The Master of Ballantrae. Robert Louis Stevenson

who had made a figure in the country beyond his time of life. The less marvel if there were little heard of the second son, Mr Henry (my late Lord Durrisdeer), who was neither very bad nor yet very able, but an honest, solid sort of lad, like many of his neighbours. Little heard, I say; but indeed it was a case of little spoken. He was known among the salmon fishers in the firth, for that was a sport that he assiduously followed; he was an excellent good horse-doctor besides; and took a chief hand, almost from a boy, in the management of the estates. How hard a part that was, in the situation of that family, none knows better than myself; nor yet with how little colour of justice a man may there acquire the reputation of a tyrant and a miser. The fourth person in the house was Miss Alison Graeme, a near kinswoman, an orphan, and the heir to a considerable fortune which father had acquired in trade. This money was loudly called for by my lord’s necessities; indeed, the land was deeply mortgaged; and Miss Alison was designed accordingly to be the Master’s wife, gladly enough on her side; with how much goodwill on his is another matter. She was a comely girl, and in those days very spirited and self-willed; for the old lord having no daughter of his own, and my lady being long dead, she had grown up as best she might.

      To these four came the news of Prince Charlie’s landing, and set them presently by the ears. My lord, like the chimney-keeper that he was, was all for temporising. Miss Alison held the other side, because it appeared romantical; and the Master (though I have heard they did not agree often) was for this once of her opinion. The adventure tempted him, as I conceive; he was tempted by the opportunity to raise the fortunes of the house, and not less by the hope of paying off his private liabilities, which were heavy beyond all opinion. As for Mr Henry, it appears he said little enough at first; his part came later on. It took the three a whole day’s disputation before they agreed to steer a middle course, one son going forth to strike a blow for King James, my lord and the other staying at home to keep in favour with King George. Doubtless this was my lord’s decision; and, as is well known, it was the part played by many considerable families. But the one dispute settled, another opened. For my lord, Miss Alison, and Mr Henry all held the one view: that it was the cadet’s part to go out; and the Master, what with restlessness and vanity, would at no rate consent to stay at home. My lord pleaded, Miss Alison wept, Mr Henry was very plain spoken: all was of no avail.

      ‘It is the direct heir of Durrisdeer that should ride by his King’s bridle,’ says the Master.

      ‘If we were playing a manly part,’ says Mr Henry, ‘there might be sense in such talk. But what are we doing? Cheating at cards!’

      ‘We are saving the house of Durrisdeer, Henry,’ his father said.

      ‘And see, James,’ said Mr Henry, ‘if I go, and the Prince has the upper hand, it will be easy to make your peace with King James. But if you go, and the expedition fails, we divide the right and the title. And what shall I be then?’

      ‘You will be Lord Durrisdeer,’ said the Master. ‘I put all I have upon the table.’

      ‘I play at no such game,’ cries Mr Henry. ‘I shall be left in such a situation as no man of sense and honour could endure. I shall be neither fish nor flesh!’ he cried. And a little after he had another expression, plainer perhaps than he intended. ‘It is your duty to be here with my father,’ said he. ‘You know well enough you are the favourite.’

      ‘Ay?’ said the Master. ‘And there spoke Envy! Would you trip up my heels—Jacob?’ said he, and dwelled upon the name maliciously.

      Mr Henry went and walked at the low end of the hall without reply; for he had an excellent gift of silence. Presently he came back.

      ‘I am the cadet, and I should go,’ said he. ‘And my lord here is the master, and he says I shall go. What say ye to that, my brother?’

      ‘I say this, Harry,’ returned the Master, ‘that when very obstinate folk are met, there are only two ways out: Blows—and I think none of us could care to go so far; or the arbitrament of chance—and here is a guinea piece. Will you stand by the toss of the coin?’

      ‘I will stand and fall by it,’ said Mr Henry. ‘Heads, I go; shield, I stay.’

      The coin was spun, and it fell shield. ‘So there is a lesson for Jacob,’ says the Master.

      ‘We shall live to repent of this,’ says Mr Henry, and flung out of the hall.

      As for Miss Alison, she caught up that piece of gold which had just sent her lover to the wars, and flung it clean through the family shield in the great painted window.

      ‘If you loved me as well as I love you, you would have stayed,’ cried she.

      ‘“I could not love you, dear, so well, loved I not honour more,”’ sang the Master.

      ‘O!’ she cried, ‘you have no heart—I hope you may be killed!’ and she ran from the room, and in tears, to her own chamber.

      It seems the Master turned to my lord with his most comical manner, and says he, ‘This looks like a devil of a wife.’

      ‘I think you are a devil of a son to me,’ cried his father, ‘you that have always been the favourite, to my shame be it spoken. Never a good hour have I gotten of you since you were born; no, never one good hour,’ and repeated it again the third time. Whether it was the Master’s levity, or his insubordination, or Mr Henry’s word about the favourite son, that had so much disturbed my lord, I do not know: but I incline to think it was the last, for I have it by all accounts that Mr Henry was more made up to from that hour.

      Altogether it was in pretty ill blood with his family that the Master rode to the North; which was the more sorrowful for others to remember when it seemed too late. By fear and favour he had scraped together near upon a dozen men, principally tenants’ sons; they were all pretty full when they set forth, and rode up the hill by the old abbey, roaring and singing, the white cockade in every hat. It was a desperate venture for so small a company to cross the most of Scotland unsupported; and (what made folk think so the more) even as that poor dozen was clattering up the hill, a great ship of the King’s navy, that could have brought them under with a single boat, lay with her broad ensign streaming in the bay. The next afternoon, having given the Master a fair start, it was Mr Henry’s turn; and he rode off, all by himself, to offer his sword and carry letters from his father to King George’s Government. Miss Alison was shut in her room, and did little but weep, till both were gone; only she stitched the cockade upon the Master’s hat, and (as John Paul told me) it was wetted with tears when he carried it down to him.

      In all that followed, Mr Henry and my old lord were true to their bargain. That ever they accomplished anything is more than I could learn; and that they were anyway strong on the King’s side, more than I believe. But they kept the letter of loyalty, corresponded with my Lord President, sat still at home, and had little or no commerce with the Master while that business lasted. Nor was he, on his side, more communicative. Miss Alison, indeed, was always sending him expresses, but I do not know if she had many answers. Macconochie rode for her once, and found the Highlanders before Carlisle, and the Master riding by the Prince’s side in high favour; he took the letter (so Macconochie tells), opened it, glanced it through with a mouth like a man whistling, and stuck it in his belt, whence, on his horse passageing, it fell unregarded to the ground. It was Macconochie who picked it up; and he still kept it, and indeed I have seen it in his hands. News came to Durrisdeer of course, by the common report, as it goes travelling through a country, a thing always wonderful to me. By that means the family learned more of the Master’s favour with the Prince, and the ground it was said to stand on: for by a strange condescension in a man so proud—only that he was a man still more ambitious—he was said to have crept into notability by truckling to the Irish. Sir Thomas Sullivan, Colonel Burke, and the rest, were his daily comrades, by which course he withdrew himself from his own country-folk. All the small intrigues he had a hand in fomenting; thwarted my Lord George upon a thousand points; was always for the advice that seemed palatable to the Prince, no matter if it was good or bad; and seems upon the whole (like the gambler he was all through life) to have had less regard to the chances of the campaign than to the greatness of favour he might