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 drooping 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;or was it some prevision of the end? At least, upon our mounting thelong brae from Durrisdeer, as we walked side by side in the wet, hebegan first to whistle and then to sing the saddest of our countrytunes, which sets folk weeping in a tavern, "Wandering Willie." The setof words he used with it I have not heard elsewhere, and could nevercome by any copy; but some of them which were the most appropriate toour departure linger 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 thattropical tongue which was to me as inarticulate as the piping of thefowls. Sometimes, at a longer ascent, the Master would set foot toground and walk by my side, mostly without speech. And all the time,sleeping or waking, I beheld the same black perspective of approachingruin; and the same pictures rose in my view, only they were now paintedupon hill-side mist. One, I remember, stood before me with the coloursof a true illusion. It showed me my lord seated at a table in a smallroom; his head, which was at first buried in his hands, he slowlyraised, and turned upon me a countenance from which hope had fled. I sawit first on the black window-panes, my last night in Durrisdeer; ithaunted and returned upon me half the voyage through; and yet it was noeffect of lunacy, 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. At leastI spent some waking hours, not without satisfaction in my thoughts,although wet and weary in my body; and fell at last into a naturalslumber without dreams. Yet I must have been at work even in the deepestof my sleep; and at work with at least a measure of intelligence. For Istarted 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, M'Murtrie, 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 upona week 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;yet I was far from tasting the usual serenity of my health. Whether itwas the motion of the ship on the billows, the confinement, the saltedfood, or all of these together, I suffered from a blackness of spiritand a painful strain upon my temper. The nature of my errand on thatship perhaps contributed; I think it did no more; the malady (whateverit was) sprang from my environment; and if the ship were not to blame,then it was the Master. Hatred and fear are ill bed-fellows; but (to myshame be it spoken) I have tasted those in other places, lain down andgot up with them, and eaten and drunk with them, and yet never before,nor after, have I been so poisoned through and through, in soul andbody, as I was on board the _Nonesuch_. I freely confess my enemy set mea fair example of forbearance; in our worst days displayed the mostpatient geniality, holding me in conversation as long as I would suffer,and when I had rebuffed his civility, stretching himself on deck toread. The book he had on board with him was Mr. Richardson's famous"Clarissa," and among other small attentions he would read me passagesaloud; nor could any elocutionist have given with greater potency thepathetic portions of that work. I would retort upon him with passagesout of the Bible, which was all my library--and very fresh to me, myreligious duties (I grieve to say it) being always and even to this dayextremely neglected. He tasted the merits of the work like theconnoisseur he was; and would sometimes take it from my hand, turn theleaves over like a man that knew his way, and give me, with his finedeclamation, a Roland for my Oliver. But it was singular how little heapplied his reading to himself; it passed high above his head likesummer thunder; Lovelace and Clarissa, the tales of David's generosity,the psalms of his penitence, the solemn questions of the Book of Job,the touching poetry of Isaiah--they were to him a source ofentertainment 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 shiverwithin me on his drawing near; I had at times a longing to cry out;there were days when I thought I could have struck him. This frame ofmind was doubtless helped by shame, because I had dropped during ourlast days at Durrisdeer into a certain toleration of the man; and if anyone had then told me I should drop into it again, I must have laughed inhis face. It is possible he remained unconscious of this extreme feverof my resentment; yet I think he was too quick; and rather that he hadfallen, in a long life of idleness, into a positive need of company,which obliged him to confront and tolerate my unconcealed aversion.Certain, at least, that he loved the note of his own tongue, as,
