The Antiquary - Volume II

Chapter 11

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What is this secret sin, this untold tale,

That art cannot extract, nor penance cleanse?

--Her muscles hold their place;

Nor discomposed, nor formed to steadiness,

No sudden flushing, and no faltering lip.--

Mysterious Mother.

The coffin had been borne from the place where it rested. The mourners,

in regular gradation, according to their rank or their relationship to

the deceased, had filed from the cottage, while the younger male children

were led along to totter after the bier of their brother, and to view

with wonder a ceremonial which they could hardly comprehend. The female

gossips next rose to depart, and, with consideration for the situation of

the parents, carried along with them the girls of the family, to give the

unhappy pair time and opportunity to open their hearts to each other and

soften their grief by communicating it. But their kind intention was

without effect. The last of them had darkened the entrance of the

cottage, as she went out, and drawn the door softly behind her, when the

father, first ascertaining by a hasty glance that no stranger remained,

started up, clasped his hands wildly above his head, uttered a cry of the

despair which he had hitherto repressed, and, in all the impotent

impatience of grief, half rushed half staggered forward to the bed on

which the coffin had been deposited, threw himself down upon it, and

smothering, as it were, his head among the bed-clothes, gave vent to the

full passion of his sorrow. It was in vain that the wretched mother,

terrified by the vehemence of her husband's affliction--affliction still

more fearful as agitating a man of hardened manners and a robust frame--

suppressed her own sobs and tears, and, pulling him by the skirts of his

coat, implored him to rise and remember, that, though one was removed, he

had still a wife and children to comfort and support. The appeal came at

too early a period of his anguish, and was totally unattended to; he

continued to remain prostrate, indicating, by sobs so bitter and violent,

that they shook the bed and partition against which it rested, by

clenched hands which grasped the bed-clothes, and by the vehement and

convulsive motion of his legs, how deep and how terrible was the agony of

a father's sorrow.

"O, what a day is this! what a day is this!" said the poor mother, her

womanish affliction already exhausted by sobs and tears, and now almost

lost in terror for the state in which she beheld her husband--"O, what an

hour is this! and naebody to help a poor lone woman--O, gudemither, could

ye but speak a word to him!--wad ye but bid him be comforted!"

To her astonishment, and even to the increase of her fear, her husband's

mother heard and answered the appeal. She rose and walked across the

floor without support, and without much apparent feebleness, and standing

by the bed on which her son had extended himself, she said, "Rise up, my

son, and sorrow not for him that is beyond sin and sorrow and temptation.

Sorrow is for those that remain in this vale of sorrow and darkness--I,

wha dinna sorrow, and wha canna sorrow for ony ane, hae maist need that

ye should a' sorrow for me."

The voice of his mother, not heard for years as taking part in the active

duties of life, or offering advice or consolation, produced its effect

upon her son. He assumed a sitting posture on the side of the bed, and

his appearance, attitude, and gestures, changed from those of angry

despair to deep grief and dejection. The grandmother retired to her nook,

the mother mechanically took in her hand her tattered Bible, and seemed

to read, though her eyes were drowned with tears.

They were thus occupied, when a loud knock was heard at the door.

"Hegh, sirs!" said the poor mother, "wha is that can be coming in that

gate e'enow?--They canna hae heard o' our misfortune, I'm sure."

The knock being repeated, she rose and opened the door, saying

querulously, "Whatna gait's that to disturb a sorrowfu' house?"

A tall man in black stood before her, whom she instantly recognised to be

Lord Glenallan. "Is there not," he said, "an old woman lodging in this or

one of the neighbouring cottages, called Elspeth, who was long resident

at Craigburnfoot of Glenallan?"

"It's my gudemither, my lord," said Margaret; "but she canna see onybody

e'enow--Ohon! we're dreeing a sair weird--we hae had a heavy

dispensation!"

"God forbid," said Lord Glenallan, "that I should on light occasion

disturb your sorrow;--but my days are numbered--your mother-in-law is in

the extremity of age, and, if I see her not to-day, we may never meet on

this side of time."

"And what," answered the desolate mother, "wad ye see at an auld woman,

broken down wi' age and sorrow and heartbreak? Gentle or semple shall not

darken my door the day my bairn's been carried out a corpse."

