The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter's Tale by Robert Louis Stevenson (trending books to read TXT) 📗
- Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
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“My Lord Durrisdeer, no doubt?” says the Colonel, bowing, and my lord bowed in answer. “And this,” continues the Colonel, “should be the Master of Ballantrae?”
“I have never taken that name,” said Mr. Henry; “but I am Henry Durie, at your service.”
Then the Colonel turns to Mrs. Henry, bowing with his hat upon his heart and the most killing airs of gallantry. “There can be no mistake about so fine a figure of a lady,” says he. “I address the seductive Miss Alison, of whom I have so often heard?”
Once more husband and wife exchanged a look.
“I am Mrs. Henry Durie,” said she; “but before my marriage my name was Alison Graeme.”
Then my lord spoke up. “I am an old man, Colonel Burke,” said he, “and a frail one. It will be mercy on your part to be expeditious. Do you bring me news of—” he hesitated, and then the words broke from him with a singular change of voice—“my son?”
“My dear lord, I will be round with you like a soldier,” said the Colonel. “I do.”
My lord held out a wavering hand; he seemed to wave a signal, but whether it was to give him time or to speak on, was more than we could guess. At length he got out the one word, “Good?”
“Why, the very best in the creation!” cries the Colonel. “For my good friend and admired comrade is at this hour in the fine city of Paris, and as like as not, if I know anything of his habits, he will be drawing in his chair to a piece of dinner.—Bedad, I believe the lady’s fainting.”
Mrs. Henry was indeed the colour of death, and drooped against the window-frame. But when Mr. Henry made a movement as if to run to her, she straightened with a sort of shiver. “I am well,” she said, with her white lips.
Mr. Henry stopped, and his face had a strong twitch of anger. The next moment he had turned to the Colonel. “You must not blame yourself,” says he, “for this effect on Mrs. Durie. It is only natural; we were all brought up like brother and sister.”
Mrs. Henry looked at her husband with something like relief or even gratitude. In my way of thinking, that speech was the first step he made in her good graces.
“You must try to forgive me, Mrs. Durie, for indeed and I am just an Irish savage,” said the Colonel; “and I deserve to be shot for not breaking the matter more artistically to a lady. But here are the Master’s own letters; one for each of the three of you; and to be sure (if I know anything of my friend’s genius) he will tell his own story with a better grace.”
He brought the three letters forth as he spoke, arranged them by their superscriptions, presented the first to my lord, who took it greedily, and advanced towards Mrs. Henry holding out the second.
But the lady waved it back. “To my husband,” says she, with a choked voice.
The Colonel was a quick man, but at this he was somewhat nonplussed. “To be sure!” says he; “how very dull of me! To be sure!” But he still held the letter.
At last Mr. Henry reached forth his hand, and there was nothing to be done but give it up. Mr. Henry took the letters (both hers and his own), and looked upon their outside, with his brows knit hard, as if he were thinking. He had surprised me all through by his excellent behaviour; but he was to excel himself now.
“Let me give you a hand to your room,” said he to his wife. “This has come something of the suddenest; and, at any rate, you will wish to read your letter by yourself.”
Again she looked upon him with the same thought of wonder; but he gave her no time, coming straight to where she stood. “It will be better so, believe me,” said he; “and Colonel Burke is too considerate not to excuse you.” And with that he took her hand by the fingers, and led her from the hall.
Mrs. Henry returned no more that night; and when Mr. Henry went to visit her next morning, as I heard long afterwards, she gave him the letter again, still unopened.
“Oh, read it and be done!” he had cried.
“Spare me that,” said she.
And by these two speeches, to my way of thinking, each undid a great part of what they had previously done well. But the letter, sure enough, came into my hands, and by me was burned, unopened.
To be very exact as to the adventures of the Master after Culloden, I wrote not long ago to Colonel Burke, now a Chevalier of the Order of St. Louis, begging him for some notes in writing, since I could scarce depend upon my memory at so great an interval. To confess the truth, I have been somewhat embarrassed by his response; for he sent me the complete memoirs of his life, touching only in places on the Master; running to a much greater length than my whole story, and not everywhere (as it seems to me) designed for edification. He begged in his letter, dated from Ettenheim, that I would find a publisher for the whole, after I had made what use of it I required; and I think I shall best answer my own purpose and fulfil his wishes by printing certain parts of it in full. In this way my readers will have a detailed, and, I believe, a very genuine account of some essential matters; and if any publisher should take a fancy to the Chevalier’s manner of narration, he knows where to apply for the rest, of which there is plenty at his service. I put in my first extract here, so that it may stand in the place of what the Chevalier told us over our wine in the hall of Durrisdeer; but you are to suppose it was not the brutal fact, but a very varnished version that he offered to my lord.
THE MASTER’S WANDERINGS.
From the Memoirs of the Chevalier de Burke.
