Book: A Noble Life

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




The text was that verse about "all things working together for good to
them that love God;" but, whatever the original discourse had been, it
wandered off into a subject which all who knew the minister recognized
as one perpetually close to his heart--submission to the will of God,
whatever that will might be, and however incomprehensible it seemed to
mortal eyes.

"Not, my friends," said he, after speaking for a long time on this head
--speaking rather than sermonizing, which, like many cultivated but
not very original minds, he was too prone to do--"not that I would
encourage or excuse that weak yielding to calamity which looks like
submission, but is, in fact, only cowardice; submitting to all things as
to a sort of fatality, without struggling against them, or trying to
distinguish how much of them is the will of God, and how much our own
weak will; daunted by the first shadow of misfortune, especially
misfortunes in our worldly affairs, wherein so much often happens for
which we have ourselves only to blame. Submission to man is one thing,
submission to God another. The latter is divine, the former is often
merely contemptible. But even to the Almighty Father we should yield
not a blind, crushed resignation, but an open-eyed obedience, like that
we would fain win from our own children, desiring to make of them
children, not slaves.

"My children--for I speak to the very youngest of you here, and do
try to understand me if you can, or as much as you can--it is right
--it is God's will--that you should resist, to the very last, any
trial which is not inevitable. There are in this world countless
sorrows, which, so far appears, we actually bring on ourselves and
others by our own folly, wickedness, or weakness--which is often as
fatal as wickedness; and then we blame providence for it, and sink into
total despair. But when, as sometimes happens, His heavy hand is laid
upon us in a visible, inevitable misfortune which we can not struggle
against, and from which no human aid can save us, then we ought to learn
His hardest lesson--to submit. To submit--yet still, while saying
'Thy will be done,' to strive, so far as we can, to do it. If He have
taken from us all but one talent, even that, my children, let us not
bury in a napkin. Let us rather put it out a usury, leaving to Him to
determine how much we shall receive again; for it is according to our
use of what we have, and not of what we have not, that He will call us
'good and faithful servants,' and at last, when the long struggle of
living shall be over, will bid us 'enter into the joy of our Lord.'"

When the minister sat down, he saw, as he had seen consciously or
unconsciously, all through the service, and above the entire
congregation, those two large intent eyes fixed upon him from the
Cairnforth pew.

Children of ten years old do not usually listen much to sermons, but the
little earl had heard very few, for it was difficult to take him to
church without so many people staring at him. Nevertheless, he listened
to this sermon, so plain and clear, suited to the capacity of ignorant
shepherds and little children, and seemed as if he understood it all.
If he did not then, he did afterward.

When service was over, he sat watching the congregation pass out,
especially noticing a family of boys who occupied the adjoining pew.
They had neither father nor mother with them, but an elder sister, as
she appeared to be--a tall girl of about fifteen. She marshaled them
out before her, not allowing them once to turn, as many of the other
people did, to look with curiosity at the poor little earl. But in
quitting the kirk she stopped at the vestry door, apparently to say a
word to the minister; after which Mr. Cardross came forward, his gown
over his arm, and spoke to Mr. Menteith--

"Where is Lord Cairnforth? I was so glad to see him here."

"Thank you, Mr. Cardross," replied a weak but cheerful voice from
Malcolm's shoulder, which so startled the good minister that he found
not another word for a whole minute. At last he said, hesitating,

"Helen has just been reminding me that the earl and countess used always
to come and rest at the Manse between sermons. Would Lord Cairnforth
like to do the same? It is a good way to the Castle--or perhaps he is
too fatigued for the afternoon service?"

"Oh no, I should like it very much. And, nurse, I do so want to see Mr.
Cardross's children; and Helen--who is Helen?"

"My daughter. Come here, Helen, and speak to the earl."

She came forward--the tall girl who had sat at the end of the pew, in
charge of the six boys--came forward in her serious, gentle, motherly
way--alas! She was the only mother at the Manse now--and put out
her hand, but instinctively drew it back again; for oh! what poor,
helpless, unnatural-looking fingers were feebly advanced an inch or so
to meet hers! They actually shocked her--gave her a sick sense of
physical repulsion; but she conquered it. Then, by a sudden impulse of
conscience, quite forgetting the rank of the earl, and only thinking of
the poor, crippled, orphaned baby--for he seemed no more than a baby
--Helen did what her warm, loving heart was in the habit of doing, as
silent consolation for every thing, to her own tribe of "motherless
bairns"--she stooped forward and kissed him.

