A Noble Life Part 23

"And what would you do with the boy himself? He knows nothing of money --has never had a pound-note in his pocket all his life."

"Then it is high time he should have--and a good many of them. I shall pay Mrs. Menteith well for his board, but I shall make him a sufficient allowance besides. He must stand on his own feet, without any one to support him. It is the only way to make a boy into a man-- a man that is worth anything. Do you not see that yourself?"

"I see, Lord Cairnforth, that you think it would be best for my boy to be separated from his mother."

She spoke in a hurt tone, and yet with a painful consciousness that what she said was not far off the truth, more especially as the earl did not absolutely deny the accusation.

"I think, my dear Helen, that it would be better if he were separated from us all for a time. We are such quiet, old-fas.h.i.+oned folks at Cairnforth, he may come to weary of us, you know. But my strongest motive is exactly what I stated--that he should be left to himself, to feel his own strength and the strength of those principles which we have tried to give him--that any special character he possesses may have free s.p.a.ce to develop itself. Up to a certain point we can take care of our children; beyond, we can not--nay, we ought not; they must take care of themselves. I believe--do not be angry, Helen-- but I believe there comes a time in every boy's life when the wisest thing even his mother can do for him is--to leave him alone."

"And not watch over him--not to guide him?"

"Yes, but not so as to vex him by the watching and the guiding.

However, we will talk of this another day. Here the lad comes."

And the earl's eyes brightened almost as much as Helen's did when Cardross leaped in at the window, all his good-humor restored, kissed his mother in his rough, fond way, of which he was not in the least ashamed as yet, and sat down by the wheeled chair with that tender respectfulness and involuntary softening of manner and tone which he never failed to show Lord Cairnforth, and had never shown so much to any other human being.

Ay, the earl had his compensations. We all have, if we know it.

Gradually, in many a long, quiet talk, during which she listened to his reasonings as probably she would have listened to no other man's, he contrived to reconcile Mrs. Bruce to the idea of parting with her boy --their first separation, even for a day, since Cardross was born. It was neither for very long nor very far, since civilization had now brought Edinburg within a few hours' journey of Cairnforth; but it was very sore, nevertheless, to both mother and son.

Helen took her boy and confided him to Mrs. Menteith herself; but she could not be absent for more than one day, for just about this time her father's "green old age" began to fail a little, and he grew extremely dependent upon her, which, perhaps, was the best thing that could have happened to her at this crisis. She had to a.s.sume that tenderest, happiest duty of being "nursing mother" to the second childhood of one who throughout her own childhood, youth, and middle age had been to her every thing that was honored and deserving honor--loving, and worthy of love--in a parent.

Not that Mr. Cardross had sank into any helpless state of mind or body; the dread of paralysis had proved a false alarm; and Helen's coming home, to remain there forever, together with the thoroughly peaceful life which he had since lived for so many years, had kept up the old man's vitality to a surprising extent. His life was now only fading away by slow and insensible degrees, like the light out of the sunset clouds, or the colors from the mountains--silent warnings of the night coming "in which no man can work."

The minister had worked all his days--his Master's work; none the less worthy that it was done in no public manner, and had met with no public reward. Beyond his own Presbytery the name of the Reverend Alexander Cardross was scarcely known. He was not a popular preacher; he had never published a book, nor even a sermon, and he had taken no part in the theological controversies of the time. He was content to let other men fight about Christianity; he only lived it, spending himself for naught, some might think, in his own country parish and among his poor country people, the pastor and father of them all.

He had never striven after this world's good things, and they never came to him in any great measure; but better things did. He always had enough, and a little to spare for those who had less. In his old age this righteous man was not "forsaken," and his seed never "begged their bread." His youngest, Duncan, was always beside him, and yearly his four other sons came to visit him from the various places where they had settled themselves, to labor, and prosper, and transmit honorably to another generation the honest name of Cardross.

For the minister's "ae dochter," she was, as she had been always, his right hand, watching him, tending him, helping and guarding him, expending her whole life for him, so as to make him feel as lightly as possible the gradual decay of his own; above all, loving him with a love that made labor easy and trouble light--the pa.s.sionately devoted love which we often see sons show to mothers, and daughters to fathers, when they have never had the parental ideal broke, nor been left to wander through life in a desolation which is only second to that of being "without G.o.d in the world."

"I think he has a happy old age--the dear old father!" said Helen one day, when she and Lord Cairnforth sat talking, while the minister was as usual absorbed in the library--the great Cairnforth library, now becoming notable all over Scotland, of which Mr. Cardross had had the sole arrangement, and every book therein the earl declared he loved as dearly as he did his children.

"Yes, he is certainly happy. And he has had a happy life, too--more so than most people."

"He deserved it. All these seventy-five years he has kept truth on his lips, and honor and honesty in his heart. He has told no man a lie; has overreached and deceived no man; and, though he was poor--poor always; when he married my mother, exceedingly poor--he has literally, from that day to this, 'owed no man any thing but to love one another.' Oh!" cried Helen, looking after the old man in almost a pa.s.sion of tenderness, "oh that my son may grow up like his grandfather!

Like n.o.body else--only his grandfather."

"I think he will," answered Lord Cairnforth.

