The Master of Ballantrae Chapter 6

Robert Louis Stevenson (0:09)

Chapter VI. Summary of Events during the Master's Second Absence.

Of the heavy sickness which declared itself next morning, I can think with equanimity, as of the last unmingled trouble that befell my master. And even that was perhaps a mercy in disguise, for what pains of the body could equal the miseries of his mind? Mrs. Henry and I had the watching by the bed. My old lord called from time to time to take the news, but would not usually pass the door. Once I remember when hope was nigh gone he stepped to the bedside, looked a while in his son's face, and turned away with a singular gesture of the head and hand thrown up that remains upon my mind as something tragic. Such grief and such a scorn of subliminary things were there expressed. But the most of the time Mrs. Henry and I had the room to ourselves, taking turns by night and bearing each other company by day, for it was dreary watching. Mr. Henry, his shaven head bound in a napkin, tossed to and fro without remission, beating the bed with his hands. His tongue never lay, his voice ran continuously like a river, so that my heart was weary with the sound of it. It was notable, and to me inexpressibly mortifying, that he spoke all the while on matters of no import, comings and goings, horses, which he was ever calling to have saddled, thinking perhaps, the poor soul, that he might ride away from his discomfort, matters of the garden, the salmon nets, and what I particularly raged to hear continually of his affairs, ciphering figures and holding disputation with the tenetary. Never a word of his father or his wife, nor of the Master, save only for a day or two, when his mind dwelled entirely in the past, and he supposed himself a boy again, and upon some innocent child's play with his brother. What made this the more affecting? It appeared the Master had then run some peril of his life, for there was a cry, Oh, Jamie will be drowned! Oh, save Jamie! which he came over and over with a great deal of passion. This, I say, was affecting both to Mrs. Henry and myself, but the balance of my Master's wanderings did him little justice. It seemed he had set out to justify his brother's colonies, as though he was bent to prove himself a man of a dry nature immersed in money-getting. Had I been there alone, I would not have troubled my thumb. But all the while, as I listened, I was estimating the effect on the man's wife, and telling myself that he fell lower every day.

I was the one person on the surface of the globe that comprehended him, and I was bound there should be yet another.

Whether he was to die there and his virtues perish, or whether he should save his days and come back to that inheritance of sorrows, his right memory, I was bound he should be heartily lamented in the one case, and unaffectedly welcomed in the other by the person he loved the most, his wife.

Finding no occasion of free speech, I bethought me at last of a kind of documentary disclosure, and for some nights, when I was off duty and should have been asleep, I gave my time to the preparation of that which I may call my budget. But this I found to be the easiest portion of my task, and that which remained, namely the presentation to my lady, almost more than I had fortitude to overtake. Several days I went about with my papers under my arm, spying for some juncture of talk to serve as introduction. I will not deny, but that some offered, only when they did, my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, and I think I might have been carrying about my packet till this day had not a fortunate accident delivered me from all my hesitations. This was at night, when I was once more leaving the room, the thing not yet done, and myself in despair at my own cowardice. What do you carry about with you, Mr. McKellar? she asked. These last days I see you always coming in and out with the same armful. I returned upon my steps without a word, laid the papers before her on the table, and left her to her reading. Of what that was, I am now to give you some idea, and the best will be to reproduce a letter of my own which came first in the budget, and of which, according to an excellent habitude, I have preserved the scroll. It will show to the moderation of my part in these affairs a thing which some have called recklessly in question.