"I will tell you no untruth, Lord Cairnforth. I was aware of it. That is, he—I mean it was suspected that you had meant it once. I found this out—don't ask me how—shortly after I was married; and I determined, as the only chance of avoiding it—and several other things—never to write to you again; never to take the least means of bringing myself—us—back to your memory."

"Why so?"

"I wished you to forget us, and all connected with us, and to choose some one more worthy, more suitable, to inherit your property."

"But, Helen, that choice rested with myself alone," said the earl, smiling. "Has not a man the right to do what he likes with his own?"

"Yes, but—oh," cried Helen, earnestly, "do not talk of this. It caused me such misery once. Never let us speak of it again."

"I must speak of it," was the answer, equally earnest. "All my comfort —I will not say happiness; we have both learned, Helen, not to count too much upon happiness in this world—but all the peace of my future life, be it short or long, depends upon my having my heart's desire in this matter. It is my heart's desire, and no one shall forbid it. I will carry out my intentions, whether you agree to them or not. I will speak of them no more, if you do not wish it, but I shall certainly perform them. And I think it would be far better if we could talk matters out together, and arrange every thing plainly and openly before you go home to the Manse, if you prefer the Manse, though I could have wished it was to the Castle."

"To the Castle!"

"Yes. I intended to have brought you back from Edinburgh—all of you," added the earl, with emphasis, "to the Castle for life!"

Helen was much affected. She made no attempt either to resist or to reply.

"But now, my dear, you shall do exactly what you will about the home you choose—exactly what makes you most content, and your father also. Only listen to me just for five minutes, without interrupting me. I never could bear to be interrupted, you know."

Helen faintly smiled, and Lord Cairnforth, in a brief, business-like way, explained how, the day after his coming of age, he had deliberately, and upon what he—and Mr. Menteith likewise— considered just grounds, constituted her, Helen Cardross, as his sole heiress; that he had never altered his will since, and therefore she now was, and always would have been, and her children after her, rightful successors to the Castle and broad acres of Cairnforth.

"The title lapses," he added: "there will be no more Earls of Cairnforth. But your boy may be the founder of a new name and family, that may live and rule for generations along the shores of our loch, and perhaps keep even my poor name alive there for a little while."

Helen did not speak. Probably she too, with her clear common sense, saw the wisdom of the thing. For as, as the earl said, he had a right to choose his own heir—and as even the world would say, what better heir could he choose than his next of kin—Captain Bruce's child? What mother could resist such a prospect for her son? She sat, her tears flowing, but still with a great light in her blue eyes, as if she saw far away in the distance, far beyond all this sorrow and pain, the happy future of her darling—her only child.

"Of course, Helen, I could pass you over, and leave all direct to that young man of yours, who is, if I died intestate, my rightful heir. But I will not—at least, not yet. Perhaps, if I live to see him of age, I may think about making him take my name, as Bruce-Montgomerie. But meanwhile I shall educate him, send him to school and college, and at home he shall be put under Malcolm's care, and have ponies to ride and boats to row. In short, Helen," concluded the earl, looking earnestly in her face with that sad, fond, and yet peaceful expression he had, "I mean your boy to do all that I could not do, and to be all that I ought to have been. You are satisfied?"

"Yes—quite. I thank you. And I thank God."

A minute more, and the carriage stopped at the wicket-gate of the Manse garden.

There stood the minister, with his white locks bared, and his whole figure trembling with agitation, but still himself—stronger and better than he had been for many months.

"Papa! papa!" And Helen, his own Helen, was in his arms.

"Drive on," said Lord Cairnforth, hurriedly; "Malcolm, we will go straight to the Castle now."

And so, no one heeding him—they were too happy to notice any thing beyond themselves—the earl passed on, with a strange smile, not of this world at all, upon his quiet face, and returned to his own stately and solitary home.



Chapter 14

Good Mrs. Campbell had guessed truly that from this time forward Helen Bruce would be only a mother. Either she was one of those women in whom the maternal element predominates—who seem born to take care of other people and rarely to be taken care of themselves—or else her cruel experience of married life had forever blighted in her all wifely emotions—even wifely regrets. She was grave, sad, silent, for many months during her early term of widowhood, but she made no pretense of extravagant sorrow, and, except under the rarest and most necessary circumstances, she never even named her husband. Nothing did she betray about him, or her personal relations with him, even to her nearest and dearest friends. He had passed away, leaving no more enduring memory than the tomb-stone which Lord Cairnforth had erected in Grayfriars' church-yard.

—-Except his child, of whom it was the mother's undisguised delight that, outwardly and inwardly, the little fellow appeared to be wholly a Cardross. With his relatives on the father's side, after the one formal letter which she had requested should be written to Colonel Bruce announcing Captain Bruce's death, Helen evidently wished to keep up no acquaintance whatever—nay, more than wished; she was determined it should be so—with that quiet, resolute determination which was sometimes seen in every feature of her strong Scotch face, once so girlish, but it bore tokens of what she had gone through—of a battle from which no woman ever comes out unwounded or unscarred.

But, as before said, she was a mother, and wholly a mother, which blessed fact healed the young widow's heart better and sooner than any thing else could have done. Besides, in her case, there was no suspense, no conflict of duties—all her duties were done. Had they lasted after her child's birth the struggle might have been too hard; for mothers have responsibilities as well as wives, and when these conflict, as they do sometimes, God help her who has to choose between them! But Helen was saved this misfortune. Providence had taken her destiny out of her own hands, and here she was, free as Helen Cardross of old, in exactly the same position, and going through the same simple round of daily cares and daily avocations which she had done as the minister's active and helpful daughter.

For as nothing else but the minister's daughter would she, for the present, be recognized at Cairnforth. Lord Cairnforth's intentions toward herself or her son she insisted on keeping wholly secret, except, of course, as regarded that dear and good father.

"I may die," she said to the earl—"die before yourself; and if my boy grows up, you may not love him, or he may not deserve your love, in which case you must choose another heir. No, you shall be bound in no way externally; let all go on as heretofore. I will have it so."

And of all Lord Cairnforth's generosity she would accept of nothing for herself except a small annual sum, which, with her widow's pension from the East India Company, sufficed to make her independent of her father; but she did not refuse kindness to her boy.

Never was there such a boy. "Boy" he was called from the first, never "baby;" there was nothing of the baby about him. Before he was a year old he ruled his mother, grandfather, and Uncle Duncan with a rod of iron. Nay, the whole village were his slaves. "Miss Helen's bairn" was a little king every where. It might have gone rather hard for the poor wee fellow thus allegorically

"Wearing on his baby brow the round And top of sovereignty"

That dangerous sovereignty—any human being—to wield, had there not been at least one person who was able to assume authority over him.

This was, strange to say—and yet not strange—the Earl of Cairnforth.

From his earliest babyhood Boy had been accustomed to the sight of the sight of the motionless figure in the moving chair, who never touched him, but always spoke so kindly and looked around so smilingly; whom, he could perceive—for children are quicker to notice things than we some times think—his mother and grandfather invariably welcomed with such exceeding pleasure, and treated with never-failing respect and tenderness. And, as soon as he could crawl, the footboard of the mysterious wheeled chair became to the little man a perfect treasure-house of delight. Hidden there he found toys, picture-books, "sweeties"—such as he got nowhere else, and for which, before appropriating them, he was carefully taught to express thanks in his own infantile way, and made to understand fully from whom they came.