indeed,he entirely 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 hismasts, and I for my life. We made no progress on our course. Anunbearable ill-humour settled on the ship: men, mates, and master,girding at one another all day long. A saucy word on the one hand, and ablow on the other, made a daily incident. There were times when thewhole crew refused their duty; and we of the afterguard were twice gotunder arms--being the first time that ever I bore weapons--in the fearof 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 befrozen. Presently there stole in on me a ray of comfort. If the_Nonesuch_ foundered, she would carry down with her into the deeps ofthat unsounded sea the creature whom we all so feared and hated; therewould be no more Master of Ballantrae, the fish would sport among hisribs; his schemes all brought to nothing, his harmless enemies at peace.At first, I have said, it was but a ray of comfort; but it had soongrown to be broad sunshine. The thought of the man's death, of hisdeletion from this world, which he embittered for so many, tookpossession of my mind. I hugged it, I found it sweet in my belly. Iconceived the ship's last plunge, the sea bursting upon all sides intothe cabin, the brief mortal conflict there, all by myself, in thatclosed place; I numbered the horrors, I had almost said withsatisfaction; I felt I could bear all and more, if the _Nonesuch_carried down with her, overtook by the same ruin, the enemy of my poormaster's house. Towards noon of the second day the screaming of the windabated; the ship lay not so perilously over, and it began to be clear tome that we were past the height of the tempest. As I hope for mercy, Iwas singly disappointed. In the selfishness of that vile, absorbingpassion of hatred, I forgot the case of our innocent shipmates, andthought but of myself and my enemy. For myself, I was already old; I hadnever been young, I was not formed for the world's pleasures, I had fewaffections; it mattered not the toss of a silver tester whether I wasdrowned there and then in the Atlantic, or dribbled out a few moreyears, to die, perhaps no less terribly, in a deserted sick-bed. Down Iwent upon my knees--holding on by the locker, or else I had beeninstantly dashed across the tossing cabin--and, lifting up my voice inthe midst of that clamour of the abating hurricane, impiously prayed formy own death. "O God!" I cried, "I would be liker a man if I rose andstruck this creature down; but Thou madest me a coward from my mother'swomb. O Lord, Thou madest me so, Thou knowest my weakness, Thou knowestthat any face of death will set me shaking in my shoes. But, lo! here isThy servant ready, his mortal weakness laid aside. Let me give my lifefor this creature's; take the two of them, Lord! take the two, and havemercy on the innocent!" In some such words as these, only yet moreirreverent and with more sacred adjurations, I continued to pour forthmy spirit. God heard me not, I must suppose in mercy; and I was stillabsorbed 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 surpriseand fear 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 inconversation that same night; when, holding up his hand and smiling,"Ah! Mackellar," said he, "not every man is so great a coward as hethinks he is--nor yet so good a Christian." He did not guess how true hespoke! For the fact is, the thoughts which had come to me in theviolence of the storm retained their hold upon my spirit; and the wordsthat rose to my lips unbidden in the instancy of prayer continued tosound in my ears: with what shameful consequences it is fitting I shouldhonestly relate; for I could not support a part of such disloyalty as todescribe the sins of others 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 outaloud; and the great bell by the anchor-bitts continually and dolefullyrang. One of these days the Master and I sate alone together at thebreak of the poop. I should say the _Nonesuch_ carried a high, raisedpoop. 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: andthat, 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, andI holding on with both hands to the grating of the cabin skylight; forit struck me it was a dangerous position, the more so as I hadcontinually before my eyes a measure of our evolutions in the person ofthe Master, which stood out in the break of the bulwarks against thesun. Now his head would be in the zenith and his shadow fall quitebeyond the _Nonesuch_ on the farther side; and now he would swing downtill he was underneath my feet, and the line of the sea leaped highabove him like the ceiling of a room. I looked on upon this with agrowing fascination, as birds are said to look on snakes. My mind,besides, was troubled with an astonishing diversity of noises; for nowthat we had all sails spread in the vain hope to bring her to the sea,the ship sounded like a factory with their reverberations. We spokefirst of the mutiny with which we had been threatened; this led us on tothe topic of assassination; and that offered a temptation to the Mastermore strong than he was able to resist. He must tell me a tale, and showme at the same time how clever he was, and how wicked. It was a thing hedid always with affectation and display; generally with a good effect.But this tale, told in a high key in the midst of so great a tumult, andby a narrator who was one moment looking down at me from the skies andthe next peering up from under the soles of my feet--this particulartale, I say, took hold upon me in a degree quite singular.
