Chapter 9

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_ This summer, which, as it glided away, Lord Cairnforth often declared to be the happiest of his life, ended by bringing him the first heavy affliction--external affliction--which his life had ever known.

Suddenly, in the midst of the late-earned rest of a very toilsome career, died Mr. Menteith, the earl's long-faithful friend, who had been almost as good to him as a father. He felt it sorely; the more so, because, though his own frail life seemed always under the imminent shadow of death, death had never touched him before as regarded other people. He had lived, as we all unconsciously do, till the great enemy smites us, feeling as if, whatever might be the case with himself, those whom he loved could never die. This grief was something quite new to him, and it struck him hard.

The tidings came on a gloomy day in late October, the season when Cairnforth is least beautiful; for the thick woods about it make the always damp atmosphere heavy with "the moist, rich smell of the rotting leaves," and the roads lying deep in mud, and the low shore hung with constant mists, give a general impression of dreariness. The far-away hills vanish entirely for days together, and the loch itself takes a leaden hue, as if it never could be blue again. You can hardly believe that the sun will ever again shine out upon it; the white waves rise, the mountains reappear, and the whole scene grows clear and lovely, as life does sometimes if we have only patience to endure through the weary winter until spring.

But for the good man, John Menteith, his springs and winter were alike ended; he was gathered to his fathers, and his late ward mourned him bitterly.

Mr. Cardross and Helen, coming up to the Castle as soon as the news reached them, found Lord Cairnforth in a state of depression such as they had never before witnessed in him. One of the things which seemed to affect him most painfully, as small things sometimes do in the midst of deepest grief, was that he could not attend Mr. Menteith's funeral.

"Every other man," said he, sadly, "every other man can follow his dear friends and kindred to the grave, can give them respect in death as he has given them love and help during life--I can do neither. I can help no one--be of use to no one. I am a mere cumberer of the ground. It would be better if I were away."

"Hush! Do not dare to say that," answered Mr. Cardross. And he sent the rest away, even Helen, and sat down beside his old pupil, not merely as a friend, but as a minister--in the deepest meaning of the word, even as it was first used of Him who "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister."

Helen's father was not a demonstrative man under ordinary circumstances; he was too much absorbed in his books, and in a sort of languid indifference to worldly matters, which had long hung over him, more or less, ever since his wife's death; but, when occasion arose, he could rise equal to it; and he was one of those comforters who knew the way through the valley of affliction by the marks which their own feet have trod.

He and the earl spent a whole hour alone together. Afterward, when sorrow, compared to which the present grief was calm and sacred, fell upon them both, they remembered this day, and were not afraid to open their wounded hearts to one another.

At last Mr. Cardross came out of the library, and told Helen that Lord Cairnforth wanted to speak to her.

"He wishes to have your opinion, as well as my own, about a journey he is projecting to Edinburg, and some business matters which he desires to arrange there. I think he would have like to see Captain Bruce too. Where is he?"

The captain had found this atmosphere of sorrow a little too overpowering, and had disappeared for a long ride; so Miss Cardross had been sitting alone all the time.

"Your father has been persuading me, Helen," said the earl, when she came in, "that I am not quite so useless in the world as I imagined. He says he has reason to believe, from things Mr. Menteith let fall, that my dear old friend's widow is not very well provided for, and she and her children will have a hard battle even now. Mr. Cardross thinks I can help her very materially, in one way especially. You know I have made my will?"

"Yes," replied unconscious Helen, "you told me so."

"Mr. Menteith drew it up the last time he was here. How little we thought it would be really the last time! Ah! Helen, if we could only look forward!"

"It is best not," said Helen, earnestly.

"Well, my will is made. And though in it I left nothing to Mr. Menteith himself, seeing that such a return of his kindness would be very unwelcome, I insisted doing what was equivalent--bequeathing a thousand pounds to each of his children. Was I right in that? You do not object"?

"Most assuredly not," answered Helen, though a little surprised at the question. Still, she was so long accustomed to be consulted by the earl, and to give her opinion frankly and freely on all points, that the surprise was only momentary.

"And, by the way, I mean to leave the same sum--one thousand pounds --to my cousin, Captain Bruce. Remember that, Helen; remember it particularly, will you? In case any thing should happen before I have time to add this to my will. But to the Menteiths. Your father thinks, and I agree with him, that the money I design for them will be far better spent now, or some portion of it, in helping these fatherless children on in the world, than in keeping them waiting for my death, which may not happen for years. What do you think?"

Helen agreed heartily. It would cause a certain diminution of yearly income, but then the earl had far more than enough for his own wants, and if not spent thus, the sum would certainly have been expended by him some other form of benevolence. She said as much.

"Possibly it might. What else should I do with it?" was Lord Cairnforth's answer. "But, in order to get at the money, and alter my will, so that in no case should this sum be paid twice over, to the injury of my heir--I must take care of my heir," and he slightly smiled, "I ought to go at once to Edinburg. Shall I?"

Helen hesitated. The earl's last journey had been so unpropitious-- he had taken so long a time to recover from it--that she had earnestly hoped he would never attempt another. She expressed this as delicately as she could.