"It's bribery, and against my principles," the earl would say, half sadly. "But, if I did not give him things, how else could Boy learn to love me?"

Helen never answered this, no more than she used answer many similar speeches in the earl's childhood. She knew time would prove them all to be wrong.

What sort of idea the child really had of this wonderful donor, the source of most of his pleasures, who yet was so different externally from every body else; who never moved from the wheel-chair; who neither caressed him nor played with him, and whom he was not allowed to play with, but only lifted up sometimes to kiss softly the kind face which always smiled down upon him with a sort of "superior love"—what the child's childish notion of his friend was no one could of course discover. But it must have been a mingling of awe and affectionateness; for he would often—even before he could walk—crawl up to the little chair, steady himself by it, and then look into Lord Cairnforth's face with those mysterious baby eyes, full of questioning, but yet without the slightest fear. And once, when his mother was teaching him his first hymn—

"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child,"

Boy startled her by the sudden remark—one of the divine profanities that are often falling from the innocent lips of little children—

"I know Jesus. He is the earl."

And then Helen tried, in some simple way, to make the child understand about Lord Cairnforth, and how he had been all his life so heavily afflicted; but Boy could not comprehend it as affliction at all. There seemed to him something not inferior, but superior to all other people in that motionless figure, with its calm sweet face—who was never troubled, never displeased—whom every body delighted to obey, and at whose feet lay treasures untold.

"I think Boy likes me," Lord Cairnforth would say, when he met the upturned beaming face as the child, in an ecstasy of expectation, ran to meet him. "His love may last as long as the playthings do."

But the earl was mistaken, as Helen knew. His love-victory had been in something deeper than toys and "goodies." Even when their charm began to cease Boy still crept up to the little chair, and looked from the empty footboard up to the loving face, which no one, man, woman, or child, ever regarded without something far higher than pity.

And, by degrees, Boy, or "Carr"—which, as being the diminutive for his second Christian name, Cardross, he was often called now—found a new attraction in his friend. He would listen with wide-open eyes, and attention that never flagged, to the interminable "tories" which the earl told him, out of the same brilliant imagination which had once used to delight his uncles in the boat. And so, little by little, the child and the man grew to be "a pair of friends"—familiar and fond, but with a certain tender reverence always between them, which had the most salutary effect on the younger.

Whenever he was sick, or sorry, or naughty—and Master "Boy" could be exceedingly naughty sometimes—the voice which had most influence over him, the influence to which he always succumbed, came from the little wheeled chair. No anger did he ever find there—no dark looks or sharp tones—but he found steady, unbending authority; the firm will which never passed over a single fault, or yielded to a single whim. In his wildest passions of grief or wrath, it was only necessary to say to the child, "If the earl could see you!" to make him pause; and many and many a time, whenever motherly authority, which in this case was weakened by occasional over-indulgence and by an almost morbid terror of the results of the same, failed to conquer the child, Helen used, as a last resource, to bring him in her arms, set him down beside Lord Cairnforth, and leave him there. She never came back but she found Boy "good".

"He makes me good, too, I think," the earl would say now and then, "for he makes me happy."

It was true. Lord Cairnforth never looked otherwise than happy when he had beside him that little blossom of hope of the new generation— Helen's child.

As years went by, though he still lived alone at the Castle, it was by no means the secluded life of his youth and early manhood. He gradually gathered about him neighbors and friends. He filled his house occasionally with guests, of his own rank and of all ranks; people notable and worthy to be known. He became a "patron," as they called it in those days, of art and literature, and assembled around him all who, for his pleasure and their own benefit, chose to enjoy his hospitality.

In a quiet way, for he disliked public show, he was likewise what was termed a "philanthropist," but always on the system which he had learned in his boyhood from Helen and Mr. Cardross, that "charity begins at home;" with the father who guides well his own household; the minister whose footstep is welcomed at every door in his own parish; the proprietor whose just, wise, and merciful rule make him sovereign absolute in his own estate. This last especially was the character given along all the country-side to the Earl of Cairnforth.

His was not a sad existence; far from it. None who knew him, and certainly none who ever staid long with him in his own home, went away with that impression. He enjoyed what he called "a sunshiny life"— having sunshiny faces about him; people who knew how to accept the sweet and endure the bitter; to see the heavenly side even of sorrow; to do good to all, and receive good from all; avoiding all envies, jealousies, angers, and strifes, and following out literally the apostolic command, "As much as in you lies, live peaceably with all men."

And so the earl was, in the best sense of the word, popular. Every body liked him, and he liked every body. But deep in his heart—ay, deeper than any of these his friends and acquaintance ever dreamed— steadying and strengthening it, keeping it warm for all human uses, yet calm with the quiet sadness of an eternal want, lay all those emotions which are not likings, but loves; not sympathies, but passions; but which with him were to be, in this world, forever dormant and unfulfilled.

Never, let the Castle be ever so full of visitors, or let his daily cares, his outward interest, and his innumerable private charities be ever so great, did he omit driving over twice or thrice a week to spend an hour or two at the Manse—in winter, by the study fire; in summer, under the shade of the green elm-trees—the same trees where he had passed that first sunny Sunday when he came a poor, lonely, crippled orphan child into the midst of the large, merry family—all scattered now.

The minister, Helen, and Boy were the sole inmates left at the Manse, and of these three the latter certainly was the most important. Hide it as she would, the principal object of the mother's life was her only child. Many a time, as Lord Cairnforth sat talking with her, after his old fashion, of all his interests, schemes, labors, and hopes—hopes solely for others, and labors, the end of which he knew he would never see—he would smile to himself, noticing how Helen's eye wandered all the while—wandered to where that rosy young scapegrace rode his tiny pony—the earl's gift—up and down the gravel walks, or played at romps with Malcolm, or dug holes in the flower-beds, or got into all and sundry of the countless disgraces which were forever befalling Boy; yet which, so lovable was the little fellow, were as continually forgiven, and, behind his back, even exalted into something very like merits.

But once—and it was an incident which, whether or not Mrs. Bruce forgot it herself, her friend never did, since it furnished a key to much of the past, and a serious outlook for the future—Boy committed an error which threw his mother into an agony of agitation such as she had not betrayed since she came back, a widow, to Cairnforth.

Her little son told a lie! It was a very small lie, such as dozens of children tell—are punished and pardoned—but a lie it was. It happened on August morning, when the raspberries for which the Manse was famous. He was desired not to touch them—"not to lay a finger on them," insisted the mother. And he promised. But, alas! The promises of four years old are not absolutely reliable; and so that which happened once in a more ancient garden happened in the garden of the Manse. Boy plucked and ate. He came back to his mother with his white pinafore all marked and his red mouth redder still with condemnatory stains. Yet, when asked "if he had touched the raspberries," he opened that wicked mouth and said, unblushingly, "No!"

Of course it was an untruth—self-evident; in its very simplicity almost amusing; but the earl was not prepared for the effect it seemed to have upon Helen. She started back, her lips actually blanched and her eyes glowing.

