Book: A Noble Life

D >> Dinah Maria Mulock Craik >> A Noble Life




After the departure of Mr. Mentieth, Mrs. Campbell, and her charge, a
few rumors got abroad that the little earl was "no a'richt"--if an
earl could be "no a' richt"--which the simple folk about Loch Beg and
Loch Mhor, accustomed for generations to view the Earls of Cairnforth
much as the Thibetians view their Dali Lama, thought hardly possible.
But what was wrong with him nobody precisely knew. The minister did, it
was conjectured; but Mr. Cardross was scrupulously silent on the
subject; and, with all his gentleness, he was the sort of man to whom
nobody ever could address intrusive or impertinent questions.

So, after a while, when the Castle still remained shut up, curiosity
died out, or was only roused at intervals, especially at Mr. Menteith's
periodical visits. And to all questions, whether respectfully anxious
or merely inquisitive, he never gave but one answer--that the earl was
"doing pretty well," and would be back at Cairn forth "some o' these
days".

However, that period was so long deferred that the neighbors at last
ceased to expect it, or to speculate concerning it. They went about
their own affairs, and soon the whole story about the sad death of the
late earl and countess, and the birth of the present nobleman, began to
be told simply as a story by the elder folk, and slipped out of the
younger ones' memories--as, if one only allows it time, every tale,
however sad, wicked, or strange, will very soon do. Had it not been for
the silent, shut-up castle, standing summer and winter on the loch-side,
with its flower-gardens blossoming for none to gather, and its woods--
the pride of the whole country--budding and withering, with scarcely
a foot to cross, or an eye to notice their wonderful beauty, people
would ere long have forgotten the very existence of the last Earl of
Cairnforth.





Chapter 2

It was on a June day--ten years after that bright June day when the
minister of Cairnforth had walked with such a sad heart up to Cairnforth
Castle, and seen for the first time its unconscious heir--the poor
little orphan baby, who in such apparent mockery was called "the Earl."
The woods, the hills, the loch, looked exactly the same--nature never
changes. As Mr. Cardross walked up to the Castle once more--the
first time for many months--in accordance with a request of Mr.
Menteith's, who had written to say the earl was coming home, he could
hardly believe it was ten years since that sad week when the baby-heir
was born, and the countess's funeral had passed out from that now
long-closed door.

Mr. Cardross's step was heavier and his face sadder now than then. He
who had so often sympathized with others' sorrows had had to suffer
patiently his own. From the Manse gate as from that of the Castle, the
mother and mistress had been carried, never to return. A new Helen--
only fifteen years old--was trying vainly to replace to father and
brothers her who was--as Mr. Cardross still touchingly put it--
"away." But, though his grief was more than a year old, the minister
mourned still. His was one of those quiet natures which make no show,
and trouble no one, yet in which sorrow goes deep down, and grows into
the heart, as it were, becoming a part of existence, until existence
itself shall cease.

It did not, however, hinder him from doing all his ordinary duties,
perhaps with even closer persistence, as he felt himself sinking into
that indifference to outside things which is the inevitable result of a
heavy loss upon any gentle nature. The fierce rebel against it; the
impetuous and impatient throw it off; but the feeble and tender souls
make no sign, only quietly pass into that state which the outer world
calls submission: and resignation, yet which is, in truth, mere
passiveness--the stolid calm of a creature that has suffered till it
can suffer no more.

The first thing which roused Mr. Cardross out of this condition, or at
least the uneasy recognition that it was fast approaching, and must be
struggled against, conscientiously, to the utmost of his power, was Mr.
Menteith's letter, and the request therein concerning Lord Cairnforth.

Without entering much into particulars--it was not the way of the
cautious lawyer--he had stated that, after ten years' residence in
Dr. Hamilton's house, and numerous consultations with every surgeon of
repute in Scotland, England--nay, Europe--it had been decided, and
especially at the earnest entreaty of the poor little earl himself, to
leave him to Nature; to take him back to his native air, and educate
him, so far as was possible, in Cairnforth Castle.

A suitable establishment had accordingly been provided--more
servants, and a lady housekeeper or governante, who took all external
charge of the child, while the personal care of him was left, as before,
to his nurse, Mrs. Campbell, now wholly devoted to him, for at seven
years old her own boy had died. He had another attendant, to whom, with
a curious persistency, he had strongly attached himself ever since his
babyhood--young Malcolm Campbell, Neil Campbell's brother, who was
saved by clinging to the keel of the boat when the late Lord Cairnforth
was drowned. Beyond these, whose fond fidelity knew no bounds, there
was hardly need of any other person to take charge of the little earl,
except a tutor, and that office Mr. Menteith entreated Mr. Cardross to
accept.

