The Wizard's Son. Volume 2of 3

"Look there! the light – the light! Who says they do not believe in it?" the young fellow said; and then there was a flutter of exclamations and subdued cries of wonder and interest, not without dissentient voices.

"I see some sort of a glimmer," said one.

"It is as clear as day," cried another.

"It must be reflection," a third said.

Walter raised his eyes; he had no sort of doubt to what they referred. His old house lay dark upon the edge of the dark gleaming loch, silent, deserted, not a sign of life about the ruined walls; but upon the tower shone the phantasm of the light, now waning, now rising, as if some unfelt wind blew about the soft light of an unseen lamp. It brought him to himself in a moment, and woke him up from the maze of vague thoughts which had abstracted him even in the midst of the gay movement and bustle. He listened with strange spectatorship, half-stern, half-amused, to all the murmurs of the little crowd.

"If you call that light!" said the voice of Katie; "it is some phosphorescence that nobody has examined into, I suppose. Who knows what decayed things are there? That sort of glimmer always comes of decay. Oh, yes, I once went to chemistry lectures, and I know. Besides, it stands to reason. What could it be else?"

"You know very well, Katie, what they say – that it is the summons of the warlock lord."

"I would like to answer the summons," cried Katie, with a laugh. "I would send for the health inspector, from Glasgow, and clear it all out, every old crevice, and all the perilous stuff. That would be the thing to do. As for the warlock lord, papa shall invite him to dinner if you will find out where he is to be met with, Tom."

"Like the commandant in Don Giovanni," somebody said; and there was an echoing laugh, but of a feeble kind.

Walter heard this conversation with a sort of forlorn amusement. He was not excited; his blood was rather congealed than quickened in his veins. But he lingered behind, taking no notice of his late companions as they streamed away to the boats. He seemed in a moment to have been parted miles – nay, worlds away from them. When he thought of the interview that was before him, and of the light-hearted strangers making comments upon the legend of the place with laugh and jest, it seemed to him that he and they could scarcely belong to the same race. He lingered, with no heart for the farewells and explanations that would be necessary if he left them formally: and turning round gazed steadfastly towards Kinloch Houran from behind the shade of the shrubbery. Here Oona found him, as she rushed back to warn him that the boats were pushing off. She began breathlessly —

"Lord Erradeen, you are called – " then stopped, looked at him, and said no more.

He did not answer her for a moment, but stood still, and listened to the sounds below, the impatient call, the plash of the oars in the water, the grating of the keel of the last boat as it was pushed off. Then he looked at Oona, with a smile.

"I am called – ?" he said, "but not that way. Now I must go home."

Her heart beat so that she could scarcely speak. Was this spell to take possession of her again, against her will, without any wish of his, like some enchantment? She fought against it with all her might.

"If that is so," she said, "Hamish will put you across, when you please."

He took no notice of these indifferent words.

"This time," he said, "it is altogether different. I know what is going to happen, and I am not afraid. But it must come to an end."

What was it to her if it came to an end or not? She tried to check the quick-rising sympathy, to offer no response.

"They will be late on the water, but I hope they will get home before dark," she replied.

Then he looked at her wistfully, with a look that melted her very heart.

"Don't you know that it will never come to an end unless you stand by me?" he cried.

CHAPTER XIV

Mrs. Forrester was most willing to put Hamish and the boat, or anything else she possessed, at Lord Erradeen's service. "It is just the most sensible thing you could do," she said. "They will be very late, and half of them will have colds. Oona, you will just let Hamish know. But Lord Erradeen, since you are here, will you not stay a little longer, and get your dinner before you go? No? Well, I will not say another word if it is not convenient. Just tell Hamish, Oona, my dear."

