Роберт Льюис Стивенсон
Lay Morals, and Other Papers
‘There, sir,’ said she, getting upon her feet, ‘your fire is doing bravely now. Good-night.’
He rose and held out his hand. ‘Come,’ said he, ‘you are my only friend in these parts, and you must shake hands.’
She brushed her hand upon her skirt and offered it, blushing.
‘God bless you, my dear,’ said he.
And then, when he was alone, he opened one of the windows, and stared down into the dark valley. A gentle wimpling of the river among stones ascended to his ear; the trees upon the other bank stood very black against the sky; farther away an owl was hooting. It was dreary and cold, and as he turned back to the hearth and the fine glow of fire, ‘Heavens!’ said he to himself, ‘what an unfortunate destiny is mine!’
He went to bed, but sleep only visited his pillow in uneasy snatches. Outbreaks of loud speech came up the staircase; he heard the old stones of the castle crack in the frosty night with sharp reverberations, and the bed complained under his tossings. Lastly, far on into the morning, he awakened from a doze to hear, very far off, in the extreme and breathless quiet, a wailing flourish on the horn. The down mail was drawing near to the ‘Green Dragon.’ He sat up in bed; the sound was tragical by distance, and the modulation appealed to his ear like human speech. It seemed to call upon him with a dreary insistence – to call him far away, to address him personally, and to have a meaning that he failed to seize. It was thus, at least, in this nodding castle, in a cold, miry woodland, and so far from men and society, that the traffic on the Great North Road spoke to him in the intervals of slumber.
CHAPTER III – JONATHAN HOLDAWAY
Nance descended the tower stair, pausing at every step. She was in no hurry to confront her uncle with bad news, and she must dwell a little longer on the rich note of Mr. Archer’s voice, the charm of his kind words, and the beauty of his manner and person. But, once at the stair-foot, she threw aside the spell and recovered her sensible and workaday self.
Jonathan was seated in the middle of the settle, a mug of ale beside him, in the attitude of one prepared for trouble; but he did not speak, and suffered her to fetch her supper and eat of it, with a very excellent appetite, in silence. When she had done, she, too, drew a tankard of home-brewed, and came and planted herself in front of him upon the settle.
‘Well?’ said Jonathan.
‘My lord has run away,’ said Nance.
‘What?’ cried the old man.
‘Abroad,’ she continued; ‘run away from creditors. He said he had not a stiver, but he was drunk enough. He said you might live on in the castle, and Mr. Archer would pay you; but you was to look for no more wages, since he would be glad of them himself.’
Jonathan’s face contracted; the flush of a black, bilious anger mounted to the roots of his hair; he gave an inarticulate cry, leapt upon his feet, and began rapidly pacing the stone floor. At first he kept his hands behind his back in a tight knot; then he began to gesticulate as he turned.
‘This man – this lord,’ he shouted, ‘who is he? He was born with a gold spoon in his mouth, and I with a dirty straw. He rolled in his coach when he was a baby. I have dug and toiled and laboured since I was that high – that high.’ And he shouted again. ‘I’m bent and broke, and full of pains. D’ ye think I don’t know the taste of sweat? Many’s the gallon I’ve drunk of it – ay, in the midwinter, toiling like a slave. All through, what has my life been? Bend, bend, bend my old creaking back till it would ache like breaking; wade about in the foul mire, never a dry stitch; empty belly, sore hands, hat off to my Lord Redface; kicks and ha’pence; and now, here, at the hind end, when I’m worn to my poor bones, a kick and done with it.’ He walked a little while in silence, and then, extending his hand, ‘Now you, Nance Holdaway,’ says he, ‘you come of my blood, and you’re a good girl. When that man was a boy, I used to carry his gun for him. I carried the gun all day on my two feet, and many a stitch I had, and chewed a bullet for. He rode upon a horse, with feathers in his hat; but it was him that had the shots and took the game home. Did I complain? Not I. I knew my station. What did I ask, but just the chance to live and die honest? Nance Holdaway, don’t let them deny it to me – don’t let them do it. I’ve been as poor as Job, and as honest as the day, but now, my girl, you mark these words of mine, I’m getting tired of it.’