"My son has told a lie!" she cried, and kept repeating it over and over again. "My son has looked me in the face and told me a lie—his first lie!"

"Hush, Helen!" for her manner seemed actually to frighten the child.

"No, I can not pass it over! I dare not! He must be punished. Come!"

She seized Boy by the hand, looking another way, and was moving off with him, as if she hardly knew what she was doing.

"Helen!" called the earl, almost reproachfully; for, in his opinion, out of all comparison with the offense seemed the bitterness with which the mother felt it, and was about to punish it. "Tell me, first, what are you going to do with the child?"

"I hardly know—I must think—must pray. What if my son, my only son, should inherit—I mean, if he should grow up a liar?"

That word "inherit" betrayed her. No wonder now at the mother's agony of fear—she who was mother to Captain Bruce's son. Lord Cairnforth guessed it all.

"I understand," said he. "But—"

"No," Helen interrupted, "you need understand nothing, for I have told you nothing. Only I must kill the sin—the fatal sin—at the very root. I must punish him. Come, child!"

"Come back, Helen," said the earl; and something in the tone made her obey at once, as occasionally during her life Helen had been glad to obey him, and creep under the shelter of a stronger will and clearer judgment than her own. "You are altogether mistaken, my dear friend. Your boy is only a child, and errs as such, and you treat him as if he had sinned like a grown-up man. Be reasonable. We will both take care of him. No fear that he will turn out a liar!"

Helen hesitated; but still her looks were so angry and stern, all the mother vanished out of them, that the boy, instead of clinging to her, ran away crying, and hid himself behind Lord Cairnforth's chair.

"Leave him to me, Helen. Can not you trust me—me—with your son!"

Mrs. Bruce paused.

"Now," said the earl, wheeling himself round a little, so that he came face to face with the sobbing child, "lift up your head, Boy, and speak the truth like a man to me and to your mother—see! She is listening. Did you touch those raspberries?"

"No!"

"Cardross!" Calling him by his rarely-spoken name, not his pet-name, and fixing upon him eyes, not angry, but clear and searching, that compelled the truth even from a child, "think again. You must tell us!"

"No, me didn't touch them," answered Boy, dropping his head in conscious shame. "Not with me fingers. Me just opened me mouth and they popped in."

Lord Cairnforth could hardly help smiling at the poor little sinner— the infant Jesuit attaining his object by such an ingenious device; but the mother didn't smile, and her look was harder than ever.

"You hear! If not a lie, it was a prevarication. He who lies is a scoundrel, but he who prevaricates is a scoundrel and coward too. Sooner than Boy should grow up like—like that, I would rather die. No, I would rather see him die; for I might come in time to hate my own son."

By these fierce words, and by the gleaming eyes, which made a sudden and total change in the subdued manner, and the plain, almost elderly face under the widow's cap that Helen always wore, Lord Cairnforth guessed, more than he had ever guessed before, of what the sufferings of her married life had been.

"My friend," he said, and there was infinite pity as well as tenderness in his voice, "believe me, you are wrong. You are foreboding what, please God, will never happen. God does not deal with us in that manner. He bids us do His will, each of us individually, without reference to the doings or misdoings of any other person. And if we obey Him, I believe He takes care we shall not suffer—at least not forever, even in this world. Do not be afraid. Boy," calling the little fellow, who was now sobbing in bitterest contrition behind the wheeled chair, "come and kiss your mother. Promise her that you will never again vex her by telling a lie."

"No, no, no. Me'll not vex mamma. Good mamma! Pretty mamma! Boy so sorry!"

And he clung closely and passionately to his mother, kissing her averted face twenty times over.

"You see, Helen, you need not fear," said the earl.

Helen burst into tears.

After that day it came to be a general rule that, when she could not manage him herself, which not infrequently happened—for the very similarity in temperament and disposition between the mother and son made their conflicts, even at this early age, longer and harder—Helen brought Boy up to the Castle and left him, sometimes for hours together, in the library with Lord Cairnforth. He always came home to the Manse quiet and "good."

And so out of babyhood into boyhood, and thence into youth, grew the earl's adopted son; for practically it became that relationship, though no distinct explanation was ever given, or any absolute information vouchsafed, for indeed there was none who had a right to inquire; still, the neighborhood and the public at large took it for granted that such were Lord Cairnforth's intentions toward his little cousin.

As for the boy's mother, she led a life very retired—more retired than even Helen Cardross, doing all her duties as the minister's daughter, but seldom appearing in society. And society speculated little about her. Sometimes, when the Castle was full of guests, Mrs. Bruce appeared among them, still in her widow's weeds, to be received by Lord Cairnforth with marked attention and respect—always called "my cousin," and whoever was present, invariably requested to take the head of his table; but, except at these occasional seasons, and at birthdays, new years, and so on, Helen was seldom seen out of the Manse, and was very little known to the earl's ordinary acquaintance.

But every body in the whole peninsula knew the minister's grandson, young Master Bruce. The boy was tall of his age—not exactly handsome, being too like his mother for that; nevertheless, the robustness of form, which in her was too large for comeliness, became in him only manly size and strength. He was athletic, graceful, and active; he learned to ride almost as soon as he could walk; and, under Malcolm's charge, was early initiated in all the mysteries of moor and loch. By fourteen years of age Cardross Bruce was the best shot, the best fisher, the best hand at an oar, of all the young lads in the neighborhood.

Then, too, though allowed to run rather wild, he was unmistakably a gentleman. Though he mixed freely with every body in the parish, he was neither haughty nor over-familiar with any one. He had something of the minister's manner with inferiors—frank, gentle, and free—winning both trust and love, and yet it was impossible to take liberties with him. And some of the elder people in the clachan declared the lad had at times just "the merry glint o' the minister's e'en" when Mr. Cardross first came to the parish as a young man with his young wife.

He was an old man now, "wearin' awa'," but slowly and peacefully; preaching still, though less regularly; for, to his great delight, his son Duncan, having come out creditably at college, had been appointed his assistant and successor. Uncle Duncan—only twelve years his nephew's senior—was also appointed by Lord Cairnforth tutor to "Boy" Bruce. The two were very good friends, and not unlike one another. "Ay, he's just a Cardross," was the universal remark concerning young Bruce. No one had ever hinted that the lad was like his father.

He was not. Nature seemed mercifully to have forgotten to perpetuate that type of character which had given Mr. Menteith formerly, and others since, such a justifiable dread of the Bruce family, and such a righteous determination to escape them. Lord Cairnforth still paid the annuity, but on condition that no one of his father's kindred should ever interfere, in the smallest degree, with Helen's child.

This done, both he and she trusted to the strong safeguards of habit and education, and all other influences which so strongly modify character, to make the boy all that they desired him to be, and to counteract those tendencies which, as Lord Cairnforth plainly perceived, were Helen's daily dread. It was a struggle, mysterious as that which visible human free-will is forever opposing (apparently) to invisible fate, the end of which it is impossible to see, and yet we struggle on.