The little earl was so astonished that he blushed up to the very brow.
But from that minute he loved Helen Cardross, and never ceased loving
her to the end of his days.

She led the way to the Manse, which was so close behind the kirk that
the back windows of it looked on the grave-yard. But in front there was
a beautiful lawn and garden--the prettiest Manse garden that ever was
seen. Helen stepped through it with her light, quick step, a child
clinging to each hand, often turning round to speak to Malcolm or to the
earl. He followed her with his eyes and thought she was like a picture
he had once seen of a guardian angel leading two children along, though
there was not a bit of the angel about Helen Cardross--externally at
least, she being one of those large, rosy, round-face, flaxen-haired
Scotch girls who are far from pretty even in youth, and in middle age
sometimes grow quite coarse and plain. She would not do so, and did
not; for any body so good, so sweet, so bright, must always carry about
with her, even to old age, something which, if not beauty's self, is
beauty's atmosphere, and which often creates, even around unlovely
people, a light and glory as perfect as the atmosphere round the sun.

She took her seat--her poor mother's that used to be--at the head
of the Manse table--which was a little quieter on Sundays than
week-days, and especially this Sunday, when the children were all awed
and shy before their new visitor. Helen had previously taken them all
aside, and explained to them that they were not to notice any thing in
the earl that was different from other people--that he was a poor
little crippled boy who had neither father, mother, brother, nor sister,
that they were to be very kind to him, but not to look at him much, and
to make no remarks upon him on any account whatever.

And so, even though he was placed on baby's high chair, and fed by
Malcolm almost as if he were a baby--he who, though no bigger than a
baby, was in reality a boy of ten years old, whom papa talked to, and
who talked with papa almost as cleverly as Helen herself--still the
Manse children were so well behaved that nothing occurred to make any
body uncomfortable.

For the little earl, he seemed to enjoy himself amazingly. He sat in
his high chair, and looked round the well-filled table with mingled
curiosity and amusement; inquired the children's names, and was greatly
interested in the dog, the cat, a rabbit, and two kittens, which after
dinner they successively brought to amuse him. And then he invited them
all to the Castle next day, and promised to take them over his garden
there.

"But how can you take us?" said the youngest, in spite of Helen's frown.
"We can run about, but you--"

"I can't run about, that is true; but I have a little carriage, and
Malcolm draws it, or Malcolm carries me, and then I can see such a deal.
I used to see nothing--only lie on a sofa all day, and have doctors
coming about me and hurting me," added the poor little earl, growing
confidential, as one by one the boys slipped away, leaving him alone
with Helen.

"Did they hurt you very much:" asked she.

"Oh, terribly; but I never told. You see, there was no use in telling;
it could not be helped, and it would only have made nurse cry--she
always cries over me. I think that is why I like Malcolm; he always
helps me, and he never cries. And I am getting a great boy now; I was
ten years old last week."

Ten years old, though he seemed scarcely more than five, except by the
old look of his face. But Helen took no notice, only saying "that she
hoped the doctors did not hurt him now."

"No, that is all over. Dr Hamilton says I am to be left to Nature,
whatever that is; I overheard him say it one day. And I begged of Mr.
Menteith not to shut me up any longer, or take me out only in my
carriage, but to let me go about as I like, Malcolm carrying me--
isn't he a big, strong fellow? You can't think how nice it is to be
carried about, and see every thing--oh, it makes me so happy!"

The tone in which he said "so happy" made the tears start to Helen's
eyes. She turned away to the window, where she saw her own big
brothers, homely-featured, and coarsely clad, but full of health, and
strength, and activity, and then looked at this poor boy, who had every
thing that fortune could give, and yet--nothing! She thought how
they grumbled and squabbled, those rough lads of hers; how she herself
often felt the burden of the large narrow household more than she could
bear, and lost heart and temper; then she thought of him--poor,
helpless soul!--you could hardly say body--who could neither move
hand nor foot--who was dependent as an infant on the kindness or
compassion of those about him. Yet he talked of being "so happy!" And
there entered into Helen Cardross's good heart toward the Earl of Cairn
forth a deep tenderness, which from that hour nothing ever altered or
estranged.