‘I wouldn’t say such words, at least,’ said Nance.
‘You wouldn’t?’ said the old man grimly. ‘Well, and did I when I was your age? Wait till your back’s broke and your hands tremble, and your eyes fail, and you’re weary of the battle and ask no more but to lie down in your bed and give the ghost up like an honest man; and then let there up and come some insolent, ungodly fellow – ah! if I had him in these hands! “Where’s my money that you gambled?” I should say. “Where’s my money that you drank and diced?” “Thief!” is what I would say; “Thief!”’ he roared, ‘“Thief”’
‘Mr. Archer will hear you if you don’t take care,’ said Nance, ‘and I would be ashamed, for one, that he should hear a brave, old, honest, hard-working man like Jonathan Holdaway talk nonsense like a boy.’
‘D’ ye think I mind for Mr. Archer?’ he cried shrilly, with a clack of laughter; and then he came close up to her, stooped down with his two palms upon his knees, and looked her in the eyes, with a strange hard expression, something like a smile. ‘Do I mind for God, my girl?’ he said; ‘that’s what it’s come to be now, do I mind for God?’
‘Uncle Jonathan,’ she said, getting up and taking him by the arm; ‘you sit down again, where you were sitting. There, sit still; I’ll have no more of this; you’ll do yourself a mischief. Come, take a drink of this good ale, and I’ll warm a tankard for you. La, we’ll pull through, you’ll see. I’m young, as you say, and it’s my turn to carry the bundle; and don’t you worry your bile, or we’ll have sickness, too, as well as sorrow.’
‘D’ ye think that I’d forgotten you?’ said Jonathan, with something like a groan; and thereupon his teeth clicked to, and he sat silent with the tankard in his hand and staring straight before him.
‘Why,’ says Nance, setting on the ale to mull, ‘men are always children, they say, however old; and if ever I heard a thing like this, to set to and make yourself sick, just when the money’s failing. Keep a good heart up; you haven’t kept a good heart these seventy years, nigh hand, to break down about a pound or two. Here’s this Mr. Archer come to lodge, that you disliked so much. Well, now you see it was a clear Providence. Come, let’s think upon our mercies. And here is the ale mulling lovely; smell of it; I’ll take a drop myself, it smells so sweet. And, Uncle Jonathan, you let me say one word. You’ve lost more than money before now; you lost my aunt, and bore it like a man. Bear this.’
His face once more contracted; his fist doubled, and shot forth into the air, and trembled. ‘Let them look out!’ he shouted. ‘Here, I warn all men; I’ve done with this foul kennel of knaves. Let them look out!’
‘Hush, hush! for pity’s sake,’ cried Nance.
And then all of a sudden he dropped his face into his hands, and broke out with a great hiccoughing dry sob that was horrible to hear. ‘O,’ he cried, ‘my God, if my son hadn’t left me, if my Dick was here!’ and the sobs shook him; Nance sitting still and watching him, with distress. ‘O, if he were here to help his father!’ he went on again. ‘If I had a son like other fathers, he would save me now, when all is breaking down; O, he would save me! Ay, but where is he? Raking taverns, a thief perhaps. My curse be on him!’ he added, rising again into wrath.
‘Hush!’ cried Nance, springing to her feet: ‘your boy, your dead wife’s boy – Aunt Susan’s baby that she loved – would you curse him? O, God forbid!’
The energy of her address surprised him from his mood. He looked upon her, tearless and confused. ‘Let me go to my bed,’ he said at last, and he rose, and, shaking as with ague, but quite silent, lighted his candle, and left the kitchen.
Poor Nance! the pleasant current of her dreams was all diverted. She beheld a golden city, where she aspired to dwell; she had spoken with a deity, and had told herself that she might rise to be his equal; and now the earthly ligaments that bound her down had been tightened. She was like a tree looking skyward, her roots were in the ground. It seemed to her a thing so coarse, so rustic, to be thus concerned about a loss in money; when Mr. Archer, fallen from the sky-level of counts and nobles, faced his changed destiny with so immovable a courage. To weary of honesty; that, at least, no one could do, but even to name it was already a disgrace; and she beheld in fancy her uncle, and the young lad, all laced and feathered, hand upon hip, bestriding his small horse. The opposition seemed to perpetuate itself from generation to generation; one side still doomed to the clumsy and the servile, the other born to beauty.