Walter followed her so closely when she went upon that mission that she could not escape him. They stood together in the grey of the evening light, upon the beach, while Hamish prepared the boat, Oona's mind in a tumult of apprehension and resistance, with an insidious softness behind, which she felt with despair was betraying her over again into the folly she had surmounted. He had not the same commotion in his mind; his thoughts were altogether bent on what was coming. She was his confidant, his support in it, though he had not said a word to her. He took her into account in the matter as a man takes his wife. She was a part of it all, though it was not of her he was thinking. He spoke after a moment in a tone full of this curious claim, which seemed to him at the moment incontestable.

"It will never come to an end unless you stand by me," he said. "Everything can be done if you will stand by me."

Oona, in her strange agitation, felt as if she had surprised him thinking aloud; as if he did not address her, but merely repeated to himself a fact which was beyond dispute. He said no more, neither did she make any reply. And once more, as if in repetition of the former scene, he turned round as he stepped into the heavy boat, and looked back upon her as Hamish began to ply the oars. She stood and watched him from the beach; there was no wave of the hand, no word of farewell. They were both too much moved for expression of any kind; and everything was different though the same. On the former occasion he had been escaping, and was eager to get free, to get out of reach of an oppression he could not bear; but now was going to his trial, to meet the tyrant, with a certainty that escape was impossible. And for Oona there had been the sensation of a loss unspeakable – a loss which she could neither confess nor explain, which took the heart out of her life; whereas now there was a re-awakening, a mysterious beginning which she could not account for or understand. She stood on the beach till the boat had disappeared, and even till the sound of the oars died out in the distance, in an agitation indescribable. The first despairing sense that the influence against which she had struggled was regaining possession of her, was for the moment lost in an overwhelming tide of sympathy and response to the claim he had made. He had no right to make that claim, and it was intolerable that she should have so little power over herself as to yield to it, and allow herself to become thus the subject of another. Her pride, her reason, had been in arms against any such thraldom; but for this moment Oona was again overcome. She had no power of resistance – her very being seemed to go with him, to add itself to his, as he disappeared across the darkling loch. Stand by him! The words went breathing about her in the air, and in her mind, and everything in her echoed and responded – Stand by him! Yes, to the death. This excitement failed in a sudden chill and shiver, and sense of shame which covered her face with blushes which no one saw, as startled by the gathering dark, and the sound of Mysie's step hastening down to the landing-place with a shawl for her, Oona turned again and ran swiftly up the winding way.

The loch was like lead, with a ripple of mysterious changing lights in the darkness, as the boat shot round under the shadow of Kinloch Houran. All was as still as in a world of dreams, the sound of Hamish's oars in their regular sweep alone breaking the intense stillness. Here and there among the trees a light glimmered on the shore – a window of the Manse – the door of the little inn standing open and betraying the ruddy warmth within: but no sound near enough to interrupt the stillness. Walter felt as though he parted with a certain protection when he stepped upon the bit of mossed causeway which served as a landing pier to the old castle, and, bidding Hamish good-night, stood alone in that solitude and watched the boatman's red shirt, which had forced its colour even upon the twilight, grow black as it disappeared. The sensation in Walter's mind had little akin with that panic and horror which had once overwhelmed him. No doubt it was excitement that filled up his whole being, and made the pulses throb in his ears, but it was excitement subdued; and all he was conscious of was a sort of saddened expectation – a sense of a great event about to take place which he could not elude or stave off – a struggle in which he might be worsted. "Let not him that putteth on his armour boast himself like him that putteth it off." He did not know what might happen to him. But the tremors of his nervous system, or of his agitated soul, or of his physical frame – he could not tell which it was – were stilled. He was intensely serious and sad, but he was not afraid.

Symington, who had been in waiting, listening for his master's return, opened the door and lighted him up the spiral stairs. The room was already lighted and cheerful, the curtains drawn, the fire blazing brightly.

"The days are creeping in," he said, "and there's a nip in the air aneath thae hills – so I thought a fire would be acceptable." In fact the room looked very comfortable and bright, not a place for mysteries. Walter sat down between the cheerful fire and the table with its lights.