"No, I never would have attempted it for myself. Change is only pain and weariness to me. I have no wish to leave dear, familiar Cairnforth till I leave it for--the place where my good old friend is now. And sometimes, Helen, I fancy the hills of Paradise will not be very unlike the hills about our loch. You would think of me far away, when you were looking at them sometimes?"

Helen fixed her tender eyes upon him--"It is quite as likely that you may have to think of me thus, for I may go first; I am the elder of us two. But all that is in God's hands alone. About Edinburg now. When should you start?"

"At once, I think; though, with my slow traveling, I should not be in time for the funeral; and even if I were, I could not attend it without giving much trouble to other people. But, as your father has shown me, the funeral does not signify. The great matter is to be of use to Mrs. Menteith and the children in the way I explained. Have I your consent, my dear!"

For an answer, Helen pointed to a few lines in a Bible which lay open on the library table: no doubt her father had been reading out of it, for it was open at that portion which seems to have plumbed the depth of all human anguish--the Book of Job. She repeated the verses:

"'When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me;

"'Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him:

"'The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.'

"That is what will be said of you one day, Lord Cairnforth. Is not this something worth living for?"

"Ay, it is!" replied the earl, deeply moved; and Helen was scarcely less so.

They discussed no more the journey to Edinburg; but Lord Cairnforth, in his decided way, gave orders immediately to prepare for it, taking with him, as usual, Malcolm and Mrs. Campbell. By the time Captain Bruce returned from his ride, the guest was startled by the news that his host meant to quit Cairnforth at daylight the next morning, which appeared to disconcert the captain exceedingly.

"I would volunteer to accompany you, cousin," said he, after expressing his extreme surprise and regret, "but the winds of Edinburg are ruin to my weak lungs, which the air here suits so well. So I must prepare to quit pleasant Cairnforth, where I have received so much kindness, and which I have grown to regard almost like home--the nearest approach to home that in my sad, wandering life I ever knew."

There was an unmistakable regret in the young man's tone which, in spite of his own trouble, went to the earl's good heart.

"Why should you leave at all?" said he. "Why not remain here and await my return, which can not be long delayed--two months at most--even counting my slow traveling? I will give you something to do meanwhile: I will make you viceroy of Cairnforth during my absence--that is, under Miss Cardross, who alone knows all the parish affairs--and mine. Will you accept the office?"

"Under Miss Cardross?" Captain Bruce laughed, but did not seem quite to relish it. However, he expressed much gratitude at having been thought worthy of the earl's confidence.

"Don't be humble, my good cousin and friend. If I did not trust you, and like you, I should never think of asking you to stay. Mr. Cardross --Helen--what do you say to my plan"?

Both gave a cordial assent, as was indeed certain. Nothing ill was known of Captain Bruce, and nothing noticed in him unlikeable, or unworthy of liking. And even as to his family, who wrote to him constantly, and whose letters he often showed, there had appeared sufficient evidence in their favor to counterbalance much of the suspicions against them, so that the earl was glad he had leaned to the charitable side in making his cousin welcome to Cairnforth; glad, too, that he could atone by warm confidence and extra kindness for what now seemed too long a neglect of those who were really his nearest kith and kin.

Mr. Cardross also; any prejudices he had from his knowledge of the late earl's troubles with the Bruces were long ago dispersed. And Helen was too innocent herself ever to have had a prejudice at all. She said, when appealed to pointedly by the earl, as he now often appealed to her in many things, that she thought the scheme both pleasant and advisable.

"And now, papa," added she, for her watchful eye detected Lord Cairnforth's pale face and wearied air, "let us say good-night--and good-by."

Long after, they remembered, all of them, what an exceedingly quiet and ordinary good-by it was, none having the slightest feeling that it was more than a temporary parting. The whole thing had been so sudden, and the day's events appeared quite shadowy, and as if every body would wake up to-morrow morning to find them nothing but a dream.

Besides, there was a little hurrying and confusion consequent on the earl's insisting on sending the Cardrosses home, for the dull, calm day had changed into the wildest of nights--one of those sudden equinoctial storms, that in an hour or two alter the whole aspect of things this region.

"You must take the carriage, Helen--you and your father; it is the last thing I can do for you--and I would do every thing in the world for you if I could; but I shall, one day. Good-by. Take care of yourself, my dear."

These were the earl's farewell words to her. She was so accustomed to his goodness and kindness that she never thought much about them till long afterward, when kindness was gone, and goodness seemed the merest delusion and dream.

When his friends had departed, Lord Cairnforth sat silent and melancholy. His cousin good-naturedly tried to rouse him into the usual contest at chess with which they had begun to while away the long winter evenings, and which just suited Lord Cairnforth's acute, accurate, and introspective brain, accustomed to plan and to order, so that he delighted in the game, and was soon as good a player as his teacher. But now his mind was disturbed and restless; he sat by the fireside, listening to the fierce wind that went howling round and round the Castle, as the wind can howl along the sometimes placid shores of Loch Beg.

