Master of Ballantrae | Page 8

by any luck, it should succeed. For the rest, he did very well in the field;
no one questioned that; for he was no coward.
The next was the news of Culloden, which was brought to Durrisdeer
by one of the tenants' sons - the only survivor, he declared, of all those
that had gone singing up the hill. By an unfortunate chance John Paul
and Macconochie had that very morning found the guinea piece - which
was the root of all the evil - sticking in a holly bush; they had been "up
the gait," as the servants say at Durrisdeer, to the change-house; and if
they had little left of the guinea, they had less of their wits. What must
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 the
door, and - wirra, wirra - there were nane to come behind him"?
They took the word in silence like folk condemned; only Mr. Henry
carrying his palm to his face, and Miss Alison laying her head outright
upon her hands. As for my lord, he was like ashes.
"I have still one son," says he. "And, Henry, I will do you this justice -
it is the kinder that is left."
It was a strange thing to say in such a moment; but my lord had never
forgotten Mr. Henry's speech, and he had years of injustice on his
conscience. Still it was a strange thing, and more than Miss Alison
could let pass. She broke out and blamed my lord for his unnatural
words, and Mr. Henry because he was sitting there in safety when his
brother lay dead, and herself because she had given her sweetheart ill

words at his departure, calling him the flower of the flock, wringing her
hands, protesting her love, and crying on him by his name - so that the
servants stood astonished.
Mr. Henry got to his feet, and stood holding his chair. It was he that
was 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 to him 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
were now 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 the estates; and the one brother being dead, my old lord soon set his
heart upon 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 his eyes set upon her face with a kind of pleasant intentness that
became the old gentleman very well. If she wept, he would condole
with her like an ancient man that has seen worse times and begins to
think lightly even of sorrow; 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, to let them have her money in a gift, he would
show her how little it consisted with his honour, and remind her, even
if he should consent, that Mr. Henry would certainly refuse. NON VI
SED SAEPE CADENDO was a favourite word of his; and no doubt
this quiet persecution wore away much of 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, she was herself filled with the
spirit of the Duries, and would have gone a great way for the glory of
Durrisdeer; but not so far, I think, as to marry my poor patron, had it
not been - strangely enough - for the circumstance of his extreme
unpopularity.
This was the work of Tam Macmorland. There was not much harm in
Tam; but he had that grievous weakness, a long tongue; and as the only
man in that country who had been out - or, rather, who had come in
again - he was sure of listeners. Those that have the underhand in any
fighting, I have observed, are ever anxious to persuade themselves they

were betrayed. By Tam's account of it, the rebels had been betrayed at
every turn and by every officer they had; they had been betrayed at
Derby, and betrayed at Falkirk; the night march was a step of treachery
of my Lord George's; and Culloden was lost