Bride's - old man, old servant, and altogether - I shall find some very astonishing way to make you smart for your disloyalty. Up and begone. The door you let them in by will serve for your departure.
I do not choose my son shall see your face again.""I am rejoiced to find you bear the thing so quietly," said I, when we were forth again by ourselves.
"Quietly!" cries he, and put my hand suddenly against his heart, which struck upon his bosom like a sledge.
At this revelation I was filled with wonder and fear. There was no constitution could bear so violent a strain - his least of all, that was unhinged already; and I decided in my mind that we must bring this monstrous situation to an end.
"It would be well, I think, if I took word to my lady," said I.
Indeed, he should have gone himself, but I counted - not in vain -on his indifference.
"Aye," says he, "do. I will hurry breakfast: we must all appear at the table, even Alexander; it must appear we are untroubled."I ran to my lady's room, and with no preparatory cruelty disclosed my news.
"My mind was long ago made up," said she. "We must make our packets secretly to-day, and leave secretly to-night. Thank Heaven, we have another house! The first ship that sails shall bear us to New York.""And what of him?" I asked.
"We leave him Durrisdeer," she cried. "Let him work his pleasure upon that.""Not so, by your leave," said I. "There shall be a dog at his heels that can hold fast. Bed he shall have, and board, and a horse to ride upon, if he behave himself; but the keys - if you think well of it, my lady - shall be left in the hands of one Mackellar. There will be good care taken; trust him for that.""Mr. Mackellar," she cried, "I thank you for that thought. All shall be left in your hands. If we must go into a savage country, I bequeath it to you to take our vengeance. Send Macconochie to St. Bride's, to arrange privately for horses and to call the lawyer. My lord must leave procuration."At that moment my lord came to the door, and we opened our plan to him.
"I will never hear of it," he cried; "he would think I feared him.
I will stay in my own house, please God, until I die. There lives not the man can beard me out of it. Once and for all, here I am, and here I stay in spite of all the devils in hell." I can give no idea of the vehemency of his words and utterance; but we both stood aghast, and I in particular, who had been a witness of his former self-restraint.
My lady looked at me with an appeal that went to my heart and recalled me to my wits. I made her a private sign to go, and when my lord and I were alone, went up to him where he was racing to and fro in one end of the room like a half-lunatic, and set my hand firmly on his shoulder.
"My lord," says I, "I am going to be the plain-dealer once more; if for the last time, so much the better, for I am grown weary of the part.""Nothing will change me," he answered. "God forbid I should refuse to hear you; but nothing will change me." This he said firmly, with no signal of the former violence, which already raised my hopes.
"Very well," said I "I can afford to waste my breath." I pointed to a chair, and he sat down and looked at me. "I can remember a time when my lady very much neglected you," said I.
"I never spoke of it while it lasted," returned my lord, with a high flush of colour; "and it is all changed now."'
"Do you know how much?" I said. "Do you know how much it is all changed? The tables are turned, my lord! It is my lady that now courts you for a word, a look - ay, and courts you in vain. Do you know with whom she passes her days while you are out gallivanting in the policies? My lord, she is glad to pass them with a certain dry old grieve (8) of the name of Ephraim Mackellar; and I think you may be able to remember what that means, for I am the more in a mistake or you were once driven to the same company yourself.""Mackellar!" cries my lord, getting to his feet. "O my God, Mackellar!""It is neither the name of Mackellar nor the name of God that can change the truth," said I; "and I am telling you the fact. Now for you, that suffered so much, to deal out the same suffering to another, is that the part of any Christian? But you are so swallowed up in your new friend that the old are all forgotten.
They are all clean vanished from your memory. And yet they stood by you at the darkest; my lady not the least. And does my lady ever cross your mind? Does it ever cross your mind what she went through that night? - or what manner of a wife she has been to you thenceforward? - or in what kind of a position she finds herself to-day? Never. It is your pride to stay and face him out, and she must stay along with you. Oh! my lord's pride - that's the great affair! And yet she is the woman, and you are a great hulking man!
She is the woman that you swore to protect; and, more betoken, the own mother of that son of yours!""You are speaking very bitterly, Mackellar," said he; "but, the Lord knows, I fear you are speaking very true. I have not proved worthy of my happiness. Bring my lady back."My lady was waiting near at hand to learn the issue. When Ibrought her in, my lord took a hand of each of us, and laid them both upon his bosom. "I have had two friends in my life," said he.
"All the comfort ever I had, it came from one or other. When you two are in a mind, I think I would be an ungrateful dog - " He shut his mouth very hard, and looked on us with swimming eyes. "Do what ye like with me," says he, "only don't think - " He stopped again. "Do what ye please with me: God knows I love and honour you." And dropping our two hands, he turned his back and went and gazed out of the window. But my lady ran after, calling his name, and threw herself upon his neck in a passion of weeping.
I went out and shut the door behind me, and stood and thanked God from the bottom of my heart.