"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,searching mind; he had something of the artist; if anything fell for himto do, it must always be done with an exact perfection, not only as tothe result, but in the very means and instruments, o
r he thought thething miscarried. It chanced he was one day riding in the outer suburbs,when he came to a disused by-road branching off into the moor which liesabout Rome. On the one hand was an ancient Roman tomb; on the other adeserted house in a garden of evergreen trees. This road brought himpresently into a field of ruins, in the midst of which, in the side of ahill, he saw an open door, and, not far off, a single stunted pine nogreater than a currant-bush. The place was desert and very secret; avoice spoke in the count's bosom that there was something here to hisadvantage. He tied his horse to the pine-tree, took his flint and steelin his hand to make a light, and entered into the hill. The doorwayopened on a passage of old Roman masonry, which shortly after branchedin two. The count took the turning to the right, and followed it,groping forward in the dark, till he was brought up by a kind of fence,about elbow-high, which extended quite across the passage. Soundingforward with his foot, he found an edge of polished stone, and thenvacancy. All his curiosity was now awakened, and, getting some rottensticks that lay about the floor, he made a fire. In front of him was aprofound well; doubtless some neighbouring peasant had once used it forhis water, and it was he that had set up the fence. A long while thecount stood leaning on the rail and looking down into the pit. It was ofRoman foundation, and, like all that nation set their hands to, built asfor eternity; the sides were still straight, and the joints smooth; to aman who should fall in, no escape was possible. 'Now,' the count wasthinking, 'a strong impulsion brought me to this place. What for? whathave I gained? why should I be sent to gaze into this well?' when therail of the fence gave suddenly under his weight, and he came within anace of falling headlong in. Leaping back to save himself, he trod outthe last flicker of his fire, which gave him thenceforward no morelight, only an incommoding smoke. 'Was I sent here to my death?' sayshe, and shook from head to foot. And then a thought flashed in his mind.He crept forth on hands and knees to the brink of the pit, and feltabove him in the air. The rail had been fast to a pair of uprights; ithad only broken from the one, and still depended from the other. Thecount set it back again as he had found it, so that the place meantdeath to the first comer, and groped out of the catacomb like a sickman. The next day, riding in the Corso with the baron, he purposelybetrayed a strong preoccupation. The other (as he had designed) inquiredinto the cause; and he, after some fencing, admitted that his spiritshad been dashed by an unusual dream. This was calculated to draw on thebaron--a superstitious man, who affected the scorn of superstition. Somerallying followed, and then the count, as if suddenly carried away,called on his friend to beware, for it was of him that he had dreamed.You know enough of human nature, my excellent Mackellar, to be certainof one thing: I mean that the baron did not rest till he had heard thedream. The count, sure that he would never desist, kept him in play tillhis curiosity was highly inflamed, and then suffered himself, withseeming reluctance, to be overborne. 'I warn you,' says he, 'evil willcome of it; something tells me so. But since there is to be no peaceeither for you or me except on this condition, the blame be on your ownhead! This was the dream:--I beheld you riding, I know not where, yet Ithink it must have been near Rome, for on your one hand was an ancienttomb, and on the other a garden of evergreen trees. Methought I criedand cried upon you to come back in a very agony of terror; whether youheard me I know not, but you went doggedly on. The road brought you to adesert place among ruins, where was a door in a hill-side, and hard bythe door a misbegotten pine. Here you dismounted (I still crying on youto beware), tied your horse to the pine-tree, and entered resolutely inby the door. Within, it was dark; but in my dream I could still see you,and still besought you to hold back. You felt your way along theright-hand wall, took a branching passage to the right, and came to alittle chamber, where was a well with a railing. At this--I know notwhy--my alarm for you increased a thousandfold, so that I seemed toscream myself hoarse with warnings, crying it was still time, andbidding you begone at once from that vestibule. Such was the word I usedin 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 railand looking 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 pointsstrange. A communication, did you say! O! it is an odd dream. It willmake a story to amuse our friends.'--'I am not so sure,' says the count.'I am sensible of some reluctancy. Let us rather forget it.'