The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 19

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  CHAPTER I

  LIFE AND DEATH OF MRS. WEIR

  The Lord Justice-Clerk was a stranger in that part of the country; buthis lady wife was known there from a child, as her race had been beforeher. The old "riding Rutherfords of Hermiston," of whom she was the lastdescendant, had been famous men of yore, ill neighbours, ill subjects,and ill husbands to their wives, though not their properties. Tales ofthem were rife for twenty miles about; and their name was even printedin the page of our Scots histories, not always to their credit. One bitthe dust at Flodden; one was hanged at his peel door by James the Fifth;another fell dead in a carouse with Tom Dalyell; while a fourth (andthat was Jean's own father) died presiding at a Hell-Fire Club, of whichhe was the founder. There were many heads shaken in Crossmichael at thatjudgment; the more so as the man had a villainous reputation among highand low, and both with the godly and the worldly. At that very hour ofhis demise he had ten going pleas before the Session, eight of themoppressive. And the same doom extended even to his agents; his grieve,that had been his right hand in many a left-hand business, being castfrom his horse one night and drowned in a peat-hag on the Kye-skairs;and his very doer (although lawyers have long spoons) surviving him notlong, and dying on a sudden in a bloody flux.

  In all these generations, while a male Rutherford was in the saddle withhis lads, or brawling in a change-house, there would be always awhite-faced wife immured at home in the old peel or the latermansion-house. It seemed this succession of martyrs bided long, but tooktheir vengeance in the end, and that was in the person of the lastdescendant, Jean. She bore the name of the Rutherfords, but she was thedaughter of their trembling wives. At the first she was not whollywithout charm. Neighbours recalled in her, as a child, a strain of elfinwilfulness, gentle little mutinies, sad little gaieties, even a morninggleam of beauty that was not to be fulfilled. She withered in thegrowing, and (whether it was the sins of her sires or the sorrows of hermothers) came to her maturity depressed, and, as it were, defaced; noblood of life in her, no grasp or gaiety; pious, anxious, tender,tearful, and incompetent.

  It was a wonder to many that she had married--seeming so wholly of thestuff that makes old maids. But chance cast her in the path of AdamWeir, then the new Lord Advocate, a recognised, risen man, the conquerorof many obstacles, and thus late in the day beginning to think upon awife. He was one who looked rather to obedience than beauty, yet itwould seem he was struck with her at the first look. "Wha's she?" hesaid, turning to his host; and, when he had been told, "Ay," says he,"she looks menseful. She minds me----"; and then, after a pause (whichsome have been daring enough to set down to sentimental recollections),"Is she releegious?" he asked, and was shortly after, at his ownrequest, presented. The acquaintance, which it seems profane to call acourtship, was pursued with Mr. Weir's accustomed industry, and was longa legend, or rather a source of legends, in the Parliament House. He wasdescribed coming, rosy with much port, into the drawing-room, walkingdirect up to the lady, and assailing her with pleasantries to which theembarrassed fair one responded, in what seemed a kind of agony, "Eh, Mr.Weir!" or "O, Mr. Weir!" or "Keep me, Mr. Weir!" On the very eve oftheir engagement, it was related that one had drawn near to the tendercouple, and had overheard the lady cry out, with the tones of one whotalked for the sake of talking, "Keep me, Mr. Weir, and what became ofhim?" and the profound accents of the suitor reply, "Haangit, mem,haangit." The motives upon either side were much debated. Mr. Weir musthave supposed his bride to be somewhat suitable; perhaps he belonged tothat class of men who think a weak head the ornament of women--anopinion invariably punished in this life. Her descent and her estatewere beyond question. Her wayfaring ancestors and her litigious fatherhad done well by Jean. There was ready money and there were broad acres,ready to fall wholly to the husband, to lend dignity to his descendants,and to himself a title, when he should be called upon the Bench. On theside of Jean, there was perhaps some fascination of curiosity as to thisunknown male animal that approached her with the roughness of aploughman and the _aplomb_ of an advocate. Being so trenchantly opposedto all she knew, loved, or understood, he may well have seemed to herthe extreme, if scarcely the ideal, of his sex. And besides, he was anill man to refuse. A little over forty at the period of his marriage, helooked already older, and to the force of manhood added the senatorialdignity of years; it was, perhaps, with an unreverend awe, but he wasawful. The Bench, the Bar, and the most experienced and reluctantwitness, bowed to his authority--and why not Jeannie Rutherford?