While she spoke thus, indulging the natural irritability of disposition

and profession, which began to mingle itself with her grief when its

first uncontrolled bursts were gone by, she held the door about one-third

part open, and placed herself in the gap, as if to render the visitor's

entrance impossible. But the voice of her husband was heard from within--

"Wha's that, Maggie? what for are ye steaking them out?--let them come

in; it doesna signify an auld rope's end wha comes in or wha gaes out o'

this house frae this time forward."

The woman stood aside at her husband's command, and permitted Lord

Glenallan to enter the hut. The dejection exhibited in his broken frame

and emaciated countenance, formed a strong contrast with the effects of

grief, as they were displayed in the rude and weatherbeaten visage of the

fisherman, and the masculine features of his wife. He approached the old

woman as she was seated on her usual settle, and asked her, in a tone as

audible as his voice could make it, "Are you Elspeth of the Craigburnfoot

of Glenallan?"

"Wha is it that asks about the unhallowed residence of that evil woman?"

was the answer returned to his query.

"The unhappy Earl of Glenallan."

"Earl!--Earl of Glenallan!"

"He who was called William Lord Geraldin," said the Earl; "and whom his

mother's death has made Earl of Glenallan."

"Open the bole," said the old woman firmly and hastily to her

daughter-in-law, "open the bole wi' speed, that I may see if this be the

right Lord Geraldin--the son of my mistress--him that I received in my

arms within the hour after he was born--him that has reason to curse me

that I didna smother him before the hour was past!"

The window, which had been shut in order that a gloomy twilight might add

to the solemnity of the funeral meeting, was opened as she commanded, and

threw a sudden and strong light through the smoky and misty atmosphere of

the stifling cabin. Falling in a stream upon the chimney, the rays

illuminated, in the way that Rembrandt would have chosen, the features of

the unfortunate nobleman, and those of the old sibyl, who now, standing

upon her feet, and holding him by one hand, peered anxiously in his

features with her light-blue eyes, and holding her long and withered

fore-finger within a small distance of his face, moved it slowly as if to

trace the outlines and reconcile what she recollected with that she now

beheld. As she finished her scrutiny, she said, with a deep sigh, "It's a

sair--sair change; and wha's fault is it?--but that's written down where

it will be remembered--it's written on tablets of brass with a pen of

steel, where all is recorded that is done in the flesh.--And what," she

said after a pause, "what is Lord Geraldin seeking from a poor auld

creature like me, that's dead already, and only belongs sae far to the

living that she isna yet laid in the moulds?"

"Nay," answered Lord Glenallan, "in the name of Heaven, why was it that

you requested so urgently to see me?--and why did you back your request

by sending a token which you knew well I dared not refuse?"

As he spoke thus, he took from his purse the ring which Edie Ochiltree

had delivered to him at Glenallan House. The sight of this token produced

a strange and instantaneous effect upon the old woman. The palsy of fear

was immediately added to that of age, and she began instantly to search

her pockets with the tremulous and hasty agitation of one who becomes

first apprehensive of having lost something of great importance;--then,

as if convinced of the reality of her fears, she turned to the Earl, and

demanded, "And how came ye by it then?--how came ye by it? I thought I

had kept it sae securely--what will the Countess say?"

"You know," said the Earl, "at least you must have heard, that my mother

is dead."

"Dead! are ye no imposing upon me? has she left a' at last, lands and

lordship and lineages?"

"All, all," said the Earl, "as mortals must leave all human vanities."

"I mind now," answered Elspeth--"I heard of it before but there has been

sic distress in our house since, and my memory is sae muckle impaired--

But ye are sure your mother, the Lady Countess, is gane hame?"

The Earl again assured her that her former mistress was no more.

"Then," said Elspeth, "it shall burden my mind nae langer!--When she

lived, wha dared to speak what it would hae displeased her to hae had

noised abroad? But she's gane--and I will confess all."

Then turning to her son and daughter-in-law, she commanded them

imperatively to quit the house, and leave Lord Geraldin (for so she still

called him) alone with her. But Maggie Mucklebackit, her first burst of

grief being over, was by no means disposed in her own house to pay

passive obedience to the commands of her mother-in-law, an authority

which is peculiarly obnoxious to persons in her rank of life, and which

she was the more astonished at hearing revived, when it seemed to have

been so long relinquished and forgotten.

"It was an unco thing," she said, in a grumbling tone of voice,--for the

rank of Lord Glenallan was somewhat imposing--"it was an unco thing to

bid a mother leave her ain house wi' the tear in her ee, the moment her

eldest son had been carried a corpse out at the door o't."