She thought of the golden zones in which gentlemen were bred, and figured with so excellent a grace; zones in which wisdom and smooth words, white linen and slim hands, were the mark of the desired inhabitants; where low temptations were unknown, and honesty no virtue, but a thing as natural as breathing.
CHAPTER IV – MINGLING THREADS
It was nearly seven before Mr. Archer left his apartment. On the landing he found another door beside his own opening on a roofless corridor, and presently he was walking on the top of the ruins. On one hand he could look down a good depth into the green court-yard; on the other his eye roved along the downward course of the river, the wet woods all smoking, the shadows long and blue, the mists golden and rosy in the sun, here and there the water flashing across an obstacle. His heart expanded and softened to a grateful melancholy, and with his eye fixed upon the distance, and no thought of present danger, he continued to stroll along the elevated and treacherous promenade.
A terror-stricken cry rose to him from the courtyard. He looked down, and saw in a glimpse Nance standing below with hands clasped in horror and his own foot trembling on the margin of a gulf. He recoiled and leant against a pillar, quaking from head to foot, and covering his face with his hands; and Nance had time to run round by the stair and rejoin him where he stood before he had changed a line of his position.
‘Ah!’ he cried, and clutched her wrist; ‘don’t leave me. The place rocks; I have no head for altitudes.’
‘Sit down against that pillar,’ said Nance. ‘Don’t you be afraid; I won’t leave you, and don’t look up or down: look straight at me. How white you are!’
‘The gulf,’ he said, and closed his eyes again and shuddered.
‘Why,’ said Nance, ‘what a poor climber you must be! That was where my cousin Dick used to get out of the castle after Uncle Jonathan had shut the gate. I’ve been down there myself with him helping me. I wouldn’t try with you,’ she said, and laughed merrily.
The sound of her laughter was sincere and musical, and perhaps its beauty barbed the offence to Mr. Archer. The blood came into his face with a quick jet, and then left it paler than before. ‘It is a physical weakness,’ he said harshly, ‘and very droll, no doubt, but one that I can conquer on necessity. See, I am still shaking. Well, I advance to the battlements and look down. Show me your cousin’s path.’
‘He would go sure-foot along that little ledge,’ said Nance, pointing as she spoke; ‘then out through the breach and down by yonder buttress. It is easier coming back, of course, because you see where you are going. From the buttress foot a sheep-walk goes along the scarp – see, you can follow it from here in the dry grass. And now, sir,’ she added, with a touch of womanly pity, ‘I would come away from here if I were you, for indeed you are not fit.’
Sure enough Mr. Archer’s pallor and agitation had continued to increase; his cheeks were deathly, his clenched fingers trembled pitifully. ‘The weakness is physical,’ he sighed, and had nearly fallen. Nance led him from the spot, and he was no sooner back in the tower-stair, than he fell heavily against the wall and put his arm across his eyes. A cup of brandy had to be brought him before he could descend to breakfast; and the perfection of Nance’s dream was for the first time troubled.
Jonathan was waiting for them at table, with yellow, blood-shot eyes and a peculiar dusky complexion. He hardly waited till they found their seats, before, raising one hand, and stooping with his mouth above his plate, he put up a prayer for a blessing on the food and a spirit of gratitude in the eaters, and thereupon, and without more civility, fell to. But it was notable that he was no less speedily satisfied than he had been greedy to begin. He pushed his plate away and drummed upon the table.
‘These are silly prayers,’ said he, ‘that they teach us. Eat and be thankful, that’s no such wonder. Speak to me of starving – there’s the touch. You’re a man, they tell me, Mr. Archer, that has met with some reverses?’
‘I have met with many,’ replied Mr. Archer.
‘Ha!’ said Jonathan. ‘None reckons but the last. Now, see; I tried to make this girl here understand me.’
‘Uncle,’ said Nance, ‘what should Mr. Archer care for your concerns? He hath troubles of his own, and came to be at peace, I think.’