  The heresy about foolish women is always punished, I have said, and LordHermiston began to pay the penalty at once. His house in George Squarewas wretchedly ill-guided; nothing answerable to the expense ofmaintenance but the cellar, which was his own private care. When thingswent wrong at dinner, as they continually did, my lord would look up thetable at his wife: "I think these broth would be better to sweem in thanto sup." Or else to the butler: "Here, M'Killop, awa' wi' this Raadicalgigot--tak' it to the French, man, and bring me some puddocks! It seemsrather a sore kind of business that I should be all day in Courthaanging Radicals, and get nawthing to my denner." Of course this wasbut a manner of speaking, and he had never hanged a man for being aRadical in his life; the law, of which he was the faithful minister,directing otherwise. And of course these growls were in the nature ofpleasantry, but it was of a recondite sort; and uttered as they were inhis resounding voice, and commented on by that expression which theycalled in the Parliament House "Hermiston's hanging face"--they struckmere dismay into the wife. She sat before him speechless and fluttering;at each dish, as at a fresh ordeal, her eye hovered toward my lord'scountenance and fell again; if he but ate in silence, unspeakable reliefwas her portion; if there were complaint, the world was darkened. Shewould seek out the cook, who was always her _sister in the Lord_. "O, mydear, this is the most dreidful thing that my lord can never becontented in his own house!" she would begin; and weep and pray with thecook; and then the cook would pray with Mrs. Weir; and the next day'smeal would never be a penny the better--and the next cook (when shecame) would be worse, if anything, but just as pious. It was oftenwondered that Lord Hermiston bore it as he did; indeed, he was a stoicalold voluptuary, contented with sound wine and plenty of it. But therewere moments when he overflowed. Perhaps half a dozen times in thehistory of his married life--"Here! tak' it awa', and bring me a pieceof bread and kebbuck!" he had exclaimed, with an appalling explosion ofhis voice and rare gestures. None thought to dispute or to make excuses;the service was arrested; Mrs. Weir sat at the head of the tablewhimpering without disguise; and his lordship opposite munched his breadand cheese in ostentatious disregard. Once only Mrs. Weir had venturedto appeal. He was passing her chair on his way into the study.

  "O, Edom!" she wailed, in a voice tragic with tears, and reaching out tohim both hands, in one of which she held a sopping pocket-handkerchief.

  He paused and looked upon her with a face of wrath, into which therestole, as he looked, a twinkle of humour.

  "Noansense!" he said. "You and your noansense! What do I want with aChristian faim'ly? I want Christian broth! Get me a lass that canplain-boil a potato, if she was a whure off the streets." And withthese words, which echoed in her tender ears like blasphemy, he hadpassed on to his study and shut the door behind him.

  Such was the housewifery in George Square. It was better at Hermiston,where Kirstie Elliott, the sister of a neighbouring bonnet-laird, and aneighteenth cousin of the lady's, bore the charge of all, and kept a trimhouse and a good country table. Kirstie was a woman in a thousand,clean, capable, notable; once a moorland Helen, and still comely as ablood horse and healthy as the hill wind. High in flesh and voice andcolour, she ran the house with her whole intemperate soul, in a bustle,not without buffets. Scarce more pious than decency in those daysrequired, she was the cause of many an anxious thought and many atearful prayer to Mrs. Weir. Housekeeper and mistress renewed the partsof Martha and Mary; and though with a pricking conscience, Mary reposedon Martha's strength as on
a rock. Even Lord Hermiston held Kirstie in aparticular regard. There were few with whom he unbent so gladly, fewwhom he favoured with so many pleasantries. "Kirstie and me maun haveour joke," he would declare, in high good-humour, as he butteredKirstie's scones, and she waited at table. A man who had no need eitherof love or of popularity, a keen reader of men and of events, there wasperhaps only one truth for which he was quite unprepared: he would havebeen quite unprepared to learn that Kirstie hated him. He thought maidand master were well matched; hard, handy, healthy, broad Scots folk,without a hair of nonsense to the pair of them. And the fact was thatshe made a goddess and an only child of the effete and tearful lady; andeven as she waited at table her hands would sometimes itch for my lord'sears.

