A Noble Life. Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
of his own—a "bit girlie" of five, and a two-year-old boy—playing on his grass-plot at home with some toys of the countess's giving: she had always been exceedingly kind to the Manse children.
He thought of her, lying dead; and then of her poor little motherless and fatherless baby, whom, if she had any consciousness in her death-hour, it must have been a sore pang to her to leave behind. And the tears gathered again and again in the good man's eyes, shutting out from his vision all the beauty of the spring.
He reached the grand Italian portico, built by some former earl with a taste for that style, and yet harmonizing well with the smooth lawn, bounded by a circle of magnificent trees, through which came glimpses of the glittering loch. The great doors used almost always to stand open, and the windows were rarely closed—the countess like sunshine and fresh air, but now all was shut up and silent, and not a soul was to be seen about the place.
Mr. Cardross sighed, and walked round to the other side of the castle, where was my lady's flower-garden, or what was to be made into one. Then he entered by French windows, from a terrace overlooking it, my lord's library, also incomplete. For the earl, who was by no means a bookish man, had only built that room since his marriage, to please his wife, whom perhaps he loved all the better that she was so exceedingly unlike himself. Now both were away—their short dream of married life ended, their plans and hopes crumbled into dust. As yet, no external changes had been made, the other solemn changes having come so suddenly. Gardeners still worked in the parterres, and masons and carpenters still, in a quiet and lazy manner, went on completing the beautiful room; but there was no one to order them—no one watched their work. Except for workmen, the place seemed so deserted that Mr. Cardross wandered through the house for some time before he found a single servant to direct him to the person of whom he was in search.
Mr. Menteith sat alone in a little room filled with guns and fishing rods, and ornamented with stag's heads, stuffed birds, and hunting relics of all sorts, which had been called, not too appropriately, the earl's "study." He was a little, dried-up man, about fifty years old, of sharp but not unkindly aspect. When the minister entered, he looked up from the mass of papers which he seemed to have been trying to reduce into some kind of order—apparently the late earl's private papers, which had been untouched since his death, for there was a sad and serious shadow over what otherwise have been rather a humorous face.
"Welcome, Mr. Cardross; I am indeed glad to see you. I took the liberty of sending for you, since you are the only person with whom I can consult—we can consult, I should say, for Dr. Hamilton wished it likewise—on this—this most painful occasion."
"I shall be very glad to be of the slightest service," returned Mr. Cardross. "I had the utmost respect for those that are away." He had the habit, this tender-hearted, pious man, who, with all his learning, kept a religious faith as simple as a child's, as speaking of the dead as only "away."
The two gentlemen sat down together. They had often met before, for whenever there were guests at Cairnforth Castle the earl always invited the minister and his wife to dinner, but they had never fraternized much. Now, a common sympathy, nay, more, a common grief—for something beyond sympathy, keen personal regret, was evidently felt by both for the departed earl and countess—made them suddenly familiar.
"Is the child doing well?" was Mr. Cardross's first and most natural question; but it seemed to puzzle Mr. Menteith exceedingly.
"I suppose so—indeed, I can hardly say. This is a most difficult and painful matter."
"It was born alive, and is a son and heir, as I heard?"
"Yes."
"That is fortunate."
"For some things; since, had it been a girl, the title would have lapsed, and the long line of Earls of Cairnforth ended. At one time Dr. Hamilton feared the child would be stillborn, and then, of course, the earldom would have been extinct. The property must in that case have passed to the earl's distant cousins, the Bruces, of whom you may have heard, Mr. Cardross?"
"I have; and there are few things, I fancy, which Lord Cairnforth would have regretted more than such heir-ship."
"You are right," said the keen W.S., evidently relieved. "It was my instinctive conviction that you were in the late earl's confidence on this point, which made me decide to send and consult with you. We must take all precautions, you see. We are placed in a most painful and responsible position—both Dr. Hamilton and myself."
It was now Mr. Cardross's turn to look perplexed. No doubt it was a most sad fatality which had happened, but still things did not seem to warrant the excessive anxiety testified by Mr. Menteith.
"I do not quite comprehend you. There might have been difficulties as to the succession, but are they not all solved by the birth of a healthy, living heir—whom we must cordially hope will long continue to live?"
"I hardly know if we ought to hope it," said the lawyer, very seriously. "But we must 'keep a calm sough' on that matter for the present—so far, at least, Dr. Hamilton and I have determined—in order to prevent the Bruces from getting wind of it. Now, then, will you come and see the earl?"
"The earl!" re-echoed Mr. Cardross, with a start; then recollected himself, and sighed to think how one goes and another comes, and all the world moves on as before—passing, generation after generation, into the awful shadow which no eye except that of faith can penetrate. Life is a little, little day—hardly longer, in the end, for the man in his prime than for the infant of an hour's span.
And the minister, who was of meditative mood, thought to himself much as a poet half a century later put into words—thoughts common to all men, but which only such a man and such a poet could have crystallized into four such perfect lines:
"Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why;
He thinks he was not made to die,
And Thou hast made him—Thou are just."
Thus musing, Mr. Cardross followed up stairs toward the magnificent nursery, which had been prepared months before, with a loving eagerness of anticipation, and a merciful blindness to futurity, for the expected heir of the Earls of Cairnforth. For, as before said, the only hope of the lineal continuance of the race was in this one child. It lay in a cradle resplendent with white satin hangings and lace curtains, and beside it sat the nurse—a mere girl, but a widow already—Neil Campbell's widow, whose first child had been born only two days after her husband was drowned. Mr. Cardross knew that she had been suddenly sent for out of the clachan, the countess having, with her dying breath, desired that this young woman, whose circumstances were so like her own, should be taken as wet-nurse to the new-born baby.
So, in her widow's weeds, grave and sad, but very sweet-looking—she had been a servant at the Castle, and was a rather superior young woman—Janet Campbell took her place beside her charge with an expression in her face as if she felt it was a charge left her by her lost mistress, which must be kept solemnly to the end of her days—as it was.
The minister shook hands with her silently—she had gone through sore affliction—but the lawyer addressed her in his quick, sharp, business tone, under which he often disguised more emotion than he liked to show.
"You have not been dressing the child? Dr. Hamilton told you not to attempt it."
"Na, na, sir, I didna try," answered Janet, sadly and gently.
"That is well. I'm a father of a family myself," added Mr. Menteith, more gently: "I've six of them; but, thank the Lord, ne'er a one of them like this. Take it on your lap, nurse, and let the minister look at it! Ay, here comes Dr. Hamilton!"
Mr. Cardross knew Dr. Hamilton by repute—as who did not? Since at that period it was the widest-known name in the whole medical profession in Scotland. And the first sight of him confirmed the reputation, and made even a stranger recognize that his fame was both natural and justifiable. But the minister had scarcely time to cast a glance on the acute, benevolent, wonderfully powerful and thoughtful head, when his attention was attracted by the poor infant, whom Janet