It was not pity--something far deeper. Had he been fretful,
fractious, disagreeable, she would still have been very sorry for him
and very kind to him. But now, to see him as he was--cheerful,
patient; so ready with his interest in others, so utterly without
envying and complaining regarding himself--changed what would
otherwise have been mere compassion into actual reverence. As she sat
beside him in his little chair, not looking at him much, for she still
found it difficult to overcome the painful impression of the sight of
that crippled and deformed body, she felt a choking in her throat and a
dimness in her eyes--a longing to do any thing in the wide world that
would help or comfort the poor little earl.

"Do you learn any lessons?" asked she, thinking he seemed to enjoy
talking with her. "I thought at dinner today that you seemed to know a
great many things."

"Did I? That is very odd, for I fancied I knew nothing; and I want to
learn every thing--if Mr. Cardross will teach me. I should like to
sit and read all day long. I could do it by myself, now that I have
found out a way of holding the book and turning over the leaves without
nurse's helping me. Malcolm invented it--Malcolm is so clever and so
kind."

"Is Malcolm always with you?"

"Oh yes; how could I do without Malcolm? And you are quite sure your
father will teach me every thing I want to learn?" pursued the little
earl, very eagerly.

Helen was quite sure.

"And there is another thing. Mr. Menteith says I must try, if possible,
to learn to write--if only so as to be able to sign my name. In
eleven more years, when I am a man, he says I shall often be required to
sign my name. Do you think I could manage to learn?"

Helen looked at the poor, twisted, powerless fingers, and doubted it
very much. Still she said cheerfully, "It would anyhow be a good thing
to try."

"So it would--and I'll try. I'll begin tomorrow. Will you"--with
a pathetic entreaty in the soft eyes--"it might be too much trouble
for Mr. Cardross--but will you teach me?"

"Yes, my dear!" said Helen, warmly, "that I will."

"Thank you. And"--still hesitating--"please would you always call
me 'my dear' instead of 'my lord;' and might I call you Helen?"

So they "made a paction 'twixt them twa"--the poor little helpless,
crippled boy, and the bright, active, energetic girl--the earl's son
and minister's daughter--one of those pactions which grow out of an
inner similitude which counteracts all outward dissimilarity; and they
never broke it while they lived.

"Has my lamb enjoyed himself?" inquired Mrs. Campbell, anxiously and
affectionately, when she reappeared from the Manse kitchen. Then, with
a sudden resumption of dignity, "I beg your pardon, Miss Cardross, but
this is the first time his lordship has ever been out to dinner."

"Oh, nurse, how I wish I might go out to dinner every Sunday! I am sure
this has been the happiest day of all my life."





Chapter 4

If the "happiest day in all his life" had been the first day the earl
spent at Cairnforth Manse, which very likely it was, he took the first
possible opportunity of renewing his happiness.

Early on Monday forenoon, while Helen's ever-active hands were still
busy clearing away the six empty porridge plates, and the one tea-cup
which had contained the beverage which the minister loved, but which was
too dear a luxury for any but the father of the family, Malcolm
Campbell's large shadow was seen darkening the window.

"There's the earl!" cried Helen, whose quick eye had already caught
sight of the white little face muffled up in Malcolm's plaid, and the
soft black curls resting on his shoulder, damp with rain, and blown
about by the wind, for it was what they called at Loch Beg a "coarse"
day.

"My lord was awful' set upon coming," said Malcolm apologetically; "and
when my lord taks a thing into his heid, he'll aye do't, ye ken."

"We are very glad to see the earl," returned the minister, who
nevertheless looked a little perplexed; for, while finishing his
breakfast, he had been confiding to Helen how very nervous he felt about
this morning's duties at the Castle--how painful it would be to teach
a child so afflicted, and how he wished he had thought twice before he
undertook the charge. And Helen had been trying to encourage him by
telling him all that had passed between herself and the boy--how
intelligent he had seemed, and how eager to learn. Still, the very fact
that they had been discussing him made Mr. Cardross feel slightly
confused. Men shrink so much more than women from any physical
suffering or deformity; besides, except those few moments in the church,
this was really the first time he had beheld Lord Cairnforth; for on
Sundays it was the minister's habit to pass the whole time between
sermons in his study, and not join the family table until tea.

"We are very glad to see the earl at all times," repeated he, but
hesitatingly, as if not sure that he was quite speaking the truth.

"Yes, very glad," added Helen, hastily, fancying she could detect in the
prematurely acute and sensitive face a consciousness that he was not
altogether welcome. "My father was this minute preparing to start for
the Castle."

"My Lord didna like to trouble the minister to be walking out this
coarse day," said Malcolm, with true Highland ingenuity of politeness.
"His lordship thocht that instead o' Mr. Cardross coming to him, he
would just come to Mr. Cardross."