  Thus, at least, when the family were at Hermiston, not only my lord, butMrs. Weir too, enjoyed a holiday. Free from the dreadful looking-for ofthe miscarried dinner, she would mind her seam, read her piety books,and take her walk (which was my lord's orders), sometimes by herself,sometimes with Archie, the only child of that scarce natural union. Thechild was her next bond to life. Her frosted sentiment bloomed again,she breathed deep of life, she let loose her heart, in that society. Themiracle of her motherhood was ever new to her. The sight of the littleman at her skirt intoxicated her with the sense of power, and froze herwith the consciousness of her responsibility. She looked forward, and,seeing him in fancy grow up and play his diverse part on the world'stheatre, caught in her breath and lifted up her courage with a livelyeffort. It was only with the child that she forgot herself and was atmoments natural; yet it was only with the child that she had conceivedand managed to pursue a scheme of conduct. Archie was to be a great manand a good; a minister if possible, a saint for certain. She tried toengage his mind upon her favourite books, Rutherford's "Letters,"Scougal's "Grace Abounding," and the like. It was a common practice ofhers (and strange to remember now) that she would carry the child to theDeil's Hags, sit with him on the Praying Weaver's Stone, and talk of theCovenanters till their tears ran down. Her view of history was whollyartless, a design in snow and ink; upon the one side, tender innocentswith psalms upon their lips; upon the other, the persecutors, booted,bloody-minded, flushed with wine: a suffering Christ, a ragingBeelzebub. _Persecutor_ was a word that knocked upon the woman's heart;it was her highest thought of wickedness, and the mark of it was on herhouse. Her great-great-grandfather had drawn the sword against theLord's anointed on the field of Rullion Green, and breathed his last(tradition said) in the arms of the detestable Dalyell. Nor could sheblind herself to this, that had they lived in those old days, Hermistonhimself would have been numbered alongside of Bloody Mackenzie and thepolitic Lauderdale and Rothes, in the band of God's immediate enemies.The sense of this moved her to the more fervour; she had a voice forthat name of _persecutor_ that thrilled in the child's marrow; and whenone day the mob hooted and hissed them all in my lord's travellingcarriage, and cried, "Down with the persecutor! down with HangingHermiston!" and mamma covered her eyes and wept, and papa let down theglass and looked out upon the rabble with his droll formidable face,bitter and smiling, as they said he sometimes looked when he gavesentence, Archie was for the moment too much amazed to be alarmed, buthe had scarce got his mother by herself before his shrill voice wasraised demanding an explanation: why had they called papa a persecutor?

  "Keep me, my precious!" she exclaimed. "Keep me, my dear! this ispoleetical. Ye must never ask me anything poleetical, Erchie. Yourfaither is a great man, my dear, and it's no for me or you to be judginghim. It would be telling us all, if we behaved ourselves in our severalstations the way your faither does in his high office; and let me hearno more of any such disrespectful and undutiful questions! No that youmeant to be undutiful, my lamb; your mother kens that--she kens it well,dearie!" And so slid off to safer topics, and left on the mind of thechild an obscure but ineradicable sense of something wrong.