. . . I left Ruthven (it’s hardly necessary to remark) with much greater satisfaction than I had come to it; but whether I missed my way in the deserts, or whether my companions failed me, I soon found myself alone. This was a predicament very disagreeable; for I never understood this horrid country or savage people, and the last stroke of the Prince’s withdrawal had made us of the Irish more unpopular than ever. I was reflecting on my poor chances, when I saw another horseman on the hill, whom I supposed at first to have been a phantom, the news of his death in the very front at Culloden being current in the army generally. This was the Master of Ballantrae, my Lord Durrisdeer’s son, a young nobleman of the rarest gallantry and parts, and equally designed by nature to adorn a Court and to reap laurels in the field. Our meeting was the more welcome to both, as he was one of the few Scots who had used the Irish with consideration, and as he might now be of very high utility in aiding my escape. Yet what founded our particular friendship was a circumstance, by itself as romantic as any fable of King Arthur.
This was on the second day of our flight, after we had slept one night in the rain upon the inclination of a mountain. There was an Appin man, Alan Black Stewart (or some such name, [2] but I have seen him since in France) who chanced to be passing the same way, and had a jealousy of my companion. Very uncivil expressions were exchanged; and Stewart calls upon the Master to alight and have it out.
“Why, Mr. Stewart,” says the Master, “I think at the present time I would prefer to run a race with you.” And with the word claps spurs to his horse.
Stewart ran after us, a childish thing to do, for more than a mile; and I could not help laughing, as I looked back at last and saw him on a hill, holding his hand to his side, and nearly burst with running.
“But, all the same,” I could not help saying to my companion, “I would let no man run after me for any such proper purpose, and not give him his desire. It was a good jest, but it smells a trifle cowardly.”
He bent his brows at me. “I do pretty well,” says he, “when I saddle myself with the most unpopular man in Scotland, and let that suffice for courage.”
“O, bedad,” says I, “I could show you a more unpopular with the naked eye. And if you like not my company, you can ‘saddle’ yourself on some one else.”
“Colonel Burke,” says he, “do not let us quarrel; and, to that effect, let me assure you I am the least patient man in the world.”
“I am as little patient as yourself,” said I. “I care not who knows that.”
“At this rate,” says he, reining in, “we shall not go very far. And I propose we do one of two things upon the instant: either quarrel and be done; or make a sure bargain to bear everything at each other’s hands.”
“Like a pair of brothers?” said I.
“I said no such foolishness,” he replied. “I have a brother of my own, and I think no more of him than of a colewort. But if we are to have our noses rubbed together in this course of flight, let us each dare to be ourselves like savages, and each swear that he will neither resent nor deprecate the other. I am a pretty bad fellow at bottom, and I find the pretence of virtues very irksome.”
“O, I am as bad as yourself,” said I. “There is no skim milk in Francis Burke. But which is it to be? Fight or make friends?”
“Why,” says he, “I think it will be the best manner to spin a coin for it.”
This proposition was too highly chivalrous not to take my fancy; and, strange as it may seem of two well-born gentlemen of to-day, we span a half-crown (like a pair of ancient paladins) whether we were to cut each other’s throats or be sworn friends. A more romantic circumstance can rarely have occurred; and it is one of those points in my memoirs, by which we may see the old tales of Homer and the poets are equally true to-day—at least, of the noble and genteel. The coin fell for peace, and we shook hands upon our bargain. And then it was that my companion explained to me his thought in running away from Mr. Stewart, which was certainly worthy of his political intellect. The report of his death, he said, was a great guard to him; Mr. Stewart having recognised him, had become a danger; and he had taken the briefest road to that gentleman’s silence. “For,” says he, “Alan Black is too vain a man to narrate any such story of himself.”
Towards afternoon we came down to the shores of that loch for which we were heading; and there was the ship, but newly come to anchor. She was the Sainte-Marie-des-Anges, out of the port of Havre-de-Grace. The Master, after we had signalled for a boat, asked me if I knew the captain. I told him he was a countryman of mine, of the most unblemished integrity, but, I was afraid, a rather timorous man.
“No matter,” says he. “For all that, he should certainly hear the truth.”
I asked him if he meant about the battle? for if the captain once knew the standard was down, he would certainly put to sea again at once.
“And even then!” said he; “the arms are now of no sort of utility.”
“My dear man,” said I, “who thinks of the arms? But, to be sure, we must remember our friends. They will be close upon our heels, perhaps the Prince himself, and if the ship be gone, a great number of valuable lives may be imperilled.”
“The captain and the crew have lives also, if you come to that,” says Ballantrae.
This I declared was but a quibble, and that I would not hear of the captain being told; and then it was that Ballantrae made me a witty answer, for the sake of which (and also because I have been blamed myself in this business of the Sainte-Marie-des-Anges) I have related the whole conversation as it passed.
“Frank,” says he, “remember our bargain. I must not object to your holding your tongue, which I hereby even encourage you to do; but, by the same terms, you
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