There is often at the very crisis of fate a relaxation of the strain upon the mind – a sudden sense as of peril over, and relief. Thus the dying will often have a glimmer in the socket, a sense of betterness and hope before the last moment. In the same way a sensation of relief came on Walter at the height of his expectation. His mind was stilled. A feeling without any justification, yet grateful and consoling, came over him, as if the trial were over, or at least postponed – as if something had intervened for his deliverance. He sat and warmed himself in this genial glow, feeling his pulses calmed and his mind soothed – he could not tell how. How long or how short the interval of consolation was, if a few minutes only, or an hour, or half a life-time, he could not tell. He was roused from it by the sound of steps in the corridor outside. It was a passage which ended in nothing – in the gloom of the ruinous portion of the house – and consequently it was not usual to hear any sound in it, the servants invariably approaching Lord Erradeen's rooms by the stair. On this occasion, however, Walter, suddenly roused, heard some one coming from a distance, with steps which echoed into the vacancy as of an empty place, but gradually drawing nearer, sounding, in ordinary measure, a man's footstep, firm and strong, but not heavy, upon the corridor outside. Then the door was opened with the usual click of the lock and heavy creak with which it swung upon its hinges. He rose up, scarcely knowing what he did.

"You examined everything last night to find a secret passage," said the new-comer with a humorous look, "which indeed might very well have existed in a house of this date. There was actually such a passage once existing, and connected with a secret room which I have found useful in its time. But that was in another part of the house, and the age of concealments and mysteries – of that kind – is past. Won't you sit down?" he added, pleasantly. "You see I put myself at my ease at once."

Walter's heart had given such a bound that the sensation made him giddy and faint. He stood gazing at the stranger, only half comprehending what was happening. All that happened was natural and simple in the extreme. The visitor walked round the table to the other side of the fire, and moving the large chair which stood there into a position corresponding to Walter's, seated himself in the most leisurely and easy way. "Sit down," he repeated after a moment, more peremptorily, and with almost a tone of impatience. "We have much to talk over. Let us do it comfortably, at least."

"I can have nothing to talk over," said Walter, feeling that he spoke with difficulty, yet getting calm by dint of speaking, "with an undesired and unknown visitor."

The other smiled. "If you will think of it you will find that I am far from unknown," he said. "No one can have a larger body of evidence in favour of his reality. What did that poor little woman in Edinburgh say to you?"

"I wonder," cried Walter, unconscious of the inconsistency, "that you can permit yourself to mention her name."

"Poor little thing," he replied, "I am sincerely sorry for her. Had I foreseen what was going to happen I should have guarded against it. You may tell her so. Everything that is subject to human conditions is inconsistent and irregular. But on the whole, taking life altogether, there is not so much to be regretted. Probably she is happier there than had she embarked, as she was about to do, in a struggle with me. Those who contend with me have not an easy career before them."

"Yet one day it will have to be done," Walter said.

"Yes. You consent then that I am not unknown, however undesired," the stranger said, with a smile. He was so entirely at his ease, at his leisure, as if he had hours before him, that Walter, gazing in an impatience beyond words, felt the hopelessness of any effort to hurry through the interview, and dropped into his seat with a sigh of reluctance and despair.

"Who are you?" he cried; "and why, in the name of God, do you thus torment and afflict a whole race?"

"The statement is scarcely correct. I was a Highland youth of no pretension once, and you are supposed to be Lord Erradeen, not only a Scotch lord, but an English peer. That is what my tormenting and afflicting have come to, with many solid acres and precious things besides. Very few families of our antiquity have even survived these centuries. Not one has grown and increased to the point at which we stand. I see a great addition within our reach now."

"And what good has it all done?" Walter said. "They say that my predecessor was a miserable man, and I know that I – since this elevation, as you think it – have been – "

"Good for nothing. I allow it fully. What were you before? Equally good for nothing; consuming your mother's means, opposing her wishes, faithful to no one. My friend, a man who sets himself against me must be something different from that."