And, in truth, the accounts they had of young Cardross were for some time extremely satisfactory. He had accommodated himself to his new life--had taken kindly to his college work; gave no trouble to Mrs.

Menteith, and still less to his uncle; the latter a highly respectable but not very interesting gentleman--a partner in the firm of Menteith and Ross, and lately married to the youngest Miss Menteith.

Still, by his letters, the nephew did not seem overwhelmingly fond of him, complaining sometimes that Uncle Alick interfered with him a little too much; investigated his expenses, made him balance his accounts, and insisted that these should be kept within the limits suitable for Mrs.

Bruce's son and Mr. Cardross's grandson, who would have to work his way in the world as his uncles had done before him.

"You see, Helen," said the earl, "all concealment brings its difficulties. It would be much easier for the boy if he were told his position and his future career at once--nay, if he had known it from the first."

But Helen would not hear of this. She was obstinate, all but fierce, on the subject. No argument would convince her that it was not safer for her son, who had been brought up in such Arcadian simplicity, to continue believing himself what he appeared to be, than to be dazzled by the knowledge that he was the chosen heir of the Earl of Cairnforth.

So, somewhat against his judgment, the earl yielded.

All winter and spring things went on peacefully in the little peninsula, which was now being grasped tightly by the strong arm of encroaching civilization. Acre after acre of moorland disappeared, and became houses, gardens, green-houses, the feu-rents of which made the estate of Cairnforth more valuable every year.

"That young man of yours will have enough on his hands one day," the earl said to Helen. "He lives an easy life now, and little thinks what hard work he is coming to. As Mr. Menteith once told me, the owner of Cairnforth has no sinecure, nor will have for the next quarter of a century."

"You expect a busy life, then?"

"Yes; and I must have that boy to help me--till he comes to his own.

But, Helen, after that time, you must not let him be idle. The richest man should work, if he can. I wonder what line of work Cardross will take; whether he will attempt politics--his letters are very political just now, do you notice?"

"Very. And there is not half enough about himself."

"He might get into Parliament," continued the earl, "and perhaps some day win a peerage in his own right. Eh, Helen? Would you like to be mother to a viscount--Viscount Cairnforth?"

"No," said Helen, tenderly, "there shall never be another Lord Cairnforth."

Thus sat these two, planning by the hour together the future of the boy who was their one delight. It amused them through all the winter and spring, till Cairnforth woods grew green again, and Loch Beg recovered its smile of suns.h.i.+ny peace, and the hills at the head of it took their summer colors, lovely and calm, even as, year after year, these friends had watched them throughout their two lives, of which both were now keenly beginning to feel the greater part lay, not before them, but behind. But in thinking of this boy they felt young again, as if he brought to one the hope, to the other the faint recollection of happiness that in the great mystery of Providence to each had been personally denied.

And yet they were not unhappy. Helen was not. No one could look into her face--strongly marked, but rosy-complexioned, health, and comely --the sort of large comeliness which belongs to her peculiar type of Scotch women, especially in their middle age--without seeing that life was to her not only duty, but enjoyment--ay, in spite of the widow's cap, which marked her out as one who permanently belonged and meant to belong only to her son.

And the earl, though he was getting to look old--older than Helen did --for his black curls were turning gray, and the worn and withered features, contrasting with the small childish figure, gave him a weird sort of aspect that struck almost painfully at first upon strangers, still Lord Cairnforth preserved the exceeding sweetness and peacefulness of expression which had made his face so beautiful as a boy, and so winning as a young man.

"He'll ne'er be an auld man," sometimes said the folk about Cairnforth, shaking their heads as they looked after him, and speculating for how many years the feeble body would hold out. Also, perhaps--for self-interest is bound up in the heart of every human being--feeling a little anxiety as to who should come after him, to be lord and ruler over them; perhaps to be less loved, less honored--more so none could possibly be.

It was comfort to those who loved him then, and far more comfort afterward to believe--nay, to know for certain--that many a man, absorbed in the restless struggle of this busy world, prosperous citizen, husband and father, had, on the whole, led a far less happy life than the Earl of Cairnforth.

Chapter 16

One mild, sunny autumn day, when Cardross, having ended his first session at college, had spent apparently with extreme enjoyment his first vacation at home, and had just gone back again to Edinburg to commence his second "year," the Earl of Cairnforth drove down to the Manse, as he now did almost daily, for the minister was growing too feeble to come to the Castle very often.

His old pupil found him sitting in the garden, sunning himself in a sheltered nook, backed by a goodly show of China roses and fuchsias, and companioned by two or three volumes of Greek plays, in which, however, he did not read much. He looked up with pleasure at the sound of the wheeled chair along the gravel walk.

"I'm glad you are come," said he. "I'm sorely needing somebody, for I have scarcely seen Helen all the morning. There she is! My la.s.sie, where have you been these three hours?"

Helen put off his question in some gentle manner, and took her place beside her charge, or rather between her two charges, each helpless in their way, though the one most helpless once was least so now.

"Helen, something is wrong with you this morning?" said the earl, when, Mr. Cardross having gone away for his little daily walk up and down between the garden and the kirk-yard, they two sat by themselves for a while.

Mrs. Bruce made no answer.

"Nothing can be amiss with your boy, for I had a letter from him only yesterday."

"I had one this morning."