The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter's Tale Read online

  CHAPTER I.—SUMMARY OF EVENTS DURING THIS MASTER’S WANDERINGS.

  The full truth of this odd matter is what the world has long been lookingfor, and public curiosity is sure to welcome. It so befell that I wasintimately mingled with the last years and history of the house; andthere does not live one man so able as myself to make these mattersplain, or so desirous to narrate them faithfully. I knew the Master; onmany secret steps of his career I have an authentic memoir in my hand; Isailed with him on his last voyage almost alone; I made one upon thatwinter’s journey of which so many tales have gone abroad; and I was thereat the man’s death. As for my late Lord Durrisdeer, I served him andloved him near twenty years; and thought more of him the more I knew ofhim. Altogether, I think it not fit that so much evidence should perish;the truth is a debt I owe my lord’s memory; and I think my old years willflow more smoothly, and my white hair lie quieter on the pillow, when thedebt is paid.

  The Duries of Durrisdeer and Ballantrae were a strong family in thesouth-west from the days of David First. A rhyme still current in thecountryside—

  Kittle folk are the Durrisdeers, They ride wi’ over mony spears—

  bears the mark of its antiquity; and the name appears in another, whichcommon report attributes to Thomas of Ercildoune himself—I cannot say howtruly, and which some have applied—I dare not say with how muchjustice—to the events of this narration:

  Twa Duries in Durrisdeer, Ane to tie and ane to ride, An ill day for the groom And a waur day for the bride.

  Authentic history besides is filled with their exploits which (to ourmodern eyes) seem not very commendable: and the family suffered its fullshare of those ups and downs to which the great houses of Scotland havebeen ever liable. But all these I pass over, to come to that memorableyear 1745, when the foundations of this tragedy were laid.

  At that time there dwelt a family of four persons in the house ofDurrisdeer, near St. Bride’s, on the Solway shore; a chief hold of theirrace since the Reformation. My old lord, eighth of the name, was not oldin years, but he suffered prematurely from the disabilities of age; hisplace was at the chimney side; there he sat reading, in a lined gown,with few words for any man, and wry words for none: the model of an oldretired housekeeper; and yet his mind very well nourished with study, andreputed in the country to be more cunning than he seemed. The master ofBallantrae, James in baptism, took from his father the love of seriousreading; some of his tact perhaps as well, but that which was only policyin the father became black dissimulation in the son. The face of hisbehaviour was merely popular and wild: he sat late at wine, later at thecards; had the name in the country of “an unco man for the lasses;” andwas ever in the front of broils. But for all he was the first to go in,yet it was observed he was invariably the best to come off; and hispartners in mischief were usually alone to pay the piper. This luck ordexterity got him several ill-wishers, but with the rest of the country,enhanced his reputation; so that great things were looked for in hisfuture, when he should have gained more gravity. One very black mark hehad to his name; but the matter was hushed up at the time, and so defacedby legends before I came into those parts, that I scruple to set it down.If it was true, it was a horrid fact in one so young; and if false, itwas a horrid calumny. I think it notable that he had always vauntedhimself quite implacable, and was taken at his word; so that he had theaddition among his neighbours of “an ill man to cross.” Here wasaltogether a young nobleman (not yet twenty-four in the year ’45) who hadmade a figure in the country beyond his time of life. The less marvel ifthere were little heard of the second son, Mr. Henry (my late LordDurrisdeer), who was neither very bad nor yet very able, but an honest,solid sort of lad like many of his neighbours. Little heard, I say; butindeed it was a case of little spoken. He was known among the salmonfishers in the firth, for that was a sport that he assiduously followed;he was an excellent good horse-doctor besides; and took a chief hand,almost from a boy, in the management of the estates. How hard a partthat was, in the situation of that family, none knows better than myself;nor yet with how little colour of justice a man may there acquire thereputation of a tyrant and a miser. The fourth person in the house wasMiss Alison Graeme, a near kinswoman, an orphan, and the heir to aconsiderable fortune which her father had acquired in trade. This moneywas loudly called for by my lord’s necessities; indeed the land wasdeeply mortgaged; and Miss Alison was designed accordingly to be theMaster’s wife, gladly enough on her side; with how much good-will on his,is another matter. She was a comely girl, and in those days veryspirited and self-willed; for the old lord having no daughter of his own,and my lady being long dead, she had grown up as best she might.