‘I tried to make her understand me,’ repeated Jonathan doggedly; ‘and now I’ll try you. Do you think this world is fair?’
‘Fair and false!’ quoth Mr. Archer.
The old man laughed immoderately. ‘Good,’ said he, ‘very good, but what I mean is this: do you know what it is to get up early and go to bed late, and never take so much as a holiday but four: and one of these your own marriage day, and the other three the funerals of folk you loved, and all that, to have a quiet old age in shelter, and bread for your old belly, and a bed to lay your crazy bones upon, with a clear conscience?’
‘Sir,’ said Mr. Archer, with an inclination of his head, ‘you portray a very brave existence.’
‘Well,’ continued Jonathan, ‘and in the end thieves deceive you, thieves rob and rook you, thieves turn you out in your old age and send you begging. What have you got for all your honesty? A fine return! You that might have stole scores of pounds, there you are out in the rain with your rheumatics!’
Mr. Archer had forgotten to eat; with his hand upon his chin he was studying the old man’s countenance. ‘And you conclude?’ he asked.
‘Conclude!’ cried Jonathan. ‘I conclude I’ll be upsides with them.’
‘Ay,’ said the other, ‘we are all tempted to revenge.’
‘You have lost money?’ asked Jonathan.
‘A great estate,’ said Archer quietly.
‘See now!’ says Jonathan, ‘and where is it?’
‘Nay, I sometimes think that every one has had his share of it but me,’ was the reply. ‘All England hath paid his taxes with my patrimony: I was a sheep that left my wool on every briar.’
‘And you sit down under that?’ cried the old man. ‘Come now, Mr. Archer, you and me belong to different stations; and I know mine – no man better – but since we have both been rooked, and are both sore with it, why, here’s my hand with a very good heart, and I ask for yours, and no offence, I hope.’
‘There is surely no offence, my friend,’ returned Mr. Archer, as they shook hands across the table; ‘for, believe me, my sympathies are quite acquired to you. This life is an arena where we fight with beasts; and, indeed,’ he added, sighing, ‘I sometimes marvel why we go down to it unarmed.’
In the meanwhile a creaking of ungreased axles had been heard descending through the wood; and presently after, the door opened, and the tall ostler entered the kitchen carrying one end of Mr. Archer’s trunk. The other was carried by an aged beggar man of that district, known and welcome for some twenty miles about under the name of ‘Old Cumberland.’ Each was soon perched upon a settle, with a cup of ale; and the ostler, who valued himself upon his affability, began to entertain the company, still with half an eye on Nance, to whom in gallant terms he expressly dedicated every sip of ale. First he told of the trouble they had to get his Lordship started in the chaise; and how he had dropped a rouleau of gold on the threshold, and the passage and doorstep had been strewn with guinea-pieces. At this old Jonathan looked at Mr. Archer. Next the visitor turned to news of a more thrilling character: how the down mail had been stopped again near Grantham by three men on horseback – a white and two bays; how they had handkerchiefs on their faces; how Tom the guard’s blunderbuss missed fire, but he swore he had winged one of them with a pistol; and how they had got clean away with seventy pounds in money, some valuable papers, and a watch or two.
‘Brave! brave!’ cried Jonathan in ecstasy. ‘Seventy pounds! O, it’s brave!’
‘Well, I don’t see the great bravery,’ observed the ostler, misapprehending him. ‘Three men, and you may call that three to one. I’ll call it brave when some one stops the mail single-handed; that’s a risk.’
‘And why should they hesitate?’ inquired Mr. Archer. ‘The poor souls who are fallen to such a way of life, pray what have they to lose? If they get the money, well; but if a ball should put them from their troubles, why, so better.’
‘Well, sir,’ said the ostler, ‘I believe you’ll find they won’t agree with you. They count on a good fling, you see; or who would risk it? – And here’s my best respects to you, Miss Nance.’
‘And I forgot the part of cowardice,’ resumed Mr. Archer. ‘All men fear.’
‘O, surely not!’ cried Nance.
‘All men,’ reiterated Mr. Archer.
