He was so bewildered, the rough shepherd, who had spent all his life on the hill-sides, and never seen or imagined so sad a sight as this, that at first he could not find a word. Then he said, hanging back and speaking confusedly and humbly, "I ask your pardon, my lord--I dina ken--I"ll no trouble ye the day."
"But you do not trouble me at all. Mr. Menteith is not here yet, and I know nothing about business; still, if you wished to speak to me, do so; I am Lord Cairnforth."
"Are ye?" said the shepherd, evidently bewildered still, so that he forgot his natural awe for his feudal superior. "Are ye the countess"s bairn, that"s just the age o" our Dougal? Dougal"s ane o" the gamekeepers, ye ken--sic a braw fellow--sax feet three. Ye"ll hae seen him, Maybe?"
"No, but I should like to see him. And yourself--are you a tenant of mine, and what did you want with me?"
Encouraged by the kindly voice, and his own self-interest becoming prominent once more, old Dougal told his tale--not an uncommon one --of sheep lost on the hill-side, and one misfortune following another, until a large family, children and orphan grandchildren, were driven at last to want the "sup o" parritch" for daily food, sinking to such depths of poverty as the earl in secluded life had never even heard of. And yet the proud old fellow asked nothing except the remission of one year"s rent, after having paid rent honestly for half a lifetime.
That stolid, silent endurance, which makes a Scotch beggar of any sort about the last thing you ever meet with in Scotland, supported him to the very end.
The earl was deeply touched. As a matter of course, he promised all that was desired of him, and sent the old shepherd away happy; but long after Dougal"s departure he sat thoughtful and grave.
"Can such things be, Helen, and I never heard of them? Are some of my people--they are my people, since the land belongs to me--as terribly poor as that man?"
"Ay, very many, though papa looks after them as much as he can. Dougal is out of his parish, or he would have know him. Papa knows every body, and takes care of every body, as far as possible."
"So ought I--or I must do it when I am older," said the earl, thoughtfully.
"There will be no difficulty about that when you come of age and enter on your property."
"Is it a very large property? For I never heard or inquired."
"Very large."
"Show me its boundary; there is the map."
Helen took it down and drew with a pencil the limits of the Cairnforth estates. They extended along the whole peninsula, and far up into the main land.
"There, Lord Cairnforth, every bit of this is yours."
"To do exactly what I like with?"
"Certainly."
"Helen, it is an awfully serious thing."
Helen was silent.
"How strange!" He continued, after a pause. "And this was really all mine from the very hour of my birth?"
"Yes."
"And when I come of age I shall have to take my property into my own hands, and manage it just as I choose, or as I can?"
"Of course you will; and I think you can do it, if you try."
For it was not the first time that Helen had pondered over these things, since, being neither learned nor poetical, worldly-minded nor selfish, in her silent hours her mind generally wandered to the practical concerns of other people, and especially of those she loved.
""Try" ought to be the motto of the Cardross arms--of yours certainly,"
said Lord Cairnforth, smiling. "I should like to a.s.sume it on mine, instead of my own "Virtute et fide," which is of little use to me.
How can I--I--be brave or faithful?"
"You can be both--and you will," said Helen, softly. Years from that day she remembered what she had said, and how true it was.
A little while afterward, while the minister still remained buried in his beloved books, Lord Carinforth recurred again to Dougal Mac Dougal.
"The old fellow was right. If I am ever to have "ony wits ava," I ought to have them by this time. I am nearly twenty-one. Any other young man would have been a man long ago. And I will be a man--why should I not? True manliness is not solely outside. I dare say you could find many a fool and a coward six feet high."
"Yes," answered Helen, all she could find to say.
"And if I have nothing else, I have brains--quite as good brains, I think, as my neighbors. They can not say of me now that I"m "no a"
there." Nay, Helen, don"t look so fierce; they meant me no ill; it was but natural. Yes, G.o.d has left me something to be thankful for."
The earl lifted his head--the only part of his frame which he could move freely, and his eyes flashed under his broad brows. Thoroughly manly brows they were, wherein any acute observer might trace that clear sound sense, active energy, and indomitable perseverance which make the real man, and lacking which the "brawest" young follow alive is a mere body--and animal wanting the soul.
"I wonder how I should set about managing my property. The duty will not be as easy for me as for most people, you know," added he, sadly; "still, if I had a secretary--a thorough man of business, to teach me all about business, and to be constantly at my side, perhaps I might be able to accomplish it. And I might drive about the country--driving is less painful to me now--and get acquainted with my people; see what they wanted, and how I could best help them. They would get used to me, too. I might turn out to be a very respectable laird, and become interested in the improvement of my estates."
"There is great opportunity for that, I know," replied Helen. And then she told him of a conversation she had heard between her father and Mr.
Menteith, when the latter had spoken of great changes impending over quiet Cairnforth: how a steamer was to begin plying up and down the loch --how there were continual applications for land to be feued--and how all these improvements would of necessity require the owner of the soil to take many a step unknown to and undreamed of by his forefathers --to make roads, reclaim hill and moorland, build new farms, churches, and school-houses.
"In short, as Mr. Menteith said, the world is changing so fast that the present Earl of Cairnforth will have any thing but the easy life of his father and grandfather.
"Did Mr. Menteith say that?" cried the earl, eagerly.
"He did, indeed; I heard him."
"And did he seem to think that I should be able for it?"
"I can not tell," answered truthful Helen. "He said not a word one way or the other about your being capable of doing the work; he only said the work was to done."
"Then I will try and do it."
The earl said this quietly enough, but his eyes gleamed and his lips quivered.
Helen laid her hand upon his, much move. "I said you were brave-- always; still, you must think twice about it, for it will be a very responsible duty--enough, Mr. Menteith told papa, to require a man"s whole energies for the next twenty years."
"I wonder if I shall live so long. Well, I am glad, Helen. It will be something worth living for."
Chapter 7
Malcolm"s saying that "if my lord taks a thing into his heid he"ll do"t, ye ken," was as true now as when the earl was a little boy.
Mr. Mentieth hardly knew how the thing was accomplished--indeed, he had rather opposed it, believing the mere physical impediments to his ward"s overlooking his own affairs were insurmountable; but Lord Cairnforth contrived in the course of a day or two to initiate himself very fairly in all the business attendant upon the "term;" to find out the exact extent and divisions of his property, and to whom it was feued. And on term-day he proposed, though with an evident effort which touched the old lawyer deeply, to sit beside Mr. Menteith while the tenants were paying their rents, so as to become personally known to each of them.