--'By allmeans,' says the baron. And (in fact) the dream was not again referredto. Some days after, the count proposed a ride in the fields, which thebaron (since they were daily growing faster friends) very readilyaccepted. On the way back to Rome, the count led them insensibly by aparticular route. Presently he reined in his horse, clapped his handbefore his eyes, and cried out aloud. Then he showed his face again(which was now quite white, for he was a consummate actor), and staredupon the baron. 'What ails you?' cries the baron. 'What is wrong withyou?'--'Nothing,' cries the count. 'It is nothing. A seizure, I knownot what. Let us hurry back to Rome.' But in the meanwhile the baron hadlooked about him; and there, on the left-hand side of the way as theywent back to Rome, he saw a dusty by-road with a tomb upon the one handand a garden of evergreen trees upon the other.--'Yes,' says he, with achanged voice. 'Let us by all means hurry back to Rome. I fear you arenot well in health.'--'O, for God's sake!' cried the count, shuddering,'back to Rome and let me get to bed.' They made their return with scarcea word; and the count, who should by rights have gone into society, tookto his bed and gave out he had a touch of country fever. The next daythe baron's horse was found tied to the pine, but himself was neverheard of from that hour.--And now, was that a murder?" says the Master,breaking sharply 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 noone to behold him but myself, and all the more if there were any elementof peril. He sat now with one knee flung across the other, his arms onhis bosom, fitting the swing of the ship with an exquisite balance, suchas a featherweight might overthrow. All at once I had the vision of mylord at the table, with his head upon his hands; only now, when heshowed me his countenance, it was heavy with reproach. The words of myown prayer--_I were liker a man if I struck this creature down_--shot atthe same time into my memory. I called my energies together, and (theship then heeling downward toward my enemy) thrust at him swiftly withmy foot. It was written I should have the guilt of this attempt withoutthe profit. Whether from my own uncertainty or his incredible quickness,he escaped 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 and 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 ina perpetual terror of assassination by the man I sit at meat with.Promise me--but no," says he, breaking off, "you are not yet in thequiet possession of your mind; you might think I had extorted thepromise from your weakness; and I would leave no door open for casuistryto come in--that dishonesty of the conscientious. Take time tomeditate."
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 ashe had 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 Iasked. "For all that, Mackellar, I would have you to know you have risenforty feet in my esteem. You think I cannot set a price upon fidelity?But why do you suppose I carry that Secundra Dass about the world withme? Because he would die or do murder for me to-morrow; and I love himfor it. Well, you may think it odd, but I like you the better for thisafternoon. I thought you were magnetised with the Ten Commandments; butno--God damn my soul!"--he cries, "the old wife has blood in his bodyafter all! Which does not change the fact," he continued, smiling again,"that you have done well to give your promise; for I doubt if you wouldever 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 singularpeople. You suppose yourself to love my brother. I assure you, it ismerely custom. Interrogate your memory; and when first you came toDurrisdeer, you will find you considered him a dull, ordinary youth. Heis as dull and ordinary now, though not so young. Had you instead fallenin with me, 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 myword--in other terms, that is, my conscience--the same which startsinstinctively back from you, like the eye from a strong light."
"Ah!" says he, "but I mean otherwise. I mean, had I met you in myyouth. You are to consider I was not always as I am to-day; nor (had Imet in with 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 thetrouble to 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 asfor your 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 anda paper 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-morrowI would leave them to their petty welfare, and disappear in that forestof cut-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!"
"O! 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--whatsignifies the expression? But recognise in each of us a common strain:that we both 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 berthto entertain 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 thatI have shown you most respect. You will tell me if this speaks o
f 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 twenty-second day of July, when ourlong voyage was at last brought almost to an end, and we lay becalmed atthe sea end of the vast harbour of New York, in a gasping heat, whichwas presently exchanged for a surprising waterfall of rain. I stood onthe poop, regarding the green shores near at hand, and now and then thelight smoke 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 Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 12 Page 11