‘Ay, that’s a true word,’ observed Old Cumberland, ‘and a thief, anyway, for it’s a coward’s trade.’
‘But these fellows, now,’ said Jonathan, with a curious, appealing manner – ‘these fellows with their seventy pounds! Perhaps, Mr. Archer, they were no true thieves after all, but just people who had been robbed and tried to get their own again. What was that you said, about all England and the taxes? One takes, another gives; why, that’s almost fair. If I’ve been rooked and robbed, and the coat taken off my back, I call it almost fair to take another’s.’
‘Ask Old Cumberland,’ observed the ostler; ‘you ask Old Cumberland, Miss Nance!’ and he bestowed a wink upon his favoured fair one.
‘Why that?’ asked Jonathan.
‘He had his coat taken – ay, and his shirt too,’ returned the ostler.
‘Is that so?’ cried Jonathan eagerly. ‘Was you robbed too?’
‘That was I,’ replied Cumberland, ‘with a warrant! I was a well-to-do man when I was young.’
‘Ay! See that!’ says Jonathan. ‘And you don’t long for a revenge?’
‘Eh! Not me!’ answered the beggar. ‘It’s too long ago. But if you’ll give me another mug of your good ale, my pretty lady, I won’t say no to that.’
‘And shalt have! And shalt have!’ cried Jonathan. ‘Or brandy even, if you like it better.’
And as Cumberland did like it better, and the ostler chimed in, the party pledged each other in a dram of brandy before separating.
As for Nance, she slipped forth into the ruins, partly to avoid the ostler’s gallantries, partly to lament over the defects of Mr. Archer. Plainly, he was no hero. She pitied him; she began to feel a protecting interest mingle with and almost supersede her admiration, and was at the same time disappointed and yet drawn to him. She was, indeed, conscious of such unshaken fortitude in her own heart, that she was almost tempted by an occasion to be bold for two. She saw herself, in a brave attitude, shielding her imperfect hero from the world; and she saw, like a piece of heaven, his gratitude for her protection.
CHAPTER V – LIFE IN THE CASTLE
From that day forth the life of these three persons in the ruin ran very smoothly. Mr. Archer now sat by the fire with a book, and now passed whole days abroad, returning late, dead weary. His manner was a mask; but it was half transparent; through the even tenor of his gravity and courtesy profound revolutions of feeling were betrayed, seasons of numb despair, of restlessness, of aching temper. For days he would say nothing beyond his usual courtesies and solemn compliments; and then, all of a sudden, some fine evening beside the kitchen fire, he would fall into a vein of elegant gossip, tell of strange and interesting events, the secrets of families, brave deeds of war, the miraculous discovery of crime, the visitations of the dead. Nance and her uncle would sit till the small hours with eyes wide open: Jonathan applauding the unexpected incidents with many a slap of his big hand; Nance, perhaps, more pleased with the narrator’s eloquence and wise reflections; and then, again, days would follow of abstraction, of listless humming, of frequent apologies and long hours of silence. Once only, and then after a week of unrelieved melancholy, he went over to the ‘Green Dragon,’ spent the afternoon with the landlord and a bowl of punch, and returned as on the first night, devious in step but courteous and unperturbed of speech.
If he seemed more natural and more at his ease it was when he found Nance alone; and, laying by some of his reserve, talked before her rather than to her of his destiny, character and hopes. To Nance these interviews were but a doubtful privilege. At times he would seem to take a pleasure in her presence, to consult her gravely, to hear and to discuss her counsels; at times even, but these were rare and brief, he would talk of herself, praise the qualities that she possessed, touch indulgently on her defects, and lend her books to read and even examine her upon her reading; but far more often he would fall into a half unconsciousness, put her a question and then answer it himself, drop into the veiled tone of voice of one soliloquising, and leave her at last as though he had forgotten her existence. It was odd, too, that in all this random converse, not a fact of his past life, and scarce a name, should ever cross his lips. A profound reserve kept watch upon his most unguarded moments. He spoke continually of himself, indeed, but still in enigmas; a veiled prophet of egoism.