Thus laboring together with one hope, one aim, and one affection, all centered in this boy, Lord Cairnforth and Mrs. Bruce passed many a placid year. And when the mother's courage failed her—when her heart shrank in apprehension from real terrors or from chimeras of her own creating, her friend taught her to fold patiently her trembling hands, and say, as she herself and the minister had first taught him in his forlorn boyhood, the one only prayer which calms fear and comforts sorrow—the lesson of the earl's whole life—"Thy will be done!"



Chapter 15

"Helen, that boy of yours ought to be sent to college."

"Oh no! Surely you do not think it necessary?" said Helen, visibly shrinking.

She and Lord Cairnforth were sitting together in the Castle library. Young Cardross had been sitting beside them, holding a long argument with his mother, as he often did, for he was of a decidedly argumentative turn of mind, until, getting the worst of the battle, and being rather "put down"—a position rarely agreeable to the self-esteem of eighteen—he had flushed up angrily, made no reply, but opened one of the low windows and leaped out on the terrace. There, pacing to and fro along the countess's garden, they saw the boy, or rather young man, for he looked like one now. He moved with a rapid step, the wind tossing his fair curls—Helen's curls over again— and cooling his cheeks as he tried to recover his temper, which he did not often lose, especially in the earl's presence.

Experience had not effaced the first mysterious impression made on the little child's mind by the wheeled chair and its occupant. If there was one person in the world who had power to guide and control this high-spirited lad, it was Lord Cairnforth. And as the latter moved his chair a little round, so that he could more easily look out into the garden and see the graceful figure sauntering among the flower-beds, it was evident by his expression that the earl loved Helen's boy very dearly.

"He is a fine fellow, and a good fellow as ever was born, that young man of yours. Still, as I have told you many a time, he would be all the better if he were sent to college."

"For his education?" I thought Duncan was fully competent to complete that."

"Not altogether. But, for many reasons, I think it would be advisable for him to go from home for a while."

"Why? Because his mother spoils him?"

The earl smiled, and gave no direct answer. In truth, the harm Helen did her boy was not so much in her "spoiling"—love rarely injures —as in the counteracting weight which she sometimes threw on the other side—in the sudden tight rein which she drew upon his little follies and faults—the painful clashing of two equally strong wills, which sometimes happened between the mother and the son.

This was almost inevitable, with Helen's peculiar character. As she sat there, the sun shining on her fair face—still fair; a clear, healthy red and white, though she was over forty—you might trace some harsh lines in it, and see clearly that, save for her exceeding unselfishness and lovingness of disposition, Mrs. Bruce might in middle age have grown into what is termed a "hard" woman; capable of passionate affection, but of equally passionate severity, and prone to exercise both alike upon the beings most precious to her on earth.

"I fear it is not a pleasant doctrine to preach to mothers," said Lord Cairnforth; "but, Helen, all boys ought to leave home some time. How else are they to know the world?"

"I do not wish my boy to know the world."

"But he must. He ought. Remember his life is likely to be a very different one from either yours or mine."

"Do not let us think of that," said Helen, uneasily.

"My friend, I have been thinking of it ever since he was born—or, at least, ever since he came to Cairnforth. That day seems almost like yesterday, and yet—We are growing quite middle-aged folk, Helen, my dear."

Helen sighed. These peaceful, uneventful years, how fast they had slipped by! She began to count them after the only fashion by which she cared to count any thing now. "Yes, Cardross will be a man—actually and legally a man—in little more than two years."

"That is just what I was considering. By that time we must come to some decision on a subject which you will never let me speak of; but by-and by, Helen, you must. Do you suppose that your son guesses, or that any body has ever told him, what his future position is to be?"

"I think not. There was nobody to tell him, for nobody knew. No," continued Helen, speaking strongly and decidedly, "I am determined on one point—nothing shall bind you as regards my son or me— nothing, except your own free will. To talk of me as your successor is idle. I am older than you are; and you must not be compromised as regards my son. He is a good boy now, but temptation is strong, and," with an irrepressible shudder, "appearances are deceitful sometimes. Wait, as I have always said—wait till you see what sort of man Cardross turns out to be."

Lord Cairnforth made no reply, and once more the two friends sat watching the unconscious youth, who had been for so many years the one object of both their lives.

"Ignorance is not innocence," said the earl at length, after along fit of musing. "If you bind a creature mortally hand and foot, how can it ever learn to walk? It would, as soon as you loosed the bonds, find itself not free, but paralyzed—as helpless a creature as myself."

Helen turned away from watching her boy, and laid her hand tenderly, in her customary caress, on the feeble hand, which yet had been the means of accomplishing so much.

"You should not speak so," she said. "Scarcely ever is there a more useful life than yours."

"More useful, certainly, than any one once expected—except you, Helen. I have tried to make you not ashamed of me these thirty years." "Is it so many? Thirty years since the day you first came to the Manse?"

"Yes; you know I was forty last birthday. Who would have thought my life would have lasted so long? But it can not last forever; and before I am 'away' as your dear old father would say, I should like to leave you quite settled and happy about that boy."

"Who says I am not happy?" answered Mrs. Bruce, rather sharply.

"Nobody; but I see it myself sometimes—when you get that restless, anxious look—there it is now! Helen, I must have it away. I think it would trouble me in my grave if I left you unhappy," added the earl, regarding her with that expression of yearning tenderness which she had been so used to all her days that she rarely noticed it until the days came when she saw it no more.

"I am not unhappy," she said, earnestly. "Why should I be? My dear father keeps well still—he enjoys a green old age. And is not my son growing up every thing that a mother's heart could desire?"

"I do believe it. Cardross is a good boy—a very good boy. But the metal has never been tested—as the soundest metal always requires to be—and until this is done, you will never rest. I had rather it were done during my lifetime than afterward. Helen, I particularly wish the boy to go to college."

The earl spoke so decidedly that Mrs. Bruce replied with only the brief question "Where?"

"To Edinburg; because there he would not be left quite alone. His uncle Alick would keep an eye upon him, and he could be boarded with Mrs. Menteith, whose income would be none the worse for the addition I would make to it; for of course, Helen, if he goes, it must be—not exactly as my declared heir, since you dislike that so much, but—as my cousin and nearest of kin, which he is undeniably."

Helen acquiesced in silence.

"I have a right to him, you see," said Lord Cairnforth, smiling, "and really I am rather proud of my young fellow. He may not be very clever —the minister says he is not—but he is what I call a man. Like his mother, who never was clever, but yet was every inch a woman—the best woman, in all relations of life, that I ever knew."

Helen smiled too—a little sadly, perhaps—but soon her mind recurred from all other things to her one prominent thought.

"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-fashioned 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 space 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 assume 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 passionately 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 God 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 passion of tenderness, "oh that my son may grow up like his grandfather! Like nobody 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 sunshiny 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 lassie, 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."

"And what does he say to you? To me little enough, merely complaining how dull he finds Edinburg now, and wishing he were back again among us all."

"I do not wonder," said Helen, in a hard tone, and with that hard expression which sometimes came over her face: the earl knew it well.

"Helen, I am certain something is very wrong with you. Why do you not tell it out to me?"

"Hush! Here comes my father!"

And she hurried to him, gave him her arm, and helped his feeble steps back into the house, where for some time they three remained talking together about the little chit-chat of the parish, and the news of the family, in its various ramifications, now extending year by year. Above all, the minister like to hear and to talk about his eldest and favorite grandchild—his name-child, too—Alexander Cardross Bruce.