"No, Malcolm," interposed the little voice, "it was not exactly that. I
wished for my own sake to come to the Manse again, and to ask if I might
come every day and take my lessons here--it's so dreary in that big
library. I'll not be much trouble, indeed, sir," he added,
entreatingly; "Malcolm will carry me in and carry me out. I can sit on
almost any sort of chair now; and with this wee bit of stick in my hand
I can turn over the leaves of my books my very own self--I assure you
I can."

The minister walked to the window. He literally could not speak for a
minute, he felt so deeply moved, and in his secret heart so very much
ashamed of himself.

When he turned round Malcolm had placed the little figure in an
arm-chair by the fire, and was busy unswathing the voluminous folds of
the plaid in which it had been wrapped. Helen, after a glance or two,
pretended to be equally busy over her daily duty--the common duty of
Scotch housewives at that period--of washing up the delicate china
with her own neat hands, and putting it safe away in the parlor press;
for, as before said, Mr. Cardross's income was very small, and, like
that of most country ministers, very uncertain, his stipend altering
year by year, according to the price of corn. They kept one "lassie" to
help, but Helen herself had to do a great deal of the housework. She
went on doing it now, as probably she would in any case, being at once
too simple and too proud to be ashamed of it; still, she was glad to
seem busy, lest the earl might have fancied she was watching him.

Her feminine instinct had been right. Now for the first time taken out
of his shut-up nursery life, where he himself had been the principal
object--where he had no playfellows and no companions save those he
had been used to from infancy--removed from this, and brought into
ordinary family life, the poor child felt--he could not but feel--
the sad, sad difference between himself and all the rest of the world.
His color came and went--he looked anxiously, deprecatingly, at Mr.
Cardross.

"I hope, sir, you are not displeased with me for coming to-day. I shall
not be very much trouble to you--at least I will try to be as little
trouble as I can."

"My boy," said the minister, crossing over to him and laying his hand
upon his head, "You will not be the least trouble; and if you were ever
so much, I would undertake it for the sake of your father and mother,
and--" he added, more to himself than aloud--"for your own."

That was true. Nature, which is never without her compensations, had
put into this child of ten years old a strange charm, and inexpressible
loveableness which springs from lovingness, though every loving nature
is not fortunate enough to possess it. But the earl's did; and as he
looked up into the minister's face, with that touchingly grateful
expression he had, the good man felt his heart melt and brim over at his
eyes.

"You don't dislike me, then, because--because I am not like other
boys?"

Mr. Cardross smiled, though his eyes were still dim, and his voice not
clear; and with that smile vanished forever the slight repulsion he had
felt to the poor child. He took him permanently into his good heart,
and from his manner the earl at once knew that it was so.

He brightened up immediately.

"Now, Malcolm, carry me in; I'm quite ready," said he, in a tone which
indicated that quality, discernible even at so early an age--a "will
of his own." To see the way he ordered Malcolm about--the big fellow
obeying him, with something beyond even the large limits of that feudal
respect which his forbears had paid to the earl's forbears for many a
generation, was a sight at once touching and hopeful.

"There--put me into the child's chair I had at dinner yesterday. Now
fetch me a pillow--or rather roll up your plaid into one--don't
trouble Miss Cardross. That will make me quite comfortable. Pull out
my books from your pouch, Malcolm, and spread them out on the table, and
then go and have a crack with your old friends at the clachan; you can
come for me in two hours."

It was strange to see the little figure giving its orders, and settling
itself with the preciseness of an old man at the study-table; but still
this removed somewhat of the painful shyness and uncomfortableness from
every body, and especially from Mr. Cardross. He sat himself down in
his familiar arm-chair, and looked across the table at his poor little
pupil, who seemed at once so helpless and so strong.

Lessons begun. The child was exceedingly intelligent--precociously,
nay, preternaturally so, it appeared to Mr. Cardross, who, like many
another learned father, had been blessed with rather stupid boys, who
liked any thing better than study, and whom he had with great labor
dragged through a course of ordinary English, Latin, and even a fragment
of Greek. But this boy seemed all brains. His cheeks flushed, his eyes
glittered, he learned as if he actually enjoyed learning. True, as Mr.
Cardross soon discovered, his acquirements were not at all in the
regular routine of education; he was greatly at fault in many simple
things; but the amount of heterogeneous and out-of-the-way knowledge
which he had gathered up, from all available sources, was quite
marvelous. And, above all, to teach a boy unto whom learning seemed a
pleasure rather than a torment, a favor instead of a punishment, was
such an exceeding and novel delight to the good minister, that soon he
forgot the crippled figure--the helpless hands that sometimes with
fingers, sometimes even with teeth, painfully guided the ingeniously cut
forked stick, and the thin face that only too often turned white and
weary, but quickly looked up, as if struggling against weakness, and
concentrating all attention on the work that was to be done.

