and a lady housekeeper or governante, who took all external charge of the child, while the personal care of him was left, as before, to his nurse, Mrs. Campbell, now wholly devoted to him, for at seven years old her own boy had died. He had another attendant, to whom, with a curious persistency, he had strongly attached himself ever since his babyhood—young Malcolm Campbell, Neil Campbell's brother, who was saved by clinging to the keel of the boat when the late Lord Cairnforth was drowned. Beyond these, whose fond fidelity knew no bounds, there was hardly need of any other person to take charge of the little earl, except a tutor, and that office Mr. Menteith entreated Mr. Cardross to accept.
It was a doubtful point with the minister. He shrank from assuming any new duty, his daily duties being now made only too heavy by the loss of the wife who had shared and lightened them all. But he named the matter to Helen, whom he had lately got into the habit of consulting—she was such a wise little woman for her age—and Helen said anxiously, "Papa, try." Besides, there were six boys to be brought up, and put into the world somehow, and the Manse income was small, and the salary offered by Mr. Manteith very considerable. So when, the second time, Helen's great soft eyes implored silently, "Papa, please try," the minister kissed her, went into his study and wrote to Edinburg his acceptance of the office of tutor to Lord Cairnforth.
What sort of office it would turn out—what kind of instruction he was expected to give, or how much the young earl was capable of receiving, he had not the least idea; but he resolved that, in any case, he would do his duty, and neither man nor minister could be expected to do more.
In pursuance of this resolution, he roused himself that sunny June morning, when he would far rather have sat over his study-fire and let the world go on without him—as he felt it would, easily enough—and walked down to the Castle, where, for the first time these ten years, windows were opened and doors unbarred, and the sweet light and warm air of day let in upon those long-shut rooms, which seemed, in their dumb, inanimate way, glad to be happy again—glad to be made of use once more. Even the portraits of the late earl and countess—he in his Highland dress, and she in her white satin and pearls—both so young and bright, as they looked on the day they were married, seemed to gaze back at each other from either side the long dining-room, as if to say, rejoicing, "Our son is coming home."
"Have you seen the earl?" said Mr. Cardross to one of the new servants who attended him round the rooms, listening respectfully to all the remarks and suggestions as to furniture and the like which Mr. Menteith had requested him to make. The minister was always specially popular with servants and inferiors of every sort, for he possessed, in a remarkable degree, that best key to their hearts, the gentle dignity which never needs to assert a superiority that is at once felt and acknowledged.
"The earl, sir? Na, na"—with a mysterious shake of the head—"naebody sees the earl. Some say—but I hae nae cause to think it mysel'—that he's no a' there."
The minister was sufficiently familiar with that queer, but very expressive Scotch phrase, "not all there," to pursue no farther inquiries. But he sighed, and wished he had delayed a little before undertaking the tutorship. However, the matter was settled now, and Mr. Cardross was not the man ever to draw back from an agreement or shrink from a promise.
"Whatever the poor child is—even if an idiot," thought he, "I will do my best for him, for his father's and mother's sake."
And he paused several minutes before those bright and smiling portraits, pondering on the mysterious dealings of the great Ruler of the universe—how some are taken and some are left: those removed who seem most happy and most needed; those left behind whom it would have appeared, in our dim and short-sighted judgment, a mercy, both to themselves and others, quietly to have taken away.
But one thing the minister did in consequence of these somewhat sad and painful musings. On his return to the clachan—where, of course, the news of the earl's coming home had long spread, and thrown the whole country-side into a state of the greatest excitement—he gave orders, or at least, advice—which was equivalent to orders, since everybody obeyed him—that there should be no special rejoicings on the earl's coming home; no bonfire on the hill-side, or triumphal arches across the road, and at the ferry where the young earl would probably land—where, ten years before, the late Earl of Cairnforth had been not landed, but carried, stone-cold, with his dripping, and his dead hands still clutching the weeds of the loch. The minister vividly recalled the sight, and shuddered at it still.
"No, no," said he, in talking the matter over with some of his people, whom he went among like a father among his children, true pastor of a most loving flock, "no; we'll wait and see what the earl would like before we make any show. That we are glad to see him he knows well enough, or will very soon find out. And if he should arrive on such a night as this"—looking round on the magnificent June sunset, coloring the mountains at the head of the loch—"he will hardly need a brighter welcome to a bonnier home."
But the earl did not arrive on a gorgeous evening like this, such as come sometimes to the shores of Loch Beg, and make it glow into a perfect paradise: he arrived in "saft" weather—in fact, on a pouring wet Saturday night, and all the clachan saw of him was the outside of his carriage, driving, with closed blinds, down the hill-side. He had taken a long round, and had not crossed the ferry; and he was carried as fast as possible through the dripping wood, reaching, just as darkness fell, the Castle door.
Mr. Cardross, perhaps, should have been there to welcome the child—his conscience rather smote him that he was not—but it was the minister's unbroken habit of years to spend Saturday evening alone in his study. And it might be that, with a certain timidity, inherent in his character, he shrank from this first meeting, and wished to put off as long as possible what must inevitably be awkward, and might be very painful. So, in darkness and rain, unwelcomed save by his own servants, most of whom even had never yet seen him, the poor little earl came to his ancestral door.
But on Sunday morning all things were changed, with one of those sudden changes which make this part of the country so wonderfully beautiful, and so fascinating through its endless variety.
A perfect June day, with the loch glittering in the sun, and the hills beyond it softly outlined with the indistinctness that mountains usually wear in summer, but with the soft summer coloring too, greenish-blue, lilac, and silver-gray varying continually. In the woods behind, where the leaves were already gloriously green, the wood-pigeons were cooing, and the blackbirds and mavises singing, just as if it had not been Sunday morning, or rather as if they knew it was Sunday, and were straining their tiny throats to bless the Giver of sweet, peaceful, cheerful Sabbath-days, and of all other good things, meant for man's usage and delight.
At the portico of Cairnforth Castle, for the first time since the hearse had stood there, stood a carriage—one of those large, roomy, splendid family carriages which were in use many years ago. Looking at it, no passerby could have the slightest doubt that it was my lord's coach, and that my lord sat therein in solemn state, exacting and receiving an amount of respect little short of veneration, such as, for generations, the whole country-side had always paid to the Earls of Cairnforth. This coach, though it was the identical family coach, had been newly furnished; its crimson satin glowed, and its silver harness and ornaments flashed in the sun; the coachman sat in his place, and two footmen stood up in their place behind. It was altogether a very splendid affair, as became the equipage of a young nobleman who was known to possess twenty thousand a year, and who, from his castle tower—it had a tower, though nobody ever climbed there—might, if he chose, look around upon miles and miles of moorland, loch, hill-side, and cultivated land, and say to himself—or be said to by his nurse, as in the old song—
"These hills and these vales, from this tower that ye see,
They all shall belong, my young chieftain, to thee."
The horse pawed the ground for several minutes of delay,