But on this subject, usually the never-ceasing topic at the Manse, Helen was for once profoundly silent. Even when her father had dropped asleep, as in his feebleness of age he frequently did in the very midst of conversation, she sat restlessly fingering her wedding-ring, and another which she wore as a sort of guard to it, the only jewel she possessed. It was a very large diamond, set in a plain hoop of gold. The earl had given it to her a few months after she came back to Cairnforth, when her persistent refusal of all his offered kindnesses had almost produced a breach between them—at least the nearest approach to a quarrel they had ever known. She, seeing how deeply she had wounded him, had accepted this ring as a pledge of amity, and had worn it ever since—by his earnest request—until it had become as familiar to her finger as the one beside it. But now she kept looking at it, and taking it off and on with a troubled air.

"I am going to ask you a strange question, Lord Cairnforth—a rude one, if you and I were not such old friends that we do not mind any thing we say to one another."

"Say on."

"Is this ring of mine very valuable?"

"Rather so."

"Worth how much?"

"You certainly are rude, Helen," replied the earl, with a smile. "Well, if you particularly wish to know, I believe it is worth two hundred pounds."

"Two hundred pounds!"

"Was that so alarming? How many times must I suggest that a man may do what he likes with his own? It was mine—that is, my mother's, and I gave it to you. I hope you are worth to me at least two hundred pounds."

But no cheerfulness removed the settled cloud from Mrs. Bruce's face.

"Now—answer me—you know, Helen, you always answer me candidly and truly, what makes you put that question about the ring?"

"Because I wished to sell it."

"Sell it! why?"

"I want money; in fact, I must have money—a good large sum," said Helen, in exceeding agitation. "And as I will neither beg, borrow, not steal, I must sell something to procure that sum, and this diamond is the only thing I have to sell. Now you comprehend?"

"I think I do," was the grave answer. "My poor Helen!"

She might have held out, but the tenderness of his tone overcame her. She turned her head away.

"Oh, it's bitter, bitter! After all these years!"

"What is bitter? But you need not tell me. I think I can guess. You did not show me your boy's letter of this morning."

"There it is!"

And the poor mother, with her tears fast flowing—they had been restrained so long that now they burst out like a tide—gave way to that heart-break which many a mother has had to endure—the discovery that her son was not the perfect being she had thought him; that he was no better than other women's sons, and equally liable to fall away. Poor Cardross had been doing all sorts of wrong and foolish things, which he had kept to himself as long as he could, as long as he dared, and then had come, in an agony of penitence, and poured out the whole story of his errors and his miseries into his mother's bosom.

They were, happily, only errors, not sins—extravagancies in dress; amusements and dissipations, resulting in serious expenses; but the young fellow had done nothing absolutely wicked. In the strongest manner, and with the most convincing evidence to back it, he protested this and promised to amend his ways, to "turn over a new leaf," if only his mother would forgive him, and find means to pay the heap of bills which he enclosed, and which amounted to much more than would be covered by his yearly allowance from the earl.

"Poor lad!" said Lord Cairnforth, as he read the letter twice over, and then carefully examined the list of debts it enclosed. "A common story."

"I know that," cried Helen, passionately. "But oh! That it should have happened to my son!"

And she bowed her face upon her hands, and swayed herself to and fro in the bitterest grief and humiliation.

The earl regarded her a little while, and then said, gently, "My friend, are you not making for yourself a heavy burden out of a very light matter?"

"A light matter? But you do not see—you can not understand."

"I think I can."

"It is not so much the thing itself—the fact of my son's being so mean, so dishonest as to run into debt, when he knows I hate it—that I have cause to hate it, and to shrink from it as I would from—But this is idle talking. I see you smile. You do not know all the—the dreadful past."

"My dear, I do know—every thing you could tell me—and more."

"Then can not you see what I dread? The first false step—the fatal beginning, of which no one can foresee the end? I must prevent it. I must snatch my poor boy like a brand from the burning. I shall go to Edinburg myself to-morrow. I would start this very day if could leave my father."

"You can not possibly leave your father," said the ear, gently but decisively. "Sit down, Helen. You must keep quiet."

For she was in a state of excitement such as, since her widowed days, had never been betrayed by Helen Bruce.

"These debts must be paid, and immediately. The bare thought of them nearly drives me wild. But you shall not pay—do not think it," she added, almost fiercely. "See what my son himself says—and thank God he had the grace to say it—that I am on no account to go to you; that he 'will turn writer's clerk, or tutor, or any thing, rather than encroach farther on Lord Cairnforth's generosity.'."

"Poor boy! poor boy!"

"Then you don't think him altogether a bad boy?" appealed Mrs. Bruce, pitifully. "You do not fear that I may live to weep over the day when my son was born?"

The earl smiled, and that quiet, half-amused smile, coming upon her in her excited state, seemed to soothe the mother more than any reasoning could have done.

"No, Helen, I do not think any such thing. I think the lad has been very foolish, and we may have been the same. We kept him in leading-strings too long, and trusted him out of them too suddenly. But as to his being altogether bad—Helen Cardross's son, and the minister's grandson—nonsense, my dear."

Mr. Cardross might have heard himself named, for he stirred in his peaceful slumbers, and Helen hastily took her letter from Lord Cairnforth's hand."

"Not a word to him. He is too old. No trouble must ever come near him any more."

"No, Helen. But remember your promise to do nothing till you have talked with me. It is my right, you know. The boy is my boy too. When will you come up to the Castle?" To-morrow? Nay, to-night, if you like."

"I will come to-night."

So, at dusk, in the midst of a wild storm, such as in these regions sometimes, nay, almost always succeeds very calm, mild autumn days, Helen appeared at the Castle, and went at once into the library where the earl usually sat. Strange contrast it was between the spacious apartment, with its lofty octagon walls laden with treasures of learning; book-shelves, tier upon tier, reaching to the very roof, which was painted in fresco; every ornamentation of the room being also made as perfect as its owner's fine taste and lavish means could accomplish, and this owner, this master of it all, a diminutive figure, sitting all alone by the vacant fireside—before him a little table, a lamp, and a book. But he was not reading; he was sitting thinking, as he often did now; he said he had read so much in his time that he was rather weary of it, and preferred thinking. Of what? the life he had passed through—still, uneventful, and yet a full and not empty human life? Or it might be, oftener still, upon the life to come?

Lord Cairnforth refused to let his visitor say one word, or even sit down, till he had placed her in Mrs. Campbell's charge, to be dried and reclothed, for she was dripping wet with rain—such rain as come nowhere but at Loch Beg. By-and-by she reappeared in the library, moving through its heavy shadows, and looking herself again—the calm, dignified woman, "my cousin, Mrs. Bruce," who sometimes appeared among Lord Cairnforth's guests, and whom, though she was too retiring to attract much notice, every body who did notice was sure to approve.

She took her accustomed place by the earl's side, and plunged at once, in Helen's own way, into the business which had brought her hither.

"I am not come to beg or to borrow, do not think it—only to ask advice. Tell me, what am I to say to my boy?"