To this Walter made no reply. He could not be called penitent for the folly of his life; but he was aware of it. And he did not attempt to defend himself. He was entirely silenced for the moment: and the other resumed.

"I have always felt it to be probable that some one capable of resistance might arise in time. In the mean time all that has happened has been gain, and my work has been fully successful. It would rather please me to meet one in the course of the ages who was fit to be my conqueror, being my son. It is a contingency which I have always taken into consideration. But it is not likely to be you," he said, with a slight laugh. "I shall know my victor when he comes."

"Why should it not be I? If it be enough to hate this tyrannical influence, this cruel despotism – "

"As you have hated every influence and every rule all your life," said the other with a smile. "That is not the sort of man that does anything. Do you think it is agreeable to me to be the progenitor of a race of nobodies? I compensate myself by making them great against their will – the puppets! I allow you to wear my honours out of consideration to the prejudices of society: but they are all mine."

"It was not you, however, who got them," said Walter. "Can a grandfather inherit what was given to his descendants?"

"Come," said the stranger, "you are showing a little spirit – I like that better. Let us talk now of the immediate business in hand. You have something in your power which I did not foresee when I talked to you last. Then there were few opportunities of doing anything – nothing in your range that I had observed, but to clear off incumbrances, which, by the way, you refused to do. Now a trifling exertion on your part – "

"You mean the sacrifice of my life."

The stranger laughed – this time with a sense of the ludicrous which made his laugh ring through the room with the fullest enjoyment. "The sacrifice of a life, which has been made happy by – and by – and by – . How many names would you like me to produce? You have perhaps a less opinion of women than I have. Which of them, if they knew all about it, as I do, would pick up that life and unite their own to it? But happily they don't know. She thinks perhaps – that girl on the isle – that I mean her harm. I mean her no harm – why should I harm her? I harm no one who does not step into my way."

"Man!" cried Walter – "if you are a man – would you hurt her for succouring me? Would you treat her as you treated – "

"That was an accident," he said quickly. "I have told you already I would have guarded against it had I divined – But your limited life is the very empire of accident; and those who come across my path must take the consequences. It is their own fault if they put themselves in the way of danger. Let us return to the subject in hand. The woman whom you must marry – "

The words suddenly seemed to close on the air, leaving no sort of echo or thrill in it; and Walter, looking round, saw Symington come in with the scared look he remembered to have seen in the old man's countenance before, though without any sign in him of seeing the stranger. He asked in a hesitating manner, "Did ye ring, my lord? You'll be wanting your dinner. It is just ready to come up."

Walter was about to send the old servant hastily away; but a slight sign from his visitor restrained him. He said nothing, but watched, with feelings indescribable, the proceedings of the old man, who began to lay the table, moving to and fro, smoothing the damask cloth, folding the napkin, arranging the silver. Symington did everything as usual: but there was a tremor in him, unlike his ordinary composure. Sometimes he threw an alarmed and tremulous look round the room, as if something terrifying might lurk in any corner; but while doing so brushed past the very person of that strange visitor in the chair without a sign that he knew any one to be there. This mixture of suppressed panic and inconceivable unconsciousness gave Walter a suffocating sensation which he could not master. He cried out suddenly, in a loud and sharp tone which was beyond his own control, "Symington! Is it possible you don't see – "

Symington let the forks and spoons he was holding drop out of his hands. He cried out, quavering, "Lord, have a care of us!" Then he stopped trembling to gather up the things he had dropped, which was a great trouble, so nervous and tremulous was he. He collected them all at the very foot of the man who sat smiling in the great chair.

"You gave me a terrible fright, my lord," the old man said, raising himself with a broken laugh: "that was what you meant, no doubt. All this water about and damp makes a man nervish. See! what should I see? I am no one of those," Symington added, with a great attempt at precision and a watery smile, "that see visions and that dream dreams."