  To these four came the news of Prince Charlie’s landing, and set thempresently by the ears. My lord, like the chimney-keeper that he was, wasall for temporising. Miss Alison held the other side, because itappeared romantical; and the Master (though I have heard they did notagree often) was for this once of her opinion. The adventure temptedhim, as I conceive; he was tempted by the opportunity to raise thefortunes of the house, and not less by the hope of paying off his privateliabilities, which were heavy beyond all opinion. As for Mr. Henry, itappears he said little enough at first; his part came later on. It tookthe three a whole day’s disputation, before they agreed to steer a middlecourse, one son going forth to strike a blow for King James, my lord andthe other staying at home to keep in favour with King George. Doubtlessthis was my lord’s decision; and, as is well known, it was the partplayed by many considerable families. But the one dispute settled,another opened. For my lord, Miss Alison, and Mr. Henry all held the oneview: that it was the cadet’s part to go out; and the Master, what withrestlessness and vanity, would at no rate consent to stay at home. Mylord pleaded, Miss Alison wept, Mr. Henry was very plain spoken: all wasof no avail.

  “It is the direct heir of Durrisdeer that should ride by his King’sbridle,” says the Master.

  “If we were playing a manly part,” says Mr. Henry, “there might be sensein such talk. But what are we doing? Cheating at cards!”

  “We are saving the house of Durrisdeer, Henry,” his father said.

  “And see, James,” said Mr. Henry, “if I go, and the Prince has the upperhand, it will be easy to make your peace with King James. But if you go,and the expedition fails, we divide the right and the title. And whatshall I be then?”

  “You will be Lord Durrisdeer,” said the Master. “I put all I have uponthe table.”

  “I play at no such game,” cries Mr. Henry. “I shall be left in such asituation as no man of sense and honour could endure. I shall be neitherfish nor flesh!” he cried. And a little after he had another expression,plainer perhaps than he intended. “It is your duty to be here with myfather,” said he. “You know well enough you are the favourite.”

  “Ay?” said the Master. “And there spoke Envy! Would you trip up myheels—Jacob?” said he, and dwelled upon the name maliciously.

  Mr. Henry went and walked at the low end of the hall without reply; forhe had an excellent gift of silence. Presently he came back.

  “I am the cadet and I _should_ go,” said he. “And my lord here in themaster, and he says I _shall_ go. What say ye to that, my brother?”

  “I say this, Harry,” returned the Master, “that when very obstinate folkare met, there are only two ways out: Blows—and I think none of us couldcare to go so far; or the arbitrament of chance—and here is a guineapiece. Will you stand by the toss of the coin?”

  “I will stand and fall by it,” said Mr. Henry. “Heads, I go; shield, Istay.”

  The coin was spun, and it fell shield. “So there is a lesson for Jacob,”says the Master.

  “We shall live to repent of this,” says Mr. Henry, and flung out of thehall.

  As for Miss Alison, she caught up that piece of gold which had just senther lover to the wars, and flung it clean through the family shield inthe great painted window.

 
“If you loved me as well as I love you, you would have stayed,” criedshe.

  “‘I could not love you, dear, so well, loved I not honour more,’” sangthe Master.

  “Oh!” she cried, “you have no heart—I hope you may be killed!” and sheran from the room, and in tears, to her own chamber.

  It seems the Master turned to my lord with his most comical manner, andsays he, “This looks like a devil of a wife.”

  “I think you are a devil of a son to me,” cried his father, “you thathave always been the favourite, to my shame be it spoken. Never a goodhour have I gotten of you, since you were born; no, never one good hour,”and repeated it again the third time. Whether it was the Master’slevity, or his insubordination, or Mr. Henry’s word about the favouriteson, that had so much disturbed my lord, I do not know; but I incline tothink it was the last, for I have it by all accounts that Mr. Henry wasmore made up to from that hour.

  Altogether it was in pretty ill blood with his family that the Masterrode to the North; which was the more sorrowful for others to rememberwhen it seemed too late. By fear and favour he had scraped together nearupon a dozen men, principally tenants’ sons; they were all pretty fullwhen they set forth, and rode up the hill by the old abbey, roaring andsinging, the white cockade in every hat. It was a desperate venture forso small a company to cross the most of Scotland unsupported; and (whatmade folk think so the more) even as that poor dozen was clattering upthe hill, a great ship of the king’s navy, that could have brought themunder with a single boat, lay with her broad ensign streaming in the bay.The next afternoon, having given the Master a fair start, it was Mr.Henry’s turn; and he rode off, all by himself, to offer his sword andcarry letters from his father to King George’s Government. Miss Alisonwas shut in her room, and did little but weep, till both were gone; onlyshe stitched the cockade upon the Master’s hat, and (as John Paul toldme) it was wetted with tears when he carried it down to him.