And again, the instant she mentioned her son's name, she gave way to tears. Yet all the while her friend saw that she was very hard, and bent upon being hard; that, had Cardross appeared before her at that minute, she would immediately have frozen up again into the stern mother whose confidence had been betrayed, whose principles infringed, and who, though loving her son with all the strength of her heart, could also punish him with all the power of her conscience, even though her heart was breaking with sorrow the while.

"I will give you the best advice I can. But, first, let me have his letter again."

Lord Cairnforth read it slowly over, Mrs. Bruce's eager eyes watching him, and then suffered her to take it from his helpless hands, and fold it up, tenderly, as mothers do.

"What do you think of it?"

"Exactly what I did this morning—that your boy has been very foolish, but not wicked. There is no attempt at deception or untruthfulness.

"No, thank God! Whatever else he is, my son is not a liar. I have prevented or conquered that."

"Yes, because you brought him up, as your father brought us up, to be afraid of nothing, to speak out our minds to him without fear of offending him, to stand in no dread of rousing his anger, but only of grieving his love. And so, you see, Helen, it is the same with your boy. He never attempts to deceive you. He tells out, point-blank, the most foolish things he has done—the most ridiculous expenses he has run into. He may be extravagant, but he is not untruthful. I have no doubt, if I sent this list to his trades-people, they would verify every halfpenny, and that this really is the end of the list. Not such a long list neither, if you consider. Below two hundred pounds for which you were going to sell my ring."

"Were going! I shall do it still."

"If you will; though it seems a pity to part with a gift of mine, when the sum is a mere nothing to me, with my large income, which, Helen, will one day be all yours."

Helen was silent—a little sorry and ashamed. The earl talked with her till he had succeeded in calming her and bringing her into her natural self again—able to see things in their right proportions, and take just views of all.

"Then you will trust me?" she said at last. "You think I may be depended upon to do nothing rashly when I go to Edinburg to-morrow?"

"My dear, I have no intention of letting you go."

"But some one must go. Something must be done, and I can not trust Alick to do it. My brother does not understand my boy," said she, returning to her restless, helpless manner. She, the helpful Helen, only weak in this one point—her only son.

"Something has been done. I have already sent for Cardross. He will be at the Castle to-morrow."

Helen started.

"At the Castle, I said, not the Manse. No, Helen, you shall not be compromised; you may be as severe as you like with your son. But he is my son too"—and a faint shade of color passed over the earl's withered cheeks—"my adopted son, and it is time that he should know it."

"Do you mean to tell him—"

"I mean to tell him all my intentions concerning him."

"What! now?"

"Yes, now. It is the safest and most direct course, both for him, for you, and for me. I have been thinking over the matter all day, and can come to no other conclusion. Even for myself—if I may speak of myself—it is best. I do not wish to encroach upon his mother's rights—it is not likely I should," added the earl, with a somewhat sad smile; "still, it is hard that during the years, few or many, that I have to live, I, a childless man, should not enjoy a little of the comfort of a son."

Helen sat silent with averted face. It was all quite true, and yet—

"I will tell you, to make all clear, the position I wish Cardross to hold with regard to me—shall I?"

Mrs. Bruce assented.

"Into his mother's place he can never step; I do not desire it. You must still be, as you have always been, and I shall now publicly give out the fact, my immediate successor; and, except for a stated allowance, to be doubled when he marries, which I hope he will, and early, Cardross must still be dependent upon his mother during her lifetime. Afterward he inherits all. But there is one thing," he continued, seeing that Helen did not speak, "I should like: it would make me happy if, on his coming of age, he would change his name, or add mine to it—be Alexander Cardross Bruce Montgomerie, or simply Alexander Cardross Montgomerie. Which do you prefer?"

Helen meditated long. Many a change came and went over the widow's face —widowed long enough for time to have softened down all things, and made her remember only the young days—the days of a girl's first love. It might have been so, for she said at last, almost with a gasp,

"I wish my son to be Bruce-Montgomerie."

"Be it so."

After that Lord Cairnforth was long silent.

Helen resumed the conversation by asking if he did not think it dangerous, almost wrong, to tell the boy of this brilliant future immediately after his errors?

"No, not after errors confessed and forsaken. Remember, it was over very rags that the prodigal's father put upon him the purple robe. But our boy is not a prodigal, Helen. I know him well, and I have faith in him, and faith in human nature—especially Cardross nature." And the earl smiled. "Far deeper than any harshness will smite him the consciousness of being forgiven and trusted—of being expected to carry out in his future life all that was a-missing in two not particularly happy lives, his mother's—and mine."

Helen Bruce resisted no more. She could not. She was a wise woman— a generous and loving-hearted woman; still, in that self-contained, solitary existence, which had been spent close beside her, yet into the mystery of which she had never penetrated, and never would penetrate, there was a nearness to heaven and heavenly things, and clearness of vision about earthly things which went far beyond her own. She could not quite comprehend it—she would never have thought of it herself —but she dimly felt that the earl's judgment was correct, and that, strange as his conduct might appear, he was acting after that large sense of rightness which implies righteousness; a course of action which the world so often ridicules and misconstrues, because the point of view is taken from an altitude not of this world, and the objects regarded there-from are things not visible, but invisible.

Cardross appeared next day—not at home, but at the Castle, and was closeted there for several hours with the earl before he ever saw his mother. When he did—and it was he who came to her, for she refused to take one step to go to him—he flung himself on his knees before her and sobbed in her lap—the great fellow of six feet high and twenty years old—sobbed and prayed for forgiveness with the humility of a child.

"Oh, mother, mother—and he has forgiven me too! To think what he has done for me—what he is about to do—me, who have had no father, or worse than none. Do you know, sometimes people in Edinburgh —the Menteiths, and so on—have taunted me cruelly about my father?"

"And what do you answer?" asked Helen, in a slow, cold voice.

"That he was my father, and that he was dead; and I bade them speak no more about him."

"That was right, my son."

Then they were silent till Cardross burst out again.

"It is wonderful—wonderful! I can hardly believe it yet—that we should never be poor nay more—you, mother, who have gone through so much, and I, who thought I should have to work hard all my days for both of us. And I will work!" cried the boy, as he tossed back his curls and lifted up to his mother a face that in brightness and energy was the very copy of her own, or what hers used to be. "I'll show you, and the earl too, how hard I can work—as hard as if for daily bread. I'll do every thing he wishes me—I'll be his right hand, as he says. I will make a name for myself and him too—mother, you know I am to bear his name?"

"Yes, my boy."

"And I am glad to bear it. I told him so. He shall be proud of me yet, and you too. Oh, mother, mother, I will never vex you again."

And once more his voice broke into sobs, and Helen's too, as she clasped him close, and felt that whatever God had taken away from her, He had given her as much—and more.

Mother and son—widowed mother and only son—there is something in the tie unlike all others in the world—not merely in its blessedness, but in its divine compensations.

Helen waited till her father had retired, which he often did quite early, for the days were growing too long for him, with whom every one of them was numbered; and he listened to the wonderful news which his grandson told him with the even smile of old age, which nothing now either grieves or surprises.