"Why should you disturb the man's mind for nothing," said the visitor in that penetrating voice which Walter felt to go through him, penetrating every sense. He had grown reckless in the strange horror of the circumstances.

"Don't you hear that?" he cried sharply, catching Symington by the arm.

The old man gave a cry, his eyes flickered and moved as if they would have leapt from their sockets. He shook so that Walter's grasp alone seemed to keep him from falling. But he remained quite unconscious of any special object of alarm.

"Me! I hear naething," he cried. "There is nothing to hear. You have listened to all those old stories till ye are just out of yourself. But no me," Symington said with a quavering voice, but a forced smile. "No me! I am not superstitious. You will no succeed, my lord, in making a fool of me. Let me go. The trout is done by this time, and I must bring up my dinner," he cried with feverish impatience, shaking himself free.

Walter turned round half-dazed to say he knew not what to the occupant of that chair. But when he looked towards it there was no one there: nor in the room, nor anywhere near was the slightest trace of his visitor to be found.

CHAPTER XV

It may be supposed that the dinner which was served to Lord Erradeen after this episode was done but little justice to. The trout was delicious, the bird cooked to perfection; but the young man, seated in sight of the apparently vacant chair, where so lately his visitor had been seated, could scarcely swallow a morsel. Was he there still, though no one could see him? or had he departed only to return again when Symington and the meal had been cleared away, and the evening was free? There was a sickening sensation at Walter's heart as he asked himself these questions, and indeed, throughout this portion of his life, his experience was that the actual presence of this extraordinary person was very much less exciting and confusing than the effect produced during his apparent absence, when the idea that he might still be there unseen, or might appear at any moment, seemed to disturb the mental balance in a far more painful way. In the present case the effect was overpowering. Walter had been talking to him almost with freedom: it was impossible, indeed, thus to converse – even though the conversation was something of a struggle, with a man possessed of all the ordinary faculties, and in appearance, though more dignified and stately than most, yet in no way unlike other men – without a gradual cessation of those mysterious tremors with which the soul is convulsed in presence of anything that appears supernatural. The personage who inhabited, or (for it was impossible to think of him as inhabiting a ruin) periodically visited Kinloch Houran had nothing in him save his stateliness of aspect which need have separated him from ordinary men. He would have attracted attention anywhere, but except as a person of unusual distinction, would have startled no one; and even when the young man so cruelly subject to his influence talked with him, it was impossible to keep up the superstitious terror which nature feels for the inexplainable. But as soon as he withdrew, all this instinctive feeling returned. Walter's nerves and imagination sprang up into full play again, and got command of his reason. By moments it seemed to him that he caught a glimpse still of an outline in the chair, of eyes looking at him, of the smile and the voice which expressed so full a knowledge of all his own past history and everything that was in him. This consciousness gave to his eyes the same scared yet searching look which he had seen in those of Symington, took his breath from him, made his head whirl, and his heart fail. Symington waiting behind his chair, but eagerly on the watch for any sign, saw that his young lord was ghastly pale, and perceived the half stealthy look which he cast around him, and especially the entire failure of his appetite. This is a thing which no Scotch domestic can bear.

"You are no eating, my lord," he said in a tone of gentle reproach, as he withdrew the plate with the untasted trout. ("That many a poor gentleman would have been glad of!" he said to himself.)

"No, I am not particularly hungry," Walter said, with a pretence at carelessness.

"I can recommend the bird," said Symington, "if it's no just a cheeper, for the season is advanced, it's been young and strong on the wing; and good game is rich, fortifying both to the body and spirit. Those that have delicate stomachs, it is just salvation to them – and for those that are, as ye may say, in the condition of invalids in the mind – "

Symington had entirely recovered from his own nervousness. He moved about the room with a free step, and felt himself fully restored to the position of counsellor and adviser, with so much additional freedom as his young master was less in a position to restrain him, and permitted him to speak almost without interruption. Indeed Walter as he ineffectually tried to eat was half insensible to the monologue going on over his head.