A Noble Life Part 5

It was surprising in how few days the clachan, and indeed the whole neighborhood, grew accustomed to the appearance of the earl and his sad story. Perhaps this was partly due to Helen and Mr. Cardross, who, seeing no longer any occasion for mystery, indeed regretting a little that any mystery had ever been made about the matter, took every opportunity of telling every body who inquired the whole facts of the case.

These were few enough and simple enough, though very sad. The Earl-- the last Earl of Cairnforth--was a hopeless cripple for life. All the consultations of all the doctors had resulted in that conclusion.

It was very unlikely he would ever be better than he was now physically, but mentally he was certainly "a' richt"--or "a' there," as the country-folk express it. There was, as Mr. Cardross carefully explained to every body, not the slightest ground for supposing him deficient in intellect; on the contrary, his intellect seemed almost painfully acute.

The quickness with which he learned his lessons surpa.s.sed that of any boy of his age the minister had ever known; and he noticed every thing around him so closely, and made such intelligent remarks, that to talk with him was like talking with a grown man. Before the first week was over Mr. Cardross began actually to enjoy the child's company, and to look forward to lesson hours as the pleasantest hours of his day; for, since the Castle was close, the minister's lot had been the almost inevitable lot of a country clergyman, whose parish contains many excellent people, who look up to him with the utmost reverence, and for whom he entertains the sincere respect that worth must always feel toward worth, but with whom he had very few intellectual sympathies. In truth, since Mrs. Cardross died the minister had shut himself up almost entirely, and had scarcely had a single interest out of his own study until the earl came home to Cairnforth.

Now, after lessons, he would occasionally be persuaded to quit that beloved study, and take a walk along the loch side, or across the moor, to show his pupil the country of which he, poor little fellow! was owner and lord. He did it at first out of pure kindness, to save the earl from the well-meant intrusion of neighbors, but afterward from sheer pleasure in seeing the boy so happy. To him, mounted in Malcolm's arms and brought for the first time into contact with the outer world, every thing was a novelty and delight. And his quick perception let nothing escape him. He seemed to watch lovingly all nature, from the grand lights and shadows which moved over the mountains, to the little moorland flowers which he made Malcolm stop to gather. All living things too, from the young rabbit that scudded across their path, to the lark that rose singing up into the wide blue air--he saw and noticed every thing.

But he never once said, what Helen, who, as often as her house duties allowed, delighted to accompany them on these expeditions, was always expecting he would say, Why had G.o.d given these soulless creatures legs to run and wings to fly, strength, health, and activity to enjoy existence, and denied all these things to him? Denied them, not for a week, a month, a year, but for his whole lifetime--a lifetime so short at best;--"few of days, and full of trouble." Why could He not have made it a little more happy?

Thousands have asked themselves, in some form or other, the same unanswered, unanswerable question. Helen had done so already, young as she was; when her mother died, and her father seemed slowly breaking down, and the whole world appeared to her full of darkness and woe. How then must it have appeared to this poor boy? But, strange to say, that bitter doubt, which so often came into Helen's heart, never fell from child's lips at all. Either he was still a mere child, accepting life just as he saw it, and seeking no solution of its mysteries, or else, though so young, he was still strong enough to keep his doubts to himself, to bear his own burden, and trouble no one.

Or else--and when she watched his inexpressibly sweet face, which had the look you sometimes see in blind faces, of absolutely untroubled peace, Helen was forced to believe this--G.o.d, who had taken away from him so much, had given him something still more--a spiritual insight so deep and clear that he was happy in spite of his heavy misfortune.

She never looked at him but she thought involuntarily of the text, out of the only book with which unlearned Helen was very familiar--that "in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven."

After a fortnight's stay at the Castle Mr. Menteith felt convinced that his experiment had succeeded, and that, onerous as the duty of guardian was, he might be satisfied to leave his ward under the charge of Mr.

Cardross.

"Only, it those Bruces should try to get at him, you must let me know at once. Remember, I trust you."

"Certainly, you may. Has any thing been heard of them lately?"

"Nothing much, beyond the continual applications for advances of the annual sum which the late earl gave them, and which I continue to pay, just to keep them out of the way."

"They are still abroad?"

"I suppose so; but I hear very little about them. They were relations on the countess's side, you know--it was she who brought the money.

Poor little fellow, what an acc.u.mulation it will be by the time he is of age, and what small good it will do him!"