"You'll not be going to live at the Castle, though, not while I am alive, Helen?" was his first uneasy thought. But his daughter soon quieted it, and saw him to his bed, as she did every evening, bidding him good-night, and kissing his placid brow—placid as a child's— just as if he had been her child instead of her father. Then she took her son's arm—such a stalwart arm now, and walked with him through the bright moonlight, clear as day, to Cairnforth Castle.

When they entered the library they found the earl sitting in his usual place, and engaged in his usual evening occupation, which he sometimes called "the hard labor of doing nothing;" for, though he was busy enough in the daytime with a young man he had as secretary—his faithful old friend, Mr. Mearns, having lately died—still, he generally spent his evenings alone. Malcolm lurked within call, in case he wanted any thing; but he rarely did. Often he would pass hours at a time sitting as now, with his feeble hands folded on his lap, his head bent, and his eyes closed, or else open and looking out straight before him— calmly, but with an infinite yearning in them that would have seemed painful to those who did not know how peaceful his inmost nature was.

But at the first sound of his visitors' footsteps he turned round— that is, he turned his little chair round—and welcomed them heartily and brightly.

A little ordinary talk ensued, in which Cardross scarcely joined. The young man was not himself at all—silent, abstracted; and there was an expression in his face which almost frightened his mother, so solemn was it, yet withal so exceedingly sweet.

The earl had been right in his conclusions; he, with his keen insight into character, had judged Cardross better than the boy's own mother would have done. Those brilliant prospects, that total change in his expected future, which might have dazzled a lower nature and sent it all astray, made this boy—Helen's boy, with Helen's nature strong in him, only the more sensible of his deficiencies as well as his responsibilities—humble, self-distrustful, and full of doubts and fears. Ten years seemed to have passed over his head since morning, changing him from a boy into a sedate, thoughtful man.

Lord Cairnforth noticed this, as he noticed every thing; and at last, seeing the young heart was too full almost to bear much talking, he said kindly,

"Cardross, give your mother that arm-chair; she looks very wearied. And the, would you mind having a consultation with Malcolm about those salmon-weirs at the head of the Loch Mohr? I know his is longing to open his heart to you on the subject. Go, my boy, and don't hurry back. I want to have a good long talk with your mother."

Cardross obeyed. The two friends looked after him as he walked down the room with his light, active step, and graceful, gentlemanly figure—a youth who seemed born to be heir to all the splendors around him. Helen clasped her hands tightly together on her lap, and her lips moved. She did not speak, but the earl almost seemed to hear the great outcry of the mother's heart going up to God—"Give any thing thou wilt to me, only give him all!" Alas! That such a cry should ever fall back to earth in the other pitiful moan, "Would God that I had died for thee, O Abaslom, my son—my son!"

But it was not to be so with Helen Bruce. Her son was no Absalom. Her days of sorrow were ended.

Laird Cairnforth saw how violently affected she was, and began to talk to her in a commonplace and practical manner about all that he and Cardross had been arranging that morning.

"And I must say that, though he will never shine at college, and probably his grandfather would mourn over him as having no learning, there is an amount of solid sense about the fellow with which I am quite delighted. He is companionable too—knows how to make use of his acquirements. Whatever light he possesses, he will never hide it under a bushel, which is, perhaps, the best qualification for the position that he will one day hold. I have no fear about Cardross. He will be an heir after my own heart—will accomplish all I wished, and possibly a little more."

Mrs. Bruce answered only by tears.

"But there is one thing which he and I have settled between us, subject to your approval, of course. He must go back to college immediately."

"To Edinburg?"

"Do not look so alarmed, Helen. No, not Edinburg. It is best to break off all associations there—he wishes it himself. He would like to go to a new University—St. Andrew's."

"But he knows nobody there. He would be quite alone. For I can not— do you not see I can not?—leave my father. Oh, it is like being pulled in two," cried Mrs. Bruce, in great distress.

"Be patient, Helen, and hear. We have arranged it all, the boy and I. Next week we are both bound for St. Andrew's."

"You?"

"You think I shall be useless? That it is a man, and not such a creature as I, who ought to take charge of your boy?"

The earl spoke with that deep bitterness which sometimes, though very, very rarely, he betrayed, till he saw what exceeding pain he had given.

"Forgive me, Helen; I know you did not mean that; but it was what I myself often thought until this morning. Now I see that after all I— even I—may be the very best person to go with the boy, because, while keeping a safe watch over him, and a cheerful house always open to him, I shall also give him somebody to take care of. I shall be as much charge to him almost as a woman, and it will be good for him. Do you not perceive this?"

Helen did, clearly enough.

"Besides," continued the earl, "I might, perhaps, like to see the world myself—just once again. At any rate, I shall like to see it through this young man's eyes. He has not told you of our plan yet?"

"Not a word."

"That is well. I like to see he can keep faith. I made him promise not, because I wanted to tell you myself, Helen—I wanted to see how you would take the plan. Will you let us go? That is, the boy must go, and—you will do without me for a year?"

"A whole year! Can not Cardross come home once—just once?"

"Yes, I will manage it so; he shall come, even if I can not," replied the earl, and then was silent.

"And you," said Mrs. Bruce, suddenly, after a long meditation upon her son and his future, "you leave, for a year, your home, your pleasant life here; you change all your pursuits and plans, and give yourself no end of trouble, just to go and watch over my boy, and keep his mother's heart from aching! How can I ever thank you—ever reward you?"

No, she never could.

"It is an ugly word, 'reward;' I don't like it. And, Helen, I thought thanks were long since set aside as unnecessary between you and me."

"And you will be absent a whole year?"

"Probably, or a little more; for the boy ought to keep two sessions at least; and locomotion is not so easy to me as it is to Cardross. Yes, my dear, you will have to part with me—I mean I shall have to part with you—for a year. It is a long time in our short lives. I would not do it—give myself the pain of it—for any thing in this world except to make Helen happy."

"Thank you; I know that."

But Helen, full of her son and his prospects—her youth renewed in his youth, her life absorbed in his, seeming to stretch out to a future where there was no ending, knew not half of what she thanked him for.

She yielded to all the earl's plans; and after so many years of resistance, bowed her independent spirit to accept his bounty with humility of gratitude that was almost painful to both, until a few words of his led her to, and left her in the belief that he was doing what was agreeable to himself—that he really did enjoy the idea of a long sojourn at St. Andrew's; and, mother-like, when she was satisfied on this head, she began almost to envy him the blessing of her boy's constant society.

So she agreed to all his plans cheerfully, contentedly, as indeed she had good reason to be contented; thankfully accepted every thing, and never for a moment suspected that she was accepting a sacrifice.



Chapter 17

During a whole year the Earl of Cairnforth and Mr. Bruce-Montgomery— for, as soon as possible, Cardross legally assumed the name—resided at that fairest of ancient cities and pleasantest of Scotch Universities, St. Andrew's.

A few of the older inhabitants may still remember the house the earl occupied there, the society with which he filled it, and the general mode of life carried on by himself and his adopted son. Some may recall —for indeed it was not easy to forget—the impression made in the good old town by the two new-comers when they first appeared in the quiet streets, along the Links and on the West Sands—every where that the little carriage could be drawn. A strange contrast they were —the small figure in the pony-chair, and the tall young man walking beside it in all the vigor, grace, and activity of his blooming youth. Two companions pathetically unlike, and yet always seen together, and evidently associating with one another from pure love.