At twelve o'clock Helen came in with her father's lunch--a foaming
glass of new milk, warm from the cow. The little earl looked at it with
eager eyes.

"Will I bring you one too?" said Helen.

"Oh--thank you; I am so thirsty. And, please, would you move me a
little--just a very little; I don't often sit so long in one
position. It won't trouble you very much, will it?"

"Not at all, if you will only show me how," stammered Helen, turning hot
and red. But, shaking off her hesitation, she lifted up the poor child
tenderly and carefully, shook his pillows and "sorted" him according to
her own untranslatable Scotch word, then went quickly out of the room to
compose herself, for she had done it all, trembling exceedingly the
while. And yet, somehow, a feeling of great tenderness--tenderer
than even she had felt successively toward her own baby brothers, had
grown up in her heart toward him, taking away every possible feeling of
repulsion on account of his deformity.

She brought back the glass of creamy milk and a bit of oatcake, and laid
them beside the earl. He regarded them wistfully.

"How nice the milk looks! I am so tired--and so thirsty. Please--
would you give me some? Just hold the glass, that's all, and I can
manage."

Helen held it to his lips--the first time she ever did so, but not
the last by many. Years and years from then, when she herself was quite
an old woman, she remembered, giving him that drink of milk, and how,
afterward, two large soft eyes were turned upon hers so lovingly, so
gratefully, as if the poor cripple had drank in something besides milk
---the sweet draught of human affection, not dried up even to such
heavily afflicted ones as he.

"Are the lessons all done for to-day, papa?" said she, noticing that,
eager as it was, the little face looked very wan and wearied, but also
noticing with delight that her father's expression was brighter and more
interested than it had been this long time.

"Done, Helen? Well, if my pupil is tired, certainly."

"But I'm not tired, sir."

Helen shook her motherly head: "Quite enough for to-day. You may come
back again to-morrow."

He did come back. Day after day, in fair weather or foul, big Malcolm
was to be seen stepping with his free Highland step--Malcolm was a
lissome, handsome young fellow--across the Manse garden, carrying
that small frail burden, which all the inhabitants of the clachan had
ceased to stare at, and to which they all raised their bonnets or
touched their shaggy forelocks. "It's the wee earl, ye ken," and one
and all treated with the utmost respect the tiny figure wrapped in a
plaid, so that nothing was visible except a small child's face, which
always smiled at sight of other children.

It was surprising in how few days the clachan, and indeed the whole
neighborhood, grew accustomed to the appearance of the earl and his sad
story. Perhaps this was partly due to Helen and Mr. Cardross, who,
seeing no longer any occasion for mystery, indeed regretting a little
that any mystery had ever been made about the matter, took every
opportunity of telling every body who inquired the whole facts of the
case.

These were few enough and simple enough, though very sad. The Earl--
the last Earl of Cairnforth--was a hopeless cripple for life. All
the consultations of all the doctors had resulted in that conclusion.
It was very unlikely he would ever be better than he was now physically,
but mentally he was certainly "a' richt"--or "a' there," as the
country-folk express it. There was, as Mr. Cardross carefully explained
to every body, not the slightest ground for supposing him deficient in
intellect; on the contrary, his intellect seemed almost painfully acute.
The quickness with which he learned his lessons surpassed that of any
boy of his age the minister had ever known; and he noticed every thing
around him so closely, and made such intelligent remarks, that to talk
with him was like talking with a grown man. Before the first week was
over Mr. Cardross began actually to enjoy the child's company, and to
look forward to lesson hours as the pleasantest hours of his day; for,
since the Castle was close, the minister's lot had been the almost
inevitable lot of a country clergyman, whose parish contains many
excellent people, who look up to him with the utmost reverence, and for
whom he entertains the sincere respect that worth must always feel
toward worth, but with whom he had very few intellectual sympathies. In
truth, since Mrs. Cardross died the minister had shut himself up almost
entirely, and had scarcely had a single interest out of his own study
until the earl came home to Cairnforth.

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