It is a strange thing that I should be at a stick for a date—the date, besides, of an incident that changed the very nature of my life, and sent us all into foreign lands. But the truth is, I was stricken out of all my habitudes, and find my journals very ill redd-up, [7] the day not indicated sometimes for a week or two together, and the whole fashion of the thing like that of a man near desperate. It was late in March at least, or early in April, 1764. I had slept heavily, and wakened with a premonition of some evil to befall. So strong was this upon my spirit that I hurried downstairs in my shirt and breeches, and my hand (I remember) shook upon the rail. It was a cold, sunny morning, with a thick white frost; the blackbirds sang exceeding sweet and loud about the house of Durrisdeer, and there was a noise of the sea in all the . As I came by the doors of the hall, another sound arrested me—of voices talking. I drew nearer, and stood like a man dreaming. Here was certainly a human voice, and that in my own master’s house, and yet I knew it not; certainly human speech, and that in my native land; and yet, listen as I pleased, I could not catch one . An old tale started up in my mind of a fairy wife (or perhaps only a wandering stranger), that came to the place of my fathers some generations back, and stayed the matter of a week, talking often in a tongue that signified nothing to the hearers; and went again, as she had come, under cloud of night, leaving not so much as a name behind her. A little fear I had, but more curiosity; and I opened the hall-door, and entered.
 
The supper-things still lay upon the table; the were still closed, although day peeped in the divisions; and the great room was lighted only with a single and some lurching of the fire. Close in the chimney sat two men. The one that was wrapped in a cloak and wore boots, I knew at once: it was the bird of ill back again. Of the other, who was set close to the red embers, and made up into a bundle like a mummy, I could but see that he was an alien, of a darker than any man of Europe, very built, with a singular tall forehead, and a secret eye. Several bundles and a small valise were on the floor; and to judge by the smallness of this luggage, and by the condition of the Master’s boots, grossly patched by some unscrupulous country cobbler, evil had not .
 
He rose upon my entrance; our eyes crossed; and I know not why it should have been, but my courage rose like a on a May morning.
 
“Ha!” said I, “is this you?”—and I was pleased with the unconcern of my own voice.
 
“It is even myself, Mackellar,” says the Master.
 
“This time you have brought the black dog visibly upon your back,” I continued.
 
“Referring to Secundra Dass?” asked the Master. “Let me present you. He is a native gentleman of India.”
 
“Hum!” said I. “I am no great lover either of you or your friends, Mr. Bally. But I will let a little daylight in, and have a look at you.” And so saying, I the shutters of the eastern window.
 
By the light of the morning I could perceive the man was changed. Later, when we were all together, I was more struck to see how lightly time had dealt with him; but the first glance was otherwise.
 
“You are getting an old man,” said I.
 
A shade came upon his face. “If you could see yourself,” said he, “you would perhaps not dwell upon the topic.”
 
“Hut!” I returned, “old age is nothing to me. I think I have been always old; and I am now, I thank God, better known and more respected. It is not every one that can say that, Mr. Bally! The lines in your brow are ; your life begins to close in upon you like a prison; death will soon be rapping at the door; and I see not from what source you are to draw your .”
 
Here the Master addressed himself to Secundra Dass in Hindustanee, from which I gathered (I freely confess, with a high degree of pleasure) that my remarks annoyed him. All this while, you may be sure, my mind had been busy upon other matters, even while I rallied my enemy; and chiefly as to how I should communicate secretly and quickly with my lord. To this, in the breathing-space now given me, I turned all the forces of my mind; when, suddenly shifting my eyes, I was aware of the man himself in the , and, to all appearance, quite composed. He had no sooner met my looks than he stepped across the threshold. The Master heard him coming, and advanced upon the other side; about four feet apart, these brothers came to a full pause, and stood exchanging steady looks, and then my lord smiled, bowed a little forward, and turned briskly away.
 
“Mackellar,” says he, “we must see to breakfast for these travellers.”
 
It was plain the Master was a trifle disconcerted; but he assumed the more of speech and manner. “I am as hungry as a hawk,” says he. “Let it be something good, Henry.”
 
My lord turned to him with the same hard smile.
 
“Lord Durrisdeer,” says he.
 
“Oh! never in the family,” returned the Master.
 