"I hope they have reached the Manse in safety. Let me know, Malcolm, when the carriage returns. I will go to bed then. I wish they would have remained here; but the minister never will stay; he dislikes sleeping a single night from under his own roof. Is he not a good man, cousin--one of a thousand?"

"I have not the slightest doubt of it."

"And his daughter--have you in any way modified your opinion of her, which at first was not very favorable?"

"Not as to her beauty, certainly," was the careless reply. "She's 'no bonnie,' as you say in these parts--terribly Scotch; but she is very good. Only don't you think good people are just a little wearisome sometimes?"

The earl smiled. He was accustomed to, and often rather amused by his cousin's honest worldliness and outspoken skepticisms--that candid confession of badness which always inclines a kindly heart to believe the very best of the penitent.

"Nevertheless, though Miss Cardross may be 'no bonnie,' and too good to please your taste, I hope you will go often to the Manse in my absence, and write me word how they are, otherwise I shall hear little--the minister's letters are too voluminous to be frequent--and Miss Cardross is not given to much correspondence."

Captain Bruce promised, and again the two young men sat silent, listening to the eerie howling of the wind. It inclined both of them to graver talk than was their habit when together.

"I wonder," said the earl, "whether this blast, according to popular superstition, is come to carry many souls away with it 'on the wings of the wind!' Where will they fly to the instant they leave the body? How free and happy they must feel!"

"What an odd fancy! And not a particularly pleasant one," replied the captain, with a shiver.

"Not unpleasant, to my mind. I like to think of these things. If I were out of the body, I should, if I could fly back to Cairnforth."

"Pray don't imagine such dreadful things. May you live a hundred years!"

"Not quite, I hope. A hundred years--of my life! No. the most loving friend I have would not wish it for me." Then, suddenly, as with an impulse created by the sad events of the day--the stormy night-- and the disturbed state of his own mental condition, inclining him to any sort of companionship, "Cousin, I am going to trust you, specially, in a matter of business which I wish named to the Cardrosses. I should have done so before they left to-night. May I confide to you the message?"

"Willingly. What is it about?" and the captain's keen black eyes assumed an expression which, if the earl had noticed, he might have repented of his trust. But no, he never would have noticed it. His upright, honest nature, though capable of great reserve, was utterly incapable of false pretense, deceit, or self-interested diplomacy. And what was impossible in himself he never suspected in other people. He thought his cousin shallow sometimes, but good-natured; a little worldly, perhaps, but always well-meaning. That Captain Bruce could have come to Cairnforth for any other purpose than mere curiosity, and remained there for any motive except idleness and the pursuit of health, did not occur to Lord Cairnforth.

"It is on the subject that you so much dislike my talking about--my own death; a probability which I have to consider, as being rather nearer to me than it is to most people. Should I die, will you remember that my will lies at the office of Menteith and Ross, Edinburg?"

"So you have made your will?" said the captain, rather eagerly; then added, "What a courageous man you are! I never durst make mine. But then, to be sure, I have nothing to leave--except my sword, which I hereby make over to you, well-beloved cousin."

"Thank you, though I should have very little use it. And that reminds me to explain something. The day I made my will was, by an odd chance, the day you arrived here. Had I know you then, I should have named you in it, leaving you--I may as well tell you the sum--a thousand pounds, in token of cousinly regard."

"You are exceedingly kind, but I am no fortune-hunter."

"I know that. Still, the legacy may not be useless. I shall make it legally secure as soon as I get to Edinburg. In any case you are quite safe, for I have mentioned you to my heir."

"Your heir! Who do you mean?" interrupted Captain Bruce, thrown off his guard by excessive surprise.

The earl said, with a little dignity of manner, "It is scarcely needful to answer your question. The title, you are aware, will be extinct; I meant the successor to my landed property."

"Do I know the gentleman?"

"I named no gentleman."

"Not surely a lady? Not--" a light suddenly breaking in upon him, so startling that it overthrew all his self-control, and even his good breeding. "It can not possibly be Miss Helen Cardross?"

"Captain Bruce," said the earl, the angry color flashing all over his pale face, "I was simply communicating a message to you; there was no need for any farther questioning."

"I beg your pardon, Lord Cairnforth," returned the other, perceiving how great a mistake he had made. "I have no right whatever to question, or even to speculate concerning your heir, who is doubtless the fittest person you could have selected."

"Most certainly," replied the earl, in a manner which put a final stop to the conversation.

It was not resumed on any other topics; and shortly afterward, Malcolm having come in with the announcement that the carriage had returned from the Manse (at which Captain Bruce's sharp eyes were bent scrutinizing on the earl's face, but learned nothing thence), the cousins separated.

The captain had faithfully promised to be up at dawn to see the travelers off, but an apology came from him to the effect that the morning air was too damp for his lungs, and that he had spent a sleepless night owning to his cough.

"An' nae wonder," remarked Malcolm, cynically, as he delivered the message, "for I heard him a' through the wee hours walkin' and walkin' up and doun, for a' the world like a wolf in a cage. And eh, but he's dour the day!"

"A sickly man finds it difficult not to be dour at times," said the Earl of Cairnforth. _

Read next: Chapter 10

Read previous: Chapter 8

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