It was a doubtful point with the minister. He shrank from assuming any
new duty, his daily duties being now made only too heavy by the loss of
the wife who had shared and lightened them all. But he named the matter
to Helen, whom he had lately got into the habit of consulting--she
was such a wise little woman for her age--and Helen said anxiously,
"Papa, try." Besides, there were six boys to be brought up, and put
into the world somehow, and the Manse income was small, and the salary
offered by Mr. Manteith very considerable. So when, the second time,
Helen's great soft eyes implored silently, "Papa, please try," the
minister kissed her, went into his study and wrote to Edinburg his
acceptance of the office of tutor to Lord Cairnforth.

What sort of office it would turn out--what kind of instruction he
was expected to give, or how much the young earl was capable of
receiving, he had not the least idea; but he resolved that, in any case,
he would do his duty, and neither man nor minister could be expected to
do more.

In pursuance of this resolution, he roused himself that sunny June
morning, when he would far rather have sat over his study-fire and let
the world go on without him--as he felt it would, easily enough--
and walked down to the Castle, where, for the first time these ten
years, windows were opened and doors unbarred, and the sweet light and
warm air of day let in upon those long-shut rooms, which seemed, in
their dumb, inanimate way, glad to be happy again--glad to be made of
use once more. Even the portraits of the late earl and countess--he
in his Highland dress, and she in her white satin and pearls--both so
young and bright, as they looked on the day they were married, seemed to
gaze back at each other from either side the long dining-room, as if to
say, rejoicing, "Our son is coming home."

"Have you seen the earl?" said Mr. Cardross to one of the new servants
who attended him round the rooms, listening respectfully to all the
remarks and suggestions as to furniture and the like which Mr. Menteith
had requested him to make. The minister was always specially popular
with servants and inferiors of every sort, for he possessed, in a
remarkable degree, that best key to their hearts, the gentle dignity
which never needs to assert a superiority that is at once felt and
acknowledged.

"The earl, sir? Na, na"--with a mysterious shake of the head--
"naebody sees the earl. Some say--but I hae nae cause to think it
mysel'--that he's no a' there."

The minister was sufficiently familiar with that queer, but very
expressive Scotch phrase, "not all there," to pursue no farther
inquiries. But he sighed, and wished he had delayed a little before
undertaking the tutorship. However, the matter was settled now, and Mr.
Cardross was not the man ever to draw back from an agreement or shrink
from a promise.

"Whatever the poor child is--even if an idiot," thought he, "I will
do my best for him, for his father's and mother's sake."

And he paused several minutes before those bright and smiling portraits,
pondering on the mysterious dealings of the great Ruler of the universe
--how some are taken and some are left: those removed who seem most
happy and most needed; those left behind whom it would have appeared, in
our dim and short-sighted judgment, a mercy, both to themselves and
others, quietly to have taken away.

But one thing the minister did in consequence of these somewhat sad and
painful musings. On his return to the clachan--where, of course, the
news of the earl's coming home had long spread, and thrown the whole
country-side into a state of the greatest excitement--he gave orders,
or at least, advice--which was equivalent to orders, since everybody
obeyed him--that there should be no special rejoicings on the earl's
coming home; no bonfire on the hill-side, or triumphal arches across the
road, and at the ferry where the young earl would probably land--
where, ten years before, the late Earl of Cairnforth had been not
landed, but carried, stone-cold, with his dripping, and his dead hands
still clutching the weeds of the loch. The minister vividly recalled
the sight, and shuddered at it still.

"No, no," said he, in talking the matter over with some of his people,
whom he went among like a father among his children, true pastor of a
most loving flock, "no; we'll wait and see what the earl would like
before we make any show. That we are glad to see him he knows well
enough, or will very soon find out. And if he should arrive on such a
night as this"--looking round on the magnificent June sunset,
coloring the mountains at the head of the loch--"he will hardly need
a brighter welcome to a bonnier home."