“Every one in this house renders me my proper title,” says my lord. “If it please you to make an exception, I will leave you to consider what appearance it will bear to strangers, and whether it may not be translated as an effect of impotent .”
 
I could have clapped my hands together with delight: the more so as my lord left no time for any answer, but, bidding me with a sign to follow him, went straight out of the hall.
 
“Come quick,” says he; “we have to sweep vermin from the house.” And he sped through the passages, with so swift a step that I could scarce keep up with him, straight to the door of John Paul, the which he opened without summons and walked in. John was, to all appearance, sound asleep, but my lord made no of waking him.
 
“John Paul,” said he, speaking as quietly as ever I heard him, “you served my father long, or I would pack you from the house like a dog. If in half an hour’s time I find you gone, you shall continue to receive your wages in Edinburgh. If you linger here or in St. 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 again by ourselves.
 
“Quietly!” cries he, and put my hand suddenly against his heart, which struck upon his like a .
 
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 in my mind that we must bring this 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 .
 
“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 country, I bequeath it to you to take our . Send Macconochie to St. Bride’s, to arrange 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 ; 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 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 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 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 ? 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 , 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 I brought 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.
 
At the breakfast board, according to my lord’s design, we were all met. The Master had by that time plucked off his patched boots and made a toilet suitable to the hour; Secundra Dass was no longer bundled up in wrappers, but wore a decent plain black suit, which misbecame him strangely; and the pair were at the great window, looking forth, when the family entered. They turned; and the black man (as they had already named him in the house) bowed almost to his knees, but the Master was for running forward like one of the family. My lady stopped him, curtseying low from the far end of the hall, and keeping her children at her back. My lord was a little in front: so there were the three cousins of Durrisdeer face to face. The hand of time was very legible on all; I seemed to read in their changed faces a mori; and what me still more, it was the wicked man that bore his years the handsomest. My lady was quite transfigured into the matron, a becoming woman for the head of a great tableful of children and dependents. My lord was grown slack in his limbs; he stooped; he walked with a running motion, as though he had learned again from Mr. Alexander; his face was ; it seemed a trifle longer than of old; and it wore at times a smile very singularly , and which (in my eyes) appeared both bitter and pathetic. But the Master still bore himself , although perhaps with effort; his brow barred about the centre with imperious lines, his mouth set as for command. He had all the gravity and something of the splendour of Satan in the “Paradise Lost.” I could not help but see the man with , and was only surprised that I saw him with so little fear.
 
But indeed (as long as we were at the table) it seemed as if his authority were quite vanished and his teeth all drawn. We had known him a magician that controlled the elements; and here he was, transformed into an ordinary gentleman, chatting like his neighbours at the breakfast-board. For now the father was dead, and my lord and lady reconciled, in what ear was he to pour his ? It came upon me in a kind of vision how hugely I had overrated the man’s . He had his still; he was false as ever; and, the occasion being gone that made his strength, he sat there impotent; he was still the , but now spent his on a file. Two more thoughts occurred to me while yet we sat at breakfast: the first, that he was abashed—I had almost said, distressed—to find his wickedness quite unavailing; the second, that perhaps my lord was in the right, and we did amiss to fly from our dismasted enemy. But my poor man’s leaping heart came in my mind, and I remembered it was for his life we played the coward.
 
When the meal was over, the Master followed me to my room, and, taking a chair (which I had never offered him), asked me what was to be done with him.
 
“Why, Mr. Bally,” said I, “the house will still be open to you for a time.”
 
“For a time?” says he. “I do not know if I quite take your meaning.”
 
“It is plain enough,” said I. “We keep you for our reputation; as soon as you shall have publicly disgraced yourself by some of your misconduct, we shall pack you forth again.”
 
“You are become an rogue,” said the Master, bending his brows at me dangerously.
 
“I learned in a good school,” I returned. “And you must have perceived yourself that with my old lord’s death your power is quite departed. I do not fear you now, Mr. Bally; I think even—God forgive me—that I take a certain pleasure in your company.”
 
He broke out in a burst of laughter, which I clearly saw to be assumed.
 
“I have come with empty pockets,” says he, after a pause.
 
“I do not think there will be any money going,” I replied. “I would advise you not to build on that.”
 
“I shall have something to say on the point,” he returned.
 
“Indeed?” said I. “I have not a guess what it will be, then.”
 