  Mrs. Weir's philosophy of life was summed in one expression--tenderness.In her view of the universe, which was all lighted up with a glow out ofthe doors of hell, good people must walk there in a kind of ecstasy oftenderness. The beasts and plants had no souls; they were here but for aday, and let their day pass gently! And as for the immortal men, on whatblack, downward path were many of them wending, and to what a horror ofan immortality! "Are not two sparrows," "Whosoever shall smite thee,""God sendeth His rain," "Judge not, that ye be not judged"--these textsmade her body of divinity; she put them on in the morning with herclothes and lay down to sleep with them at night; they haunted her likea favourite air, they clung about her like a favourite perfume. Theirminister was a marrowy expounder of the law, and my lord sat under himwith relish; but Mrs. Weir respected him from far off; heard him (likethe cannon of a beleaguered city) usefully booming outside on thedogmatic ramparts; and meanwhile, within and out of shot, dwelt in herprivate garden which she watered with grateful tears. It seems strangeto say of this colourless and ineffectual woman, but she was a trueenthusiast, and might have made the sunshine and the glory of acloister. Perhaps none but Archie knew she could be eloquent; perhapsnone but he had seen her--her colour raised, her hands clasped orquivering--glow with gentle ardour. There is a corner of the policy ofHermiston, where you come suddenly in view of the summit of Black Fell,sometimes like the mere grass top of a hill, sometimes (and this is herown expression) like a precious jewel in the heavens. On such days, uponthe sudden view of it, her hand would tighten on the child's fingers,her voice rise like a song. "_I to the hills!_" she would repeat. "AndO, Erchie, arena these like the hills of Naphtali?" and her tears wouldflow.

  Upon an impressionable child the effect of this continual and prettyaccompaniment to life was deep. The woman's quietism and piety passed onto his different nature undiminished; but whereas in her it was a nativesentiment, in him it was only an implanted dogma. Nature and the child'spugnacity at times revolted. A cad from the Potterrow once struck him inthe mouth; he struck back, the pair fought it out in the back stablelane towards the Meadows, and Archie returned with a considerabledecline in the number of his front teeth, and unregenerately boasting ofthe losses of the foe. It was a sore day for Mrs. Weir; she wept andprayed over the infant backslider until my lord was due from Court, andshe must resume that air of tremulous composure with which she alwaysgreeted him. The judge was that day in an observant mood, and remarkedupon the absent teeth.

  "I am afraid Erchie will have been fechting with some of thae blagyardlads," said Mrs. Weir.

  My lord's voice rang out as it did seldom in the privacy of his ownhouse. "I'll have nonn of that, sir!" he cried. "Do you hear me?--nonnof that! No son of mine shall be speldering in the glaur with any dirtyraibble."

  The anxious mother was grateful for so much support; she had even fearedthe contrary. And that night when she put the child to bed--"Now, mydear, ye see!" she said, "I told you what your faither would think ofit, if he heard ye had fallen into this dreidful sin; and let you and mepray to God that ye may be keepit from the like temptation orstren'thened to resist it!"

  The womanly falsity of this was thrown away. Ice and iron cannot bewelded; and the points of view of the Justice-Clerk and Mrs. Weir werenot less unassimilable. The character and position of his father hadlong been a stumbling-block to Archie, and with every year of his agethe difficulty grew more instant. The man was mostly silent; when hespoke at all, it was to speak of the things of the world, always in aworldly spirit, often in language that the child had been schooled tothink coarse, and sometimes with words that he knew to be sins inthemselves. Tenderness was the first duty, and my lord was invariablyharsh. God was love; the name of my lord (to all who knew him) was fear.In the world, as schematised for Archie by his mother, the place wasmarked for such a creature. There were some whom it was good to pity andwell (though very likely useless) to pray for; they were namedreprobates, goats, God's enemies, brands for the burning; and Archietallied every mark of identification, and drew the inevitable privateinference that the Lord Justice-Clerk was the chief of s
inners.