They lived for some time in considerable seclusion, for the earl's rank and wealth at first acted as a bar to much seeking of his acquaintance among the proud and poor University professors and old-fashioned inhabitants of the city; and Cardross, being the senior of most of the college lads, did not cultivate them much. By degrees, however, he became well known—not as a hard student—that was not his line —he never took any high college honors; but he was the best golfer, the most dashing rider, the boldest swimmer—he saved more than one life on that dangerous shore; and, before the session was half over, he was the most popular youth in the whole University. But he would leave every thing, or give up every thing—both his studies and his pleasures—to sit, patient as a girl, beside the earl's chair, or to follow it—often guiding it himself—up and down St. Andrews' streets; never heeding who looked at him, or what comments were made— as they were sure to be made—upon him, until what was at first so strange and touching a sight grew at last familiar to the whole town.

Of course, very soon all the circumstances of the case came out, probably with many imaginary additions, though the latter never reached the ears of the two concerned. Still, the tale was romantic and pathetic enough to make the earl and his young heir objects of marked interest, and welcome guests in the friendly hospitalities of the place, which hospitalities were gladly requited, for Lord Cairnforth still keenly enjoyed society, and Cardross was at an age when all pleasure is attractive.

People said sometimes, What a lucky fellow was Mr. Bruce-Montgomerie! But they also said—as no one could help seeing and saying—that very few fathers were blessed with a son half so attentive and devoted as this young man was to the Earl of Cairnforth.

And meantime Helen Bruce lived quietly at the Manse, devoting herself to the care of her father, who still lingered on, feeble in body, though retaining most of his faculties, as though death were unwilling to end a life which had so much of peace and enjoyment of it to the very last. When the session was over, Cardross went home to see his mother and grandfather, and on his return Lord Cairnforth listened eagerly to all the accounts of Cairnforth, and especially of all that Mrs. Bruce was doing there; she, as the person most closely acquainted with the earl's affairs, having been constituted regent in his absence.

"She's a wonderful woman—my mother," said Cardross, with great admiration. "She has the sense of a man, and the tact of a woman. She is doing every thing about the estate almost as cleverly as you would do it yourself."

"Is she? It is good practice for her," said the earl. "She will need it soon."

Cardross looked at him. He had never till then noticed, what other people began to notice, how exceedingly old the earl now looked, his small, delicate features withering up almost like those of an elderly man, though he was not much past forty.

"You don't, mean—oh no, not that! You must not be thinking of that. My mother's rule at Cairnforth is a long way off yet." And—big fellow as he was—the lad's eyes filled with tears.

After that day he refused all holiday excursions in which Lord Cairnforth could not accompany him. It was only by great persuasion that he agreed to go for a week to Edinburg, to revisit his old haunts there, to look on the ugly fields where he had sown his wild oats, and prove to even respectable and incredulous Uncle Alick that there was no fear of their ever sprouting up again. Also, Lord Cairnforth took the opportunity to introduce his cousin into his own set of Edinburg friends, to familiarize the young man with the society in which he must shortly take his place, and to hear from them, what he so warmly believed himself, that Cardross was fitted to be heir to any property in all Scotland.

"What a pity," some added, "that he could not be heir to the earldom also!" "No," said others, "better that 'the wee earl' (as old-fashioned folk still sometimes called him) should be the last Earl of Cairnforth."

With the exception of those two visits, during a whole twelvemonth the earl and his adopted son were scarcely parted for a single day. Years afterward, Cardross loved to relate, first to his mother, and then to his children, sometimes with laughter, and again with scarcely repressed tears, may an anecdote of the life they two led together at St. Andrew's —a real student life, yet filled at times with the gayest amusements. For the earl loved gayety—actual mirth; sometimes he and Cardross were as full of jests and pranks as two children, and at other times they held long conversations upon all manner of grave and earnest topics, like equal friends. It was the sort of companionship, free and tender, cheerful and bright, yet with all the influence of the elder over the younger, which, occurring to a young man of Cardross's age and temperament, usually determines his character for life.

Thus, day by day, Helen's son developed and matured, becoming more and more a thorough Cardross, sound to the core, and yet polished outside in a manner which had not been the lot of any of the earlier generation, save the minister. Also, he had a certain winning way with him—a power of suiting himself to every body, and pleasing every body— which even his mother, who only pleased those she loved or those that loved her, had never possessed.

"It's his father's way he has, ye ken," Malcolm would say—Malcolm, who, after a season of passing jealousy, had for years succumbed wholly to his admiration of "Miss Helen's bairn." "But it's the only bit o' the Bruces that the lad's gotten in him, thank the Lord!"

Though the earl did not say openly "thank the Lord," still he, too, recognized with a solemn joy that the qualities he and Helen dreaded had either not been inherited by Captain Bruce's son, or else timely care had rooted them out. And as he gradually relaxed his watch over the young man, and left him more and more to his own guidance, Lord Cairnforth, sitting alone in his house at St. Andrew's—almost as much alone as he used to sit in the Castle library—would think, with a strange consolation, that this year's heavy sacrifice had not been in vain.

Once Cardross, coming in from a long golfing match, broke upon one of these meditative fits, and was a little surprised to find that the earl did not rouse himself out of it quite so readily as was his wont; also that the endless college stories, which he always liked so much to listen to, fell rather blank, and did not meet Lord Cairnforth's hearty laugh, as gay as that of a young fellow could share and sympathize in them all.

"You are not well to-day," suddenly said the lad. "What have you been doing?"

"My usual work—nothing."

"But you have been thinking. What about?" cried Cardross, with the affectionate persistency of one who knew himself a favorite, and looking up in the earl's face with his bright, fond eyes—Helen's very eyes.

"I was thinking of your mother, my boy. You know it is a whole year since I have seen your mother."

"So she said in her last letter, and wondered when you intended coming home, because she misses you more and more every day."

"You, she means, Carr."

"No, yourself. I know my mother wishes you would come home."

"Does she? And so do I. But I should have to leave you alone, my boy; for if once I make the effort, and return to Cairnforth, I know I shall never quit it more."

He spoke earnestly—more so than the occasion seemed to need, and there was a weary look in his eyes which struck his companion.

"Are you afraid to leave me alone, Lord Cairnforth?" asked Cardross, sadly.

"No." And again, as if he had not answered strongly enough, he repeated, "My dear boy, no!"

"Thank you. You never said it, but I knew. You came here for my sake, to take charge of me. You made me happy—you never blamed me—you neither watched me or domineered over me—still, I knew. Oh, how good you have been!"

Lord Cairnforth did not speak for some time, and then he said, gravely,

"However things were at first, you must feel, my boy, that I trust you now entirely, and that you and I are thorough friends—equal friends."

"Not equal. On, never in my whole life shall I be half so good as you! But I'll try hard to be as good as I can. And I shall be always beside you. Remember your promise."

This was, that after he came of age, and ended his university career, instead of taking "the grand tour," like most young heirs of the period, Cardross should settle down at home, in the character of of Lord Cairnforth's private secretary—always at hand, and ready in every possible way to lighten the burden of business which, even as a young man, the earl had found heavy enough, and as an old man he would be unable to bear.