“Oh! you affect confidence,” said the Master. “I have still one strong position—that you people fear a scandal, and I enjoy it.”
 
“Pardon me, Mr. Bally,” says I. “We do not in the least fear a scandal against you.”
 
He laughed again. “You have been studying repartee,” he said. “But speech is very easy, and sometimes very . I warn you fairly: you will find me vitriol in the house. You would do wiser to pay money down and see my back.” And with that he waved his hand to me and left the room.
 
A little after, my lord came with the lawyer, Mr. Carlyle; a bottle of old wine was brought, and we all had a glass before we fell to business. The necessary deeds were then prepared and executed, and the estates made over in trust to Mr. Carlyle and myself.
 
“There is one point, Mr. Carlyle,” said my lord, when these affairs had been adjusted, “on which I wish that you would do us justice. This sudden departure coinciding with my brother’s return will be certainly commented on. I wish you would discourage any conjunction of the two.”
 
“I will make a point of it, my lord,” said Mr. Carlyle. “The Mas— Bally does not, then, accompany you?”
 
“It is a point I must approach,” said my lord. “Mr. Bally at Durrisdeer, under the care of Mr. Mackellar; and I do not mean that he shall even know our destination.”
 
“Common report, however—” began the lawyer.
 
“Ah! but, Mr. Carlyle, this is to be a secret quite among ourselves,” interrupted my lord. “None but you and Mackellar are to be made acquainted with my movements.”
 
“And Mr. Bally stays here? Quite so,” said Mr. Carlyle. “The powers you leave—” Then he broke off again. “Mr. Mackellar, we have a rather heavy weight upon us.”
 
“No doubt,” said I.
 
“No doubt,” said he. “Mr. Bally will have no voice?”
 
“He will have no voice,” said my lord; “and, I hope, no influence. Mr. Bally is not a good .”
 
“I see,” said the lawyer. “By the way, has Mr. Bally means?”
 
“I understand him to have nothing,” replied my lord. “I give him table, fire, and candle in this house.”
 
“And in the matter of an allowance? If I am to share the responsibility, you will see how highly desirable it is that I should understand your views,” said the lawyer. “On the question of an allowance?”
 
“There will be no allowance,” said my lord. “I wish Mr. Bally to live very private. We have not always been gratified with his behaviour.”
 
“And in the matter of money,” I added, “he has shown himself an bad husband. Glance your eye upon that docket, Mr. Carlyle, where I have brought together the different sums the man has drawn from the estate in the last fifteen or twenty years. The total is pretty.”
 
Mr. Carlyle made the motion of whistling. “I had no guess of this,” said he. “Excuse me once more, my lord, if I appear to push you; but it is really desirable I should your intentions. Mr. Mackellar might die, when I should find myself alone upon this trust. Would it not be rather your lordship’s preference that Mr. Bally should—ahem—should leave the country?”
 
My lord looked at Mr. Carlyle. “Why do you ask that?” said he.
 
“I gather, my lord, that Mr. Bally is not a comfort to his family,” says the lawyer with a smile.
 
My lord’s face became suddenly knotted. “I wish he was in hell!” cried he, and filled himself a glass of wine, but with a hand so that he spilled the half into his bosom. This was the second time that, in the midst of the most regular and wise behaviour, his animosity had spirted out. It startled Mr. Carlyle, who observed my lord thenceforth with curiosity; and to me it restored the certainty that we were for the best in view of my lord’s health and reason.
 
Except for this explosion the interview was very successfully conducted. No doubt Mr. Carlyle would talk, as lawyers do, little by little. We could thus feel we had laid the foundations of a better feeling in the country, and the man’s own misconduct would certainly complete what we had begun. Indeed, before his departure, the lawyer showed us there had already gone abroad some glimmerings of the truth.
 
“I should perhaps explain to you, my lord,” said he, pausing, with his hat in his hand, “that I have not been altogether surprised with your lordship’s in the case of Mr. Bally. Something of this nature out when he was last in Durrisdeer. There was some talk of a woman at St. Bride’s, to whom you had behaved extremely handsome, and Mr. Bally with no small degree of cruelty. There was the , again, which was much . In short, there was no want of talk, back and forward; and some of our wise-acres took up a strong opinion. I remained in , as became one of my cloth; but Mr. Mackellar’s docke............