  The mother's honesty was scarce complete. There was one influence shefeared for the child and still secretly combated; that was my lord's;and half unconsciously, half in a wilful blindness, she continued toundermine her husband with his son. As long as Archie remained silent,she did so ruthlessly, with a single eye to heaven and the child'ssalvation; but the day came when Archie spoke. It was 1801, and Archiewas seven, and beyond his years for curiosity and logic, when he broughtthe case up openly. If judging were sinful and forbidden, how came papato be a judge? to have that sin for a trade? to bear the name of it fora distinction?

  "I can't see it," said the little Rabbi, and wagged his head.

  Mrs. Weir abounded in commonplace replies.

  "No, I canna see it," reiterated Archie. "And I'll tell you what, mamma,I don't think you and me's justifeed in staying with him."

  The woman awoke to remorse; she saw herself disloyal to her man, hersovereign and bread-winner, in whom (with what she had of worldliness)she took a certain subdued pride. She expatiated in reply on my lord'shonour and greatness; his useful services in this world of sorrow andwrong, and the place in which he stood, far above where babes andinnocents could hope to see or criticise. But she had builded toowell--Archie had his answers pat: Were not babes and innocents the typeof the kingdom of heaven? Were not honour and greatness the badges ofthe world? And at any rate, how about the mob that had once seethedabout the carriage?

  "It's all very fine," he concluded, "but in my opinion, papa has noright to be it. And it seems that's not the worst yet of it. It seemshe's called 'the Hanging Judge'--it seems he's crooool. I'll tell youwhat it is, mamma, there's a tex' borne in upon me: It were better forthat man if a milestone were bound upon his back and him flung into thedeepestmost pairts of the sea."

  "O my lamb, ye must never say the like of that!" she cried. "Ye're tohonour faither and mother, dear, that your days may be long in the land.It's Atheists that cry out against him--French Atheists, Erchie! Yewould never surely even yourself down to be saying the same thing asFrench Atheists? It would break my heart to think that of you. And O,Erchie, here arena _you_ setting up to _judge_? And have ye no forgotGod's plain command--the First with Promise, dear? Mind you upon thebeam and the mote!"

  Having thus carried the war into the enemy's camp, the terrified ladybreathed again. And no doubt it is easy thus to circumvent a child withcatchwords, but it may be questioned how far it is effectual. Aninstinct in his breast detects the quibble, and a voice condemns it. Hewill instantly submit, privately hold the same opinion. For even in thissimple and antique relation of the mother and the child, hypocrisies aremultiplied.

  When the Court rose that year and the family returned to Hermiston, itwas a common remark in all the country that the lady was sore failed.She seemed to lose and seize again her touch with life, now sittinginert in a sort of durable bewilderment, anon waking to feverish andweak activity. She dawdled about the lasses at their work, lookingstupidly on; she fell to rummaging in old cabinets and presses, anddesisted when half through; she would begin remarks with an air ofanimation and drop them without a struggle. Her common appearance was ofone who has forgotten something and is trying to remember; and when sheoverhauled, one after another, the worthless and touching mementoes ofher youth, she might have been seeking the clue to that lost thought.During this period she gave many gifts to the neighbours and houselasses, giving them with a manner of regret that embarrassed therecipients.

  The last night of all she was busy on some female work, and toiled uponit with so manifest and painful a devotion that my lord (who was notoften curious) inquired as to its nature.

  She blushed to the eyes. "O, Edom, it's for you!" she said. "It'sslippers. I--I hae never made ye any."

  "Ye daft auld wife!" returned his lordship. "A bonny figure I would be,palmering about in bauchles!"

  The next day, at the hour of her walk, Kirstie interfered. Kirstie tookthis decay of her mistress very hard; bore her a grudge, quarrelledwith and railed upon her, the anxiety of a genuine love wearing thedisguise of temper. This day of all days she insisted disrespectfully,with rustic fury, that Mrs. Weir should stay at home. But, "No, no," shesaid, "it's my lord's orders," and set forth as usual. Archie wasvisible in the acre bog, engaged upon some childish enterprise, theinstrument of which was mire; and she stood and looked at him a whilelike one about to call; then thought otherwise, sighed, and shook herhead, and proceeded on her rounds alone. The house lasses were at theburn-side washing, and saw her pass with her loose, weary, dowdy gait.