  In all that followed, Mr. Henry and my old lord were true to theirbargain. That ever they accomplished anything is more than I couldlearn; and that they were anyway strong on the king’s side, more thanbelieve. But they kept the letter of loyalty, corresponded with my LordPresident, sat still at home, and had little or no commerce with theMaster while that business lasted. Nor was he, on his side, morecommunicative. Miss Alison, indeed, was always sending him expresses,but I do not know if she had many answers. Macconochie rode for heronce, and found the highlanders before Carlisle, and the Master riding bythe Prince’s side in high favour; he took the letter (so Macconochietells), opened it, glanced it through with a mouth like a man whistling,and stuck it in his belt, whence, on his horse passageing, it fellunregarded to the ground. It was Macconochie who picked it up; and hestill kept it, and indeed I have seen it in his hands. News came toDurrisdeer of course, by the common report, as it goes travelling througha country, a thing always wonderful to me. By that means the familylearned more of the Master’s favour with the Prince, and the ground itwas said to stand on: for by a strange condescension in a man soproud—only that he was a man still more ambitious—he was said to havecrept into notability by truckling to the Irish. Sir Thomas Sullivan,Colonel Burke and the rest, were his daily comrades, by which course hewithdrew himself from his own country-folk. All the small intrigues hehad a hand in fomenting; thwarted my Lord George upon a thousand points;was always for the advice that seemed palatable to the Prince, no matterif it was good or bad; and seems upon the whole (like the gambler he wasall through life) to have had less regard to the chances of the campaignthan to the greatness of favour he might aspire to, if, by any luck, itshould succeed. For the rest, he did very well in the field; no onequestioned that; for he was no coward.

  The next was the news of Culloden, which was brought to Durrisdeer by oneof the tenants’ sons—the only survivor, he declared, of all those thathad gone singing up the hill. By an unfortunate chance John Paul andMacconochie had that very morning found the guinea piece—which was theroot of all the evil—sticking in a holly bush; they had been “up thegait,” as the servants say at Durrisdeer, to the change-house; and ifthey had little left of the guinea, they had less of their wits. Whatmust John Paul do but burst into the hall where the family sat at dinner,and cry the news to them that “Tam Macmorland was but new lichtit at thedoor, and—wirra, wirra—there were nane to come behind him”?

  They took the word in silence like folk condemned; only Mr. Henrycarrying his palm to his face, and Miss Alison laying her head outrightupon her hands. As for my lord, he was like ashes.

  “I have still one son,” says he. “And, Henry, I will do you thisjustice—it is the kinder that is left.”

  It was a strange thing to say in such a moment; but my lord had neverforgotten Mr. Henry’s speech, and he had years of injustice on hisconscience. Still it was a strange thing, and more than Miss Alisoncould let pass. She broke out and blamed my lord for his unnaturalwords, and Mr. Henry because he was sitting there in safety when hisbrother lay dead, and herself because she had given her sweetheart illwords at his departure, calling him the flower of the flock, wringing herhands, protesting her love, and crying on him by his name—so that theservants stood astonished.

  Mr. Henry got to his feet, and stood holding his chair. It was he thatwas like ashes now.

  “Oh!” he burst out suddenly, “I know you loved him.”

  “The world knows that, glory be to God!” cries she; and then to Mr.Henry: “There is none but me to know one thing—that you were a traitor tohim in your heart.”

  “God knows,” groans he, “it was lost love on both sides.”

  Time went by in the house after that without much change; only they werenow three instead of four, which was a perpetual reminder of their loss.Miss Alison’s money, you are to bear in mind, wag highly needful for theestates; and the one brother being dead, my old lord soon set his heartupon her marrying the other. Day in, day out, he would work upon her,sitting by the chimney-side with his finger in his Latin book, and hiseyes set upon her face with a kind of pleasant intentness that became theold gentleman very well. If she wept, he would condole with her like anancient man that has seen worse times and begins to think lightly even ofsorrow; if she raged, he would fall to reading again in his Latin book,but always with some civil excuse; if she offered, as she often did, tolet them have her money in a gift, he would show her how little itconsisted with his honour, and remind her, even if he should consent,that Mr. Henry would certainly refuse. _Non vi sed saepe cadendo_ was afavourite word of his; and no doubt this quiet persecution wore away muchof her resolve; no doubt, besides, he had a great influence on the girl,having stood in the place of both her parents; and, for that matter, shewas herself filled with the spirit of the Duries, and would have gone agreat way for the glory of Durrisdeer; but not so far, I think, as tomarry my poor patron, had it not been—strangely enough—for thecircumstance of his extreme unpopularity.