And the honest man sighed as he looked from Mr. Cardross's dining-room window across the Manse garden, where, under a shady tree, was placed the earl's little wheel-chair, which was an occasional subst.i.tute for Malcolm's arms. In it he sat, with a book on his lap, and with the aspect of entire content which was so very touching. Helen sat beside him on the gra.s.s, sewing--she was always sewing; and, indeed, she had need, if her needle were to keep pace with its requirements in the large family of boys.

"That's a good girl of yours, and his lords.h.i.+p seems to have taken to her amazingly. I am very glad, for he had no feminine company at all except Mrs. Campbell, and, good as she is, she isn't quite the thing-- not exactly a lady, you see. Eh, Mr. Cardross--what a lady his mother was! We'll never again see the like of the poor countess, nor, in all human probability, will we ever again see another Countess of Cairnforth.

"No."

"Yet," continued Mr. Menteith, after a long pause, "Dr. Hamilton thinks he may live many years. Strange to say, his const.i.tution is healthy and sound, and his sweet, placid nature--his mother's own nature (isn't he very like her sometimes?)--gives him so much advantage in struggling through every ailment. If he can be made happy, as you and Helen will, I doubt not, be able to make him, and kept strictly to a wholesome, natural country life here, it is not impossible he may live to enter upon his property. And then--for the future, G.o.d knows!"

"It is well for us," replied the minister, gravely, "That He does know --every thing."

"I suppose it is."

And then for another hour the two good men--one living in the world and the other out of it--both fathers of families, carrying their own burden of cares, and having gone through their own personal sorrows each in his day, talked over, the minutest degree, the present, and, so far as they could divine it, the future of this poor boy, who, through so strange a combination of circ.u.mstances, had been left entirely to their charge.

"It is a most responsible charge, Mr. Cardross, and I feel almost selfish in s.h.i.+fting it so much from my own shoulders upon yours."

"I am willing to undertake it. Perhaps it may do me good," returned the minister, with a slight sigh.

"And you will give him the best education you can--your own, in short, which is more than sufficient for Lord Cairnforth; certainly more than the last earl had, or his father either."

"Possibly," said Mr. Cardross, who remembered both--stalwart, active, courtly lords of the soil, great at field-sports and festivities, but not over given to study. "No, the present earl does not take after his progenitors in any way. You should just see him, Mr. Menteith, over his Virgil; and I have promised to begin Homer with him tomorrow. It does one's heart good to see a boy so fond of his books," added the minister, warming up into an enthusiasm which delighted the other extremely.

"Yes, I think my plan was right," said he, rubbing his hands. "It will work well on both sides. There could not be found any where a better tutor than yourself for the earl. He never can go much into the world; he may not even live to be of age; still, as long as he does live, his life ought to be made as pleasant--I mean, as little painful to him as possible. And he ought to be fitted, in case he should live, for as many years as he can fulfill of the duties of his position; its enjoyments, alas! he will never know."

"I am not so sure of that," replied Mr. Cardross. "He loves books; he may turn out a thoroughly educated and accomplished student--perhaps even a man of letters. To have a thirst for knowledge, and unlimited means to gratify it, is not such a bad thing. Why," continued the minister, glancing round on his own poorly-furnished shelves, where every book was bought almost at the sacrifice of a meal, "he will be rich enough to stock from end to end that wilderness of shelves in the half-finished Castle library. How pleasant that must be!"

Mr. Menteith smiled as if he did not quite comprehend this sort of felicity. "But, in any case, Lord Cairnforth seems to have, what will be quite as useful to him as brains, a very kindly heart. He does not shut himself up in a morbid way, but takes an interest in all about him.

Look at him, now, how heartily he is laughing at something your daughter has said. Really, those two seem quite happy."

"Helen makes every body happy," fondly said Helen's father.

"I believe so. I shall be sending down one of my big lads to look after her some day. I've eight of them, Mr. Cardross, all to be educated, settled, and wived. It's a 'sair fecht,' I a.s.sure you."

"I know it; but still it has its compensations."

"Ay, they're all strong, likely, braw fellows, who can push their own way in the world and fend for themselves. Not like--" he glanced over to the group on the gra.s.s, and stopped. Yet at that moment a hearty trill of thoroughly childish laughter seemed to rebuke the regrets of both fathers.

"That child certainly has the sweetest nature--the most remarkable faculty for enjoying other people's enjoyments, in which he himself can never share."

"Yes, it was always so, from the time he was a mere infant. Dr.

Hamilton often noticed it, and said it was a good omen."

"I believe so," rejoined Mr. Cardross, earnestly. "I feel sure that if Lord Cairnforth lives, he will neither have a useless nor an unhappy life."