But the earl did not arrive on a gorgeous evening like this, such as
come sometimes to the shores of Loch Beg, and make it glow into a
perfect paradise: he arrived in "saft" weather--in fact, on a pouring
wet Saturday night, and all the clachan saw of him was the outside of
his carriage, driving, with closed blinds, down the hill-side. He had
taken a long round, and had not crossed the ferry; and he was carried as
fast as possible through the dripping wood, reaching, just as darkness
fell, the Castle door.

Mr. Cardross, perhaps, should have been there to welcome the child--
his conscience rather smote him that he was not--but it was the
minister's unbroken habit of years to spend Saturday evening alone in
his study. And it might be that, with a certain timidity, inherent in
his character, he shrank from this first meeting, and wished to put off
as long as possible what must inevitably be awkward, and might be very
painful. So, in darkness and rain, unwelcomed save by his own servants,
most of whom even had never yet seen him, the poor little earl came to
his ancestral door.

But on Sunday morning all things were changed, with one of those sudden
changes which make this part of the country so wonderfully beautiful,
and so fascinating through its endless variety.

A perfect June day, with the loch glittering in the sun, and the hills
beyond it softly outlined with the indistinctness that mountains usually
wear in summer, but with the soft summer coloring too, greenish-blue,
lilac, and silver-gray varying continually. In the woods behind, where
the leaves were already gloriously green, the wood-pigeons were cooing,
and the blackbirds and mavises singing, just as if it had not been
Sunday morning, or rather as if they knew it was Sunday, and were
straining their tiny throats to bless the Giver of sweet, peaceful,
cheerful Sabbath-days, and of all other good things, meant for man's
usage and delight.

At the portico of Cairnforth Castle, for the first time since the hearse
had stood there, stood a carriage--one of those large, roomy,
splendid family carriages which were in use many years ago. Looking at
it, no passerby could have the slightest doubt that it was my lord's
coach, and that my lord sat therein in solemn state, exacting and
receiving an amount of respect little short of veneration, such as, for
generations, the whole country-side had always paid to the Earls of
Cairnforth. This coach, though it was the identical family coach, had
been newly furnished; its crimson satin glowed, and its silver harness
and ornaments flashed in the sun; the coachman sat in his place, and two
footmen stood up in their place behind. It was altogether a very
splendid affair, as became the equipage of a young nobleman who was
known to possess twenty thousand a year, and who, from his castle tower
--it had a tower, though nobody ever climbed there--might, if he
chose, look around upon miles and miles of moorland, loch, hill-side,
and cultivated land, and say to himself--or be said to by his nurse,
as in the old song--

"These hills and these vales, from this tower that ye see,
They all shall belong, my young chieftain, to thee."

The horse pawed the ground for several minutes of delay, and then there
appeared Mr. Menteith, followed by Mrs. Campbell, who was quite a grand
lady now, in silks and satins, but with the same sweet, sad, gentle
face. The lawyer and she stood aside, and made way for a big, stalwart
young Highlander of about one-and-twenty or thereabouts, who carried in
his arms, very gently and carefully, wrapped in a plaid, even although
it was such a mild spring day, what looked like a baby, or a very young
child.

"Stop a minute, Malcolm."

At the sound of that voice, which was not an infant's, though it was
thin, and sharp, and unnatural rather for a boy, the big Highlander
paused immediately.

"Hold me up higher; I want to look at the loch."

"Yes, my lord."

This, then--this poor little deformed figure, with every limb
shrunken and useless, and every joint distorted, the head just able to
sustain itself and turn feebly from one side to the other, and the thin
white hands piteously twisted and helpless-looking--this, then, was
the Earl of Cairnforth.

"It's a bonnie loch, Malcolm."

"It looks awful' bonnie the day, my lord."

"And," almost in a whisper, "was it just there my father was drowned?"

"Yes, my lord."

No one spoke while the large, intelligent eyes, which seemed the
principal feature of the thin face, that rested against Malcolm's
shoulder, looked out intently upon the loch.

Mrs. Campbell pulled her veil down and wept a little. People said Neil
Campbell had not been the best of husbands to her, but he was her
husband; and she had never been back in Cairnforth till now, for her son
had lived, died, and been buried away in Edinburg.

At last Mr. Menteith suggested that the kirk bell was beginning to ring.

"Very well; put me into the carriage."