The fisherman, in a stubborn and sullen tone, added to the same purpose.

"This is nae day for your auld-warld stories, mother. My lord, if he be a

lord, may ca' some other day--or he may speak out what he has gotten to

say if he likes it; there's nane here will think it worth their while to

listen to him or you either. But neither for laird or loon, gentle or

semple, will I leave my ain house to pleasure onybody on the very day my

poor"--

Here his voice choked, and he could proceed no farther; but as he had

risen when Lord Glenallan came in, and had since remained standing, he

now threw himself doggedly upon a seat, and remained in the sullen

posture of one who was determined to keep his word.

But the old woman, whom this crisis seemed to repossess in all those

powers of mental superiority with which she had once been eminently

gifted, arose, and advancing towards him, said, with a solemn voice, "My

son, as ye wad shun hearing of your mother's shame--as ye wad not

willingly be a witness of her guilt--as ye wad deserve her blessing and

avoid her curse, I charge ye, by the body that bore and that nursed ye,

to leave me at freedom to speak with Lord Geraldin, what nae mortal ears

but his ain maun listen to. Obey my words, that when ye lay the moulds on

my head--and, oh that the day were come!--ye may remember this hour

without the reproach of having disobeyed the last earthly command that

ever your mother wared on you."

The terms of this solemn charge revived in the fisherman's heart the

habit of instinctive obedience in which his mother had trained him up,

and to which he had submitted implicitly while her powers of exacting it

remained entire. The recollection mingled also with the prevailing

passion of the moment; for, glancing his eye at the bed on which the dead

body had been laid, he muttered to himself, "_He_ never disobeyed _me,_

in reason or out o' reason, and what for should I vex _her_?" Then,

taking his reluctant spouse by the arm, he led her gently out of the

cottage, and latched the door behind them as he left it.

As the unhappy parents withdrew, Lord Glenallan, to prevent the old woman

from relapsing into her lethargy, again pressed her on the subject of the

communication which she proposed to make to him.

"Ye will have it sune eneugh," she replied;--"my mind's clear eneugh now,

and there is not--I think there is not--a chance of my forgetting what I

have to say. My dwelling at Craigburnfoot is before my een, as it were

present in reality:--the green bank, with its selvidge, just where the

burn met wi' the sea--the twa little barks, wi' their sails furled, lying

in the natural cove which it formed--the high cliff that joined it with

the pleasure-grounds of the house of Glenallan, and hung right ower the

stream--Ah! yes--I may forget that I had a husband and have lost him--

that I hae but ane alive of our four fair sons--that misfortune upon

misfortune has devoured our ill-gotten wealth--that they carried the

corpse of my son's eldest-born frae the house this morning--But I never

can forget the days I spent at bonny Craigburnfoot!"

"You were a favourite of my mother," said Lord Glenallan, desirous to

bring her back to the point, from which she was wandering.

"I was, I was,--ye needna mind me o' that. She brought me up abune my

station, and wi' knowledge mair than my fellows--but, like the tempter of

auld, wi' the knowledge of gude she taught me the knowledge of evil."

"For God's sake, Elspeth," said the astonished Earl, "proceed, if you

can, to explain the dreadful hints you have thrown out! I well know you

are confidant to one dreadful secret, which should split this roof even

to hear it named--but speak on farther."

"I will," she said--"I will!--just bear wi' me for a little;"--and again

she seemed lost in recollection, but it was no longer tinged with

imbecility or apathy. She was now entering upon the topic which had long

loaded her mind, and which doubtless often occupied her whole soul at

times when she seemed dead to all around her. And I may add, as a

remarkable fact, that such was the intense operation of mental energy

upon her physical powers and nervous system, that, notwithstanding her

infirmity of deafness, each word that Lord Glenallan spoke during this

remarkable conference, although in the lowest tone of horror or agony,

fell as full and distinct upon Elspeth's ear as it could have done at any

period of her life. She spoke also herself clearly, distinctly, and

slowly, as if anxious that the intelligence she communicated should be

fully understood; concisely at the same time, and with none of the

verbiage or circumlocutory additions natural to those of her s*x and

condition. In short, her language bespoke a better education, as well as

an uncommonly firm and resolved mind, and a character of that sort from

which great virtues or great crimes may be naturally expected. The tenor

of her communication is disclosed in the following chapter.

In the 1600s, Balthasar Gracian, a jesuit priest wrote 300 aphorisms on living life called "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." Join our newsletter below and read them all, one at a time.