I remarked, “whichseems a little on the hither side of royalty.”
“Tilly-vally!” cried he. “Even now, I tell you, I would spare thatfamily in which you take so great an interest: yes, even now—to-morrow Iwould leave them to their petty welfare, and disappear in that forest ofcut-throats and thimble-riggers that we call the world. I would do itto-morrow!” says he. “Only—only—”
“Only what?” I asked.
“Only they must beg it on their bended knees. I think in public, too,”he added, smiling. “Indeed, Mackellar, I doubt if there be a hall bigenough to serve my purpose for that act of reparation.”
“Vanity, vanity!” I moralised. “To think that this great force for evilshould be swayed by the same sentiment that sets a lassie mincing to herglass!”
“Oh! there are double words for everything: the word that swells, theword that belittles; you cannot fight me with a word!” said he. “Yousaid the other day that I relied on your conscience: were I in yourhumour of detraction, I might say I built upon your vanity. It is yourpretension to be _un homme de parole_; ‘tis mine not to accept defeat.Call it vanity, call it virtue, call it greatness of soul—what signifiesthe expression? But recognise in each of us a common strain: that weboth live for an idea.”
It will be gathered from so much familiar talk, and so much patience onboth sides, that we now lived together upon excellent terms. Such wasagain the fact, and this time more seriously than before. Apart fromdisputations such as
that which I have tried to reproduce, not onlyconsideration reigned, but, I am tempted to say, even kindness. When Ifell sick (as I did shortly after our great storm), he sat by my berth toentertain me with his conversation, and treated me with excellentremedies, which I accepted with security. Himself commented on thecircumstance. “You see,” says he, “you begin to know me better. A verylittle while ago, upon this lonely ship, where no one but myself has anysmattering of science, you would have made sure I had designs upon yourlife. And, observe, it is since I found you had designs upon my own,that I have shown you most respect. You will tell me if this speaks of asmall mind.” I found little to reply. In so far as regarded myself, Ibelieved him to mean well; I am, perhaps, the more a dupe of hisdissimulation, but I believed (and I still believe) that he regarded mewith genuine kindness. Singular and sad fact! so soon as this changebegan, my animosity abated, and these haunting visions of my masterpassed utterly away. So that, perhaps, there was truth in the man’s lastvaunting word to me, uttered on the second day of July, when our longvoyage was at last brought almost to an end, and we lay becalmed at thesea end of the vast harbour of New York, in a gasping heat, which waspresently exchanged for a surprising waterfall of rain. I stood on thepoop, regarding the green shores near at hand, and now and then the lightsmoke of the little town, our destination. And as I was even thendevising how to steal a march on my familiar enemy, I was conscious of ashade of embarrassment when he approached me with his hand extended.
“I am now to bid you farewell,” said he, “and that for ever. For now yougo among my enemies, where all your former prejudices will revive. Inever yet failed to charm a person when I wanted; even you, my goodfriend—to call you so for once—even you have now a very differentportrait of me in your memory, and one that you will never quite forget.The voyage has not lasted long enough, or I should have wrote theimpression deeper. But now all is at an end, and we are again at war.Judge by this little interlude how dangerous I am; and tell thosefools”—pointing with his finger to the town—“to think twice and thricebefore they set me at defiance.”
The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter's Tale Page 10