  "She's a terrible feckless wife the mistress!" said the one.

  "Tut," said the other, "the wumman's seeck."

  "Weel, I canna see nae differ in her," returned the first. "Afushionless quean, a feckless carline."

  The poor creature thus discussed rambled a while in the grounds withouta purpose. Tides in her mind ebbed and flowed, and carried her to andfro like seaweed. She tried a path, paused, returned, and tried another;questing, forgetting her quest; the spirit of choice extinct in herbosom, or devoid of sequency. On a sudden, it appeared as though she hadremembered, or had formed a resolution, wheeled about, returned withhurried steps, and appeared in the dining-room, where Kirstie was at thecleaning, like one charged with an important errand.

  "Kirstie!" she began, and paused; and then with conviction, "Mr. Weirisna speeritually minded, but he has been a good man to me."

  It was perhaps the first time since her husband's elevation that she hadforgotten the handle to his name, of which the tender, inconsistentwoman was not a little proud. And when Kirstie looked up at thespeaker's face, she was aware of a change.

  "Godsake, what's the maitter wi' ye, mem?" cried the housekeeper,starting from the rug.

  "I do not ken," answered her mistress, shaking her head. "But he is notspeeritually minded, my dear."

  "Here, sit down with ye! Godsake, what ails the wife?" cried Kirstie,and helped and forced her into my lord's own chair by the cheek of thehearth.

  "Keep me, what's this?" she gasped. "Kirstie, what's this? I'mfrich'ened."

  They were her last words.

  It was the lowering nightfall when my lord returned. He had the sunsetin his back, all clouds and glory; and before him, by the wayside, spiedKirstie Elliott waiting. She was dissolved in tears, and addressed himin the high, false note of barbarous mourning, such as still lingersmodified among Scots heather.

  "The Lord peety ye, Hermiston! the Lord prepare ye!" she keened out."Weary upon me, that I should have to tell it!"

  He reined in his horse and looked upon her with the hanging face.

  "Has the French landit?" cried he.

  "Man, man," she said, "is that a' ye can think of? The Lord prepare ye:the Lord comfort and support ye!"

  "Is onybody deid?" says his lordship. "It's no Erchie?"

  "Bethankit, no!" exclaimed the woman, startled into a more natural tone."Na, na, it's no sae bad as that. It's the mistress, my lord; she justfair flittit before my e'en. She just gi'ed a sab and was by wi' it. Eh,my bonny Miss Jeannie, that I mind sae weel!" And forth again upon thatpouring tide of lamentation in which women of her class excel andover-abound.

  Lord Hermiston sat in the saddle beholding her. Then he seemed torecover command upon himself.

  "Weel, it's something of the suddenest," said he. "But she was a dwaiblybody from the first."

  And he rode home at a precipitate amble with Kirstie at his horse'sheels.

  Dressed as she was for her last walk, they had laid the dead lady on herbed. She was never interesting in life; in death she was not impressive;and as her husband stood before her, with his hands crossed behind hispowerful back, that which he looked upon was the very image of theinsignificant.

  "Her and me were never cut out for one another," he remarked at last."It was a daft-like marriage." And then, with a most unusual gentlenessof tone, "Puir bitch," said he, "puir bitch!" Then suddenly: "Where'sErchie?"

  Kirstie had decoyed him to her room
and given him "a jeely-piece."

  "Ye have some kind of gumption, too," observed the judge, and consideredhis housekeeper grimly. "When all's said," he added, "I micht have donewaur--I micht have been marriet upon a skirling Jezebel like you!"

  "There's naebody thinking of you, Hermiston!" cried the offended woman."We think of her that's out of her sorrows. And could _she_ have donewaur? Tell me that, Hermiston--tell me that before her clay-cauld corp!"

  "Weel, there's some of them gey an' ill to please," observed hislordship.