Malcolm placed him, helpless as an infant, in a corner of the
silken-padded coach, fitted with cushions especially suited for his
comfort. There he sat, in his black velvet coat and point-lace collar,
with silk stockings and dainty shoes upon the poor little feet that
never had walked, and never would walk, in this world. The one bit of
him that could be looked at without pain was his face, inherited from
his beautiful mother. It was wan, pale, and much older than his years,
but it was a sweet face--a lovely face; so patient, thoughtful--
nay, strange to say, content. You could not look at it without a
certain sense of peace, as if God, in taking away so much had given
something--which not many people have--something which was the
divine answer to the minister's prayer over the two-days-old child--
"Thy will be done."

"Are you comfortable, my lord?"

"Quite, thank you, Mr. Menteith. Stop--where are you going,
Malcolm?"

"Just to the kirk, and I'll be there as soon as your lordship."

"Very well," said the little earl, and watched with wistful eyes the
tall Highlander striding across brushwood and heather, leaping dikes and
clearing fences--the very embodiment of active vigorous youth.

Wistful I said the eyes were, and yet they were not sad. Whatever
thoughts lay hidden in that boy's mind--he was only ten years old,
remember--they were certainly not thoughts of melancholy or despair.
"God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," and "the back is fitted to the
burden," are phrases so common that we almost smile to repeat them or
believe in them, and yet they are true. Any one whose enjoyments have
been narrowed down by long sickness may prove their truth by
recollecting how at last even the desire for impossible pleasures passes
away. And in this case the deprivation was not sudden; the child had
been born thus crippled, and had never been accustomed to any other sort
of existence than this. What thoughts, speculations, or regrets might
have passed through his mind, or whether he had as yet reflected upon
his own condition at all, those about him could not judge. He was
always a silent child, and latterly had grown more silent than ever. It
was this silence, causing a fear lest the too rapidly developing mind
might affect still more injuriously the imperfect and feeble body, which
induced his guardian, counseled by Dr. Hamilton, to try a total change
of life by sending him home to the shores of Loch Beg.

One thing certainly Mr. Cardross need not have dreaded--the child was
no idiot. An intelligence, precocious to an almost painful extent, was
visible in that poor little face, which seemed thirstingly to take in
every thing, and to let nothing escape its observation.

The carriage drove slowly through the woods and along the shore of the
loch, Mr. Menteith and Mrs. Campbell sitting opposite to the earl, not
noticing him much--even as a child he was sensitive of being watched
--but making occasional comments on the scenery and other things.

"There is the kirk tower; I mind it weel," said Mrs. Campbell, who still
kept some accent of the clachan, though, like many Highlanders, she had
it more in tone than in pronunciation, and often spoke almost pure
English, which, indeed, she had taken pains to acquire, lest she might
be transferred from her charge for fear of teaching him to speak as a
young nobleman ought not to speak. But at sight of her native place
some touch of the old tongue returned.

"That is the kirk, nurse, where my father and mother are buried?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Will there be many people there? You know I never went to church but
once before in all my life."

"Would ye like not to go now? If so, I'll turn back with ye this
minute, my lamb--my lord, I mean."

"No, thank you, nurse, I like to go. You know Mr Menteith promised me I
should go about every where as soon as I came to live at Cairnforth."

"Every where you like that is not too much trouble to your lordship,"
said Mr. Menteith, who was always tenaciously careful about the respect,
of word and act, that he paid, and insisted should be paid, to his poor
young ward.

"Oh, it's no trouble to me; Malcolm takes care of that. And I like to
see the world. If you and Dr. Hamilton would have let me, I think I
would so have enjoyed going to school like other boys."

"Would you, my lord?" answered Mr. Menteith, compassionately; but Mrs.
Campbell, who never could bear that pitying look and tone directed
toward her nursling, said, a little sharply,

"It's better as it is--dinna ye ken? Far mair fitting for his
lordship's rank and position that he should get his learning all by
himsel' at his ain castle, and with his ain tutor, and that sic a
gentleman as Mr. Cardross--"

"What is Mr. Cardross like?"

"Ye'll hear him preach the day."

"Will he teach me all by myself, as nurse says? Has he any children--
any boys, like me?"

"He has boys," said Mr. Menteith, avoiding more explicit information;
for with a natural, if mistaken precaution, he had always kept his own
sturdy, stalwart boys quite out of the way of the poor little earl, and
had especially cautioned the minister to do the same.

"I do long to play with boys. May I?"

"If you wish it, my lord."