  This was the work of Tam Macmorland. There was not much harm in Tam; buthe had that grievous weakness, a long tongue; and as the only man in thatcountry who had been out—or, rather, who had come in again—he was sure oflisteners. Those that have the underhand in any fighting, I haveobserved, are ever anxious to persuade themselves they were betrayed. ByTam’s account of it, the rebels had been betrayed at every turn and byevery officer they had; they had been betrayed at Derby, and betrayed atFalkirk; the night march was a step of treachery of my Lord George’s; andCulloden was lost by the treachery of the Macdonalds. This habit ofimputing treason grew upon the fool, till at last he must have in Mr.Henry also. Mr. Henry (by his account) had betrayed the lads ofDurrisdeer; he had promised to follow with more men, and instead of thathe had ridden to King George. “Ay, and the next day!” Tam would cry.“The puir bonnie Master, and the puir, kind lads that rade wi’ him, werehardly ower the scaur, or he was aff—the Judis! Ay, weel—he has his wayo’t: he’s to be my lord, nae less, and there’s mony a cold corp amang theHieland
heather!” And at this, if Tam had been drinking, he would beginto weep.

  Let anyone speak long enough, he will get believers. This view of Mr.Henry’s behaviour crept about the country by little and little; it wastalked upon by folk that knew the contrary, but were short of topics; andit was heard and believed and given out for gospel by the ignorant andthe ill-willing. Mr. Henry began to be shunned; yet awhile, and thecommons began to murmur as he went by, and the women (who are always themost bold because they are the most safe) to cry out their reproaches tohis face. The Master was cried up for a saint. It was remembered how hehad never any hand in pressing the tenants; as, indeed, no more he had,except to spend the money. He was a little wild perhaps, the folk said;but how much better was a natural, wild lad that would soon have settleddown, than a skinflint and a sneckdraw, sitting, with his nose in anaccount book, to persecute poor tenants! One trollop, who had had achild to the Master, and by all accounts been very badly used, yet madeherself a kind of champion of his memory. She flung a stone one day atMr. Henry.

  “Whaur’s the bonnie lad that trustit ye?” she cried.

  Mr. Henry reined in his horse and looked upon her, the blood flowing fromhis lip. “Ay, Jess?” says he. “You too? And yet ye should ken mebetter.” For it was he who had helped her with money.

  The woman had another stone ready, which she made as if she would cast;and he, to ward himself, threw up the hand that held his riding-rod.

  “What, would ye beat a lassie, ye ugly—?” cries she, and ran awayscreaming as though he had struck her.

  Next day word went about the country like wildfire that Mr. Henry hadbeaten Jessie Broun within an inch of her life. I give it as oneinstance of how this snowball grew, and one calumny brought another;until my poor patron was so perished in reputation that he began to keepthe house like my lord. All this while, you may be very sure, he utteredno complaints at home; the very ground of the scandal was too sore amatter to be handled; and Mr. Henry was very proud and strangelyobstinate in silence. My old lord must have heard of it, by John Paul,if by no one else; and he must at least have remarked the altered habitsof his son. Yet even he, it is probable, knew not how high the feelingran; and as for Miss Alison, she was ever the last person to hear news,and the least interested when she heard them.

  In the height of the ill-feeling (for it died away as it came, no mancould say why) there was an election forward in the town of St. Bride’s,which is the next to Durrisdeer, standing on the Water of Swift; somegrievance was fermenting, I forget what, if ever I heard; and it wascurrently said there would be broken heads ere night, and that thesheriff had sent as far as Dumfries for soldiers. My lord moved that Mr.Henry should be present, assuring him it was necessary to appear, for thecredit of the house. “It will soon be reported,” said he, “that we donot take the lead in our own country.”

  “It is a strange lead that I can take,” said Mr. Henry; and when they hadpushed him further, “I tell you the plain truth,” he said, “I dare notshow my face.”

  “You are the first of the house that ever said so,” cries Miss Alison.

  “We will go all three,” said my lord; and sure enough he got into hisboots (the first time in four years—a sore business John Paul had to getthem on), and Miss Alison into her riding-coat, and all three rodetogether to St. Bride’s.

  The streets were full of the rift-raff of all the countryside, who had nosooner clapped eyes on Mr. Henry than the hissing began, and the hooting,and the cries of “Judas!” and “Where was the Master?” and “Where were thepoor lads that rode with him?” Even a stone was cast; but the more partcried shame at that, for my old lord’s sake, and Miss Alison’s. It tooknot ten minutes to persuade my lord that Mr. Henry had been right. Hesaid never a word, but turned his horse about, and home again, with hischin upon his bosom. Never a word said Miss Alison; no doubt she thoughtthe more; no doubt her pride was stung, for she was a bone-bred Durie;and no doubt her heart was touched to see her cousin so unjustly used.That night she was never in bed; I have often blamed my lady—when I callto mind that night, I readily forgive her all; and the first thing in themorning she came to the old lord in his usual seat.

  “If Henry still wants me,” said she, “he can have me now.” To himselfshe had a different speech: “I bring you no love, Henry; but God knows,all the pity in the world.”

  June the 1st, 1748, was the day of their marriage. It was December ofthe same year that first saw me alighting at the doors of the greathouse; and from there I take up the history of events as they befellunder my own observation, like a witness in a court.