"Let us hope not. And yet--poor little fellow!--to be the last Earl of Cairnforth, and to be--such as he is!"

"He is what G.o.d made him, what G.o.d willed him to be," said the minister, solemnly. "We know not why it should be so; we only know that it is, and we can not alter it. We can not remove from him his heavy cross, but I think we can help him to bear it."

"You are a good man, Mr. Cardross," replied the Edinburg writer, huskily, as he rose from his seat, and declining another gla.s.s of the claret, of which, under some shallow pretext, he had sent a supply into the minister's empty cellar, he crossed the gra.s.s-plot, and spent the rest of the evening beside his ward and Helen.

Chapter 5

Days, months, and years slip smoothly by on the sh.o.r.es of Loch Beg.

Even now, though the cruelly advancing finger of Civilization has touched it, dotted it with genteel villas on either side, plowed it with smoky steam boats, and will shortly frighten the innocent fishes by dropping a marine telegraph wire across the mouth of the loch, it is a peaceful place still. But when the last Earl of Cairnforth was a child it was all peace. In summertime a few stray tourists would wander past it, wondering at its beauty; but in winter it had hardly any communication with the outer world. The Manse, the Castle, and the clachan, with a few outlying farm-houses, comprised the whole of the Cairnforth; and the little peninsula, surrounded on three sides by water, and on the fourth by hills, was sufficiently impregnable and isolated to cause existence to flow on there very quietly, in what townspeople call dullness, and country people repose.

For, whatever repose there may be in country life--real country-- there is certainly no monotony. The perpetual change of seasons, varying the aspect of the outside world every month, every week--nay, almost every day, is a continual interest to observant minds, and especially so to intelligent children, who are as yet lying on the breast of Mother Nature only, nor have begun to feel or understand the darker and sadder interests of human pa.s.sion and emotion.

The little Earl of Cairnforth was one of these; and many a time, through all the summers of his life; he recalled tenderly that first summer at Cairnforth, when, no longer pent up between walls and roofs, or dragged about in carriages, he learned, by Molcolm's aid and under Helen's teaching, to chronicle time in different ways; first by the hyacinths and primroses vanis.h.i.+ng, and giving place to the wild roses--those exquisite deep-red roses which belong especially to this country-side; then by the woods--his own woods--growing fragrant with innumerable honeysuckles; and lastly by the heather on the moorland-- Scotland's own flower--which clothes entire hillsides as with a garment of gorgeous purple, and fills the whole atmosphere with the scent of a spice-garden; and when it faded into a soft brown, dying delicately, beautiful to the last, there appeared the brambles, trailing every where, with their pretty yellowing leaves and their delicious berries. How blithe, even like a mere "callant," big Malcolm was, when, leaving the earl on the sunny hill-side under Miss Cardross's charge, he used to wander off, and come back with his hands all torn and scratched, to feed his young master with blackberries!

"He is not unhappy--I am sure the child is not unhappy," Helen often said to her father, when--as was his way--Mr. Cardross would get fits of uncertainty and downheartedness, and think he was killing his pupil with study, or wearying him, and risking his health by letting him do as much as his energetic mind, always dominant over the frail body, prompted him to do. "Only let him love his life, and put as much in it as he can, be it long or short, and then it will never be a sad life or a life thrown away."

"Helen, you're not clever, but you're a wise little woman, my dear," the minister would say, patting the flaxen curls or the busy hands--large and brown, yet with a certain grace about them, too--helpful hands, made to hold children, or tend sick folk, or sustain the feeble steps of old age. She was "no bonnie" Helen Cardross; it was just a round, rosy, sonsie face, with no features in particular, but she was pleasant to look upon, and inexpressibly pleasant to live with; for it was such a wholesome nature, so entirely free from moods, or fancies, or crochets of any kind--those sad vagaries of ill-health, ill-humor, and ill-conditionedness of every sort, which are sometimes only a misfortune, caused by an unhappy natural temperament, but oftener arise from pure egotism, of which there was not an atom in Helen Cardross.

Her life was like the life of a flower--as natural, unconscious, fresh, and sweet: she took in every influence about her, and gave out freely all she had to give; desired no better things than she possessed, and where she was planted there she grew.

It was not wonderful that the little earl loved her, and that under her suns.h.i.+ny soul his life too blossomed out as it might never otherwise have done, but have drooped and faded, and gone back into the darkness, imperfect and unfulfilled; for, though each human life is, in a sense, complete to itself, and must work itself out independently, clinging to no other, still there is a great and beautiful mystery in the way one life seems to influence an other, sometimes for ill, but far, far oftener for good.