The base of Nance’s feelings for Mr. Archer was admiration as for a superior being; and with this, his treatment, consciously or not, accorded happily. When he forgot her, she took the blame upon herself. His formal politeness was so exquisite that this essential brutality stood excused. His compliments, besides, were always grave and rational; he would offer reason for his praise, convict her of merit, and thus disarm suspicion. Nay, and the very hours when he forgot and remembered her alternately could by the ardent fallacies of youth be read in the light of an attention. She might be far from his confidence; but still she was nearer it than any one. He might ignore her presence, but yet he sought it.
Moreover, she, upon her side, was conscious of one point of superiority. Beside this rather dismal, rather effeminate man, who recoiled from a worm, who grew giddy on the castle wall, who bore so helplessly the weight of his misfortunes, she felt herself a head and shoulders taller in cheerful and sterling courage. She could walk head in air along the most precarious rafter; her hand feared neither the grossness nor the harshness of life’s web, but was thrust cheerfully, if need were, into the briar bush, and could take hold of any crawling horror. Ruin was mining the walls of her cottage, as already it had mined and subverted Mr. Archer’s palace. Well, she faced it with a bright countenance and a busy hand. She had got some washing, some rough seamstress work from the ‘Green Dragon,’ and from another neighbour ten miles away across the moor. At this she cheerfully laboured, and from that height she could afford to pity the useless talents and poor attitude of Mr. Archer. It did not change her admiration, but it made it bearable. He was above her in all ways; but she was above him in one. She kept it to herself, and hugged it. When, like all young creatures, she made long stories to justify, to nourish, and to forecast the course of her affection, it was this private superiority that made all rosy, that cut the knot, and that, at last, in some great situation, fetched to her knees the dazzling but imperfect hero. With this pretty exercise she beguiled the hours of labour, and consoled herself for Mr. Archer’s bearing.
Pity was her weapon and her weakness. To accept the loved one’s faults, although it has an air of freedom, is to kiss the chain, and this pity it was which, lying nearer to her heart, lent the one element of true emotion to a fanciful and merely brain-sick love.
Thus it fell out one day that she had gone to the ‘Green Dragon’ and brought back thence a letter to Mr. Archer. He, upon seeing it, winced like a man under the knife: pain, shame, sorrow, and the most trenchant edge of mortification cut into his heart and wrung the steady composure of his face.
‘Dear heart! have you bad news?’ she cried.
But he only replied by a gesture and fled to his room, and when, later on, she ventured to refer to it, he stopped her on the threshold, as if with words prepared beforehand. ‘There are some pains,’ said he, ‘too acute for consolation, or I would bring them to my kind consoler. Let the memory of that letter, if you please, be buried.’ And then as she continued to gaze at him, being, in spite of herself, pained by his elaborate phrase, doubtfully sincere in word and manner: ‘Let it be enough,’ he added haughtily, ‘that if this matter wring my heart, it doth not touch my conscience. I am a man, I would have you to know, who suffers undeservedly.’
He had never spoken so directly: never with so convincing an emotion; and her heart thrilled for him. She could have taken his pains and died of them with joy.
Meanwhile she was left without support. Jonathan now swore by his lodger, and lived for him. He was a fine talker. He knew the finest sight of stories; he was a man and a gentleman, take him for all in all, and a perfect credit to Old England. Such were the old man’s declared sentiments, and sure enough he clung to Mr. Archer’s side, hung upon his utterance when he spoke, and watched him with unwearing interest when he was silent. And yet his feeling was not clear; in the partial wreck of his mind, which was leaning to decay, some after-thought was strongly present. As he gazed in Mr. Archer’s face a sudden brightness would kindle in his rheumy eyes, his eye-brows would lift as with a sudden thought, his mouth would open as though to speak, and close again on silence. Once or twice he even called Mr. Archer mysteriously forth into the dark courtyard, took him by the button, and laid a demonstrative finger on his chest; but there his ideas or his courage failed him; he would shufflingly excuse himself and return to his position by the fire without a word of explanation. ‘The good man was growing old,’ said Mr. Archer with a suspicion of a shrug. But the good man had his idea, and even when he was alone the name of Mr. Archer fell from his lips continually in the course of mumbled and gesticulative conversation.