"And may I have a boat on that beautiful loch, and be rowed about just
where I please? Malcolm says it would not shake me nearly so much as
the carriage. May I go to the kirk every Sunday, and see every thing
and every body, and read as many books as ever I choose? Oh, How happy
I shall be!--as happy as a king!"

"God help thee, my lamb!" muttered Mrs. Campbell to herself, while even
Mr. Menteith turned his face sedulously toward the loch and took snuff
violently.

By this time, they had reached the church door, where the congregation
were already gathering and hanging about, as Scotch congregations do,
till service begins. But of this service and this Sunday, which was so
strangely momentous a day in more lives than one, the next chapter must
tell.





Chapter 3

The carriage of the Earl of Cairnforth, with its familiar and yet long
unfamiliar liveries, produced a keen sensation among the simple folk who
formed the congregation of Cairnforth. But they had too much habitual
respect for the great house and great folk of the place, mingled with
their national shyness and independence, to stare very much. A few
moved aside to make way for the two grand Edinburg footmen who leaped
down from their perch in order to render customary assistance to the
occupants of the carriage.

Mrs. Campbell and Mr. Menteith descended first, and then the two footmen
looked puzzled as to what they should do next.

But Malcolm was before them--Malcolm, who never suffered mortal man
but himself to render the least assistance to his young master; who
watched and tended him; waited on and fed him in the day, and slept in
his room at night; who, in truth, had now, for a year past, slipped into
all the offices of a nurse as well as servant, and performed them with a
woman's tenderness, care, and skill. Lord Cairnforth's eyes brightened
when he saw him; and, carried in Malcolm's arms--a few stragglers of
the congregation standing aside to let them pass--the young earl was
brought to the door of the kirk where his family had worshiped for
generations.

Two elders stood there beside the plate--white-headed farmers, who
remembered both the late lord and the one before him.

"You's the earl," whispered they, and came forward respectfully; then,
startled by the unexpected and pitiful sight, they shrank back; but
either the boy did not notice this, or was so used to it that he showed
no surprise.

"My purse, Malcolm," the small, soft voice was heard to say.

"Ay, my lord. What will ye put into the plate?"

"A guinea, I think, today, because I am so very happy."

This answer, which the two elders overheard, was told by them next day
to every body, and remembered along the loch-side for years.

Cairnforth Kirk, like most other Scotch churches of ancient date, is
very plain within and without, and the congregation then consisted
almost entirely of hillside farmers, shepherds, and the like, who
arrived in families--dogs, and all, for the dogs always came to
church, and behaved there as decorously as their masters. Many the
people walked eight, ten, and even twelve miles, from the extreme
boundary of the parish, and waited about in the kirk or kirk-yard on
fine Sundays, and in the Manse kitchen on wet ones--which were much
the most frequent--during the two hours' interval between sermons.

In the whole congregation there was hardly a person above the laboring
class except in the minister's pew and that belonging to the Castle,
which had been newly lined and cushioned, and in a corner of which,
safely deposited by Malcolm, the little earl now sat--sat always,
even during the prayer, at which some of the congregation looked
reprovingly round, but only saw the little figure wrapped in a plaid,
and the sweet, wan, childish, and yet unchild-like face, with the curly
dark hair, and large dark eyes.

Whatever in the earl was "no a'richt," it certainly could not be his
mind, for a brighter, more intelligent countenance was never seen. It
quite startled the minister with the intentness of its gaze from the
moment he ascended the pulpit; and though he tried not to look that way,
and was very nervous, he could not get over the impression it made. It
was to him almost like a face from the grave--this strange, eerie
child's face, so strongly resembling that of the dead countess, who,
despite the difference in rank, had, during the brief year she lived and
reigned at Cairnforth, been almost like an equal friend and companion to
his own dead wife. Their two faces--Lady Cairnforth's as she looked
the last time he saw her in her coffin, and his wife's as she lay in
hers--mingled together, and affected him powerfully.

The good minister was not remarkable for the brilliance of his sermons,
which he wrote and "committed"--that is, learned by heart, to deliver
in pseudo-extempore fashion, as was the weary custom of most Scotch
ministers of his time. But this Sunday, all that he had committed
slipped clean out of his memory. He preached as he had never been known
to preach before, and never preached again--with originality, power,
eloquence; speaking from his deepest heart, as if the words thence
pouring out had been supernaturally put into it; which, with a
superstition that approached to sublimest faith, he afterward solemnly
believe they had been.

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