Crowned Victor: a story of strife

Front matter

BY THE SAME AUTHOR Large crown Svo, cloth extra, js. AFTER TOUCH OF WEDDED HANDS " Miss Mackenzie can tell a story, and a very good story this book makes — well proportioned, original in its plan, and pleasant in style." — British Weekly. ]l of Utrifo BV HANNAH B. MACKENZIE AUTHOR OP "AFTER TOUCH OF wedded hands" etc. " To me also was given, if not Victory ; yet the consciousness of Battle, and the resolve to persevere therein while life or faculty is left,"— Sartor Resartus. EDINBURGH & LONDON OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIEB, EDINBURGH, FOR OLIPHANT, ANDERSON, & FERRIER, EDINBURGH AND LONDON. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. TURNED ON THE ROAD ..... 7 II. KATHARINE . . . . . .19 III. "thinkers disagreed" . . . . .33 IV. "and none did love him' . . . .44 v. "in the spring" . . . . .58 vi. sorrow ....... 70 vii. one night . . . . . .81 VIII.

"the first love, which is infinite" . . 97 IX. THE STRONGER WILL . . . . .114 X. AWAKENING ...... 131 XI. RENUNCIATION . . , . . .145 XII. A NEW LIFE . . . . . .168 XIII. AFTER LONG YEARS . . . . .184 XIV. "O LOVE! THERE IS ONE LOVE FOR F/VER ! " . . 190 XV. CONFESSION ...... 210 XVI. "I AM YOURS TO ALL ETERNITY" . . . 222 XVII. IN THE SIGHT OF MEN ..... 234 XVIII. LIFE AND DEATH ...... 247 TO MY UNCLE MALCOLM MACKENZIE, Esq. this volume IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED CROWNED VIC TOE

Chapter I Turned On The Eoad

" Pray for the living, in whose breast The struggle between right and wrong Is raging terrible and strong." The Golden Legend. ;|^|^PEE you coming to hear the Professor to- 'wæpg^ night in the Philosophical, Pieid?" ■■■ gEsSi " Lecturing, do you mean ? I don't think so. What's his subject ? " " ' The Science and Superstition of the Middle Ages, " answered Duncan Menteith, referring to a prospectus in his hand. " You had better come, Eeid ; the Professor is complete master of his subject, and it will be an intellectual treat to hear him." " Perhaps so ; but I don't think I'll go for all that, Duncan ; I've got a prior engagement." " With Alec Paton, or some of his set, I suppose ? " said the other, half-interrogatively, half-contempt uously. Lewis Eeid, who was sitting by the fire, — a regular lodger's fire, which the landlady kept well " deadened," as she called it, with small dross, — kicked a projecting lump of coal with his heel before he answered.

" Well, and supposing it is with Alec Paton, does that fact injure you in any way, Menteith ? I suppose I may be allowed to chose my own company, and to decide whether the Professor's lecture or Paton's society is the more enjoyable ? You go your own way without consulting me about it ; I may have the same privilege without being challenged for it, I hope." " Oh, certainly," retorted the other, the tone of contempt still to be detected in his voice. " Only it is a pity your choice lies in that direction ; but it's natural enough, I daresay." " Quite natural," agreed Lewis coolly ; but the next instant, before his companion could utter another word, he had sprung to his feet, and, facing Menteith, he leaned against the mantelpiece, with lowered brows and defiant eyes, while he went on, his tones suddenly changing from indifference to a depth of passion that made his voice sound deep and rough.

" Look here, Duncan Menteith ; listen to me a moment. I've no doubt you think it a very merit orious action on your part, that of asking a black sheep like me to go with you to the Professor's lecture ; it's an act deserving great praise, no doubt, and humble gratitude from me. I suppose you feel satisfied in your own conscience that you are trying to turn a sinner from the error of his ways. That's your opinion ; now let me give you mine for a few seconds. If I am a black sheep, who has made me so ? You and your set — the orthodoxly respectable and virtuous, who listen to every evil story they hear of a fellow-creature, and then act as if it were true. Have I not been told, if not in words, in spirit, since I came here — ' You are a sinner above all other sinners ; we cannot associate with you, though we shall do what we can to redeem you — knowing well, of course, that it's a hopeless task ' ?

Very well : if I am called a sinner, I may as well be one, Duncan. I'll have none of your charitable, patronising kindness ; it is worse to me than open malice. No ; if I am driven, against my will as it were, into the company of those that you think the vicious, I will, at least, reap the benefits of human companionship there ; and that is what I would not have from you. I suppose evil comes more readily than good to all men ; and, seeing I am believed to be vicious, I may as well fulfil my character." " You are talking unreasonably, Eeid," said Men teith severely, when Lewis at last paused in his heated outburst, which the former had listened to with cold attention. Eeid's voice was rough with passion and angry scorn, his heavy brows were lowered, his whole face sullen and defiant. Men teith, who considered all outbursts both wrong and ungentlemanly, had been somewhat taken by surprise ; he had never seen Lewis Eeid so roused before.

" No one can compel you to be vicious unless you de liberately choose to be so yourself ; and as for having pleasure in the company of Paton and his set, that only shows where your taste lies. The choice of good is its own reward ; and if you preferred the good to the evil, you would undoubtedly choose it." " Of course," said Eeid, with the same rough scorn. " No doubt a saint or a Kantian philosopher would persevere in the path of duty though the whole world were against him; but, being neither, but only a weak human being, you see where I have landed." " Well, I must not wait to argue ; if you're not coming with me, I must be off," said Menteith, not ill pleased, as few beardless philosophers would be, at being considered a follower of the immortal Kant. " There are one or two fellows waiting for me at the corner of George Street, and we'll need to take our seats early.

Good-night. I'll see you to-morrow, I suppose." He left the little room, which formed the study, parlour, and dining-room of Lewis Eeid, and proceeded on his own way, as Lewis had told him to do. He had not been hurt or offended very deeply by Eeid's rough attack on himself; he had been rather flattered by it than otherwise. He felt satisfied that he had done his duty — or even gone beyond it — towards Eeid ; for had he not invited the black sheep to walk to the Philosophical, and into it, by the side of himself, the immaculate Duncan ? It seemed to him a very noble act ; and not any the less so because Eeid had so scornfully impugned it. Perhaps Duncan Menteith would not have troubled himself so much about the black sheep, if it had not been for a feeling, deep down in his inner consciousness, that he himself looked all the whiter by reason of the contrast thus formed.

As some people appreciate their own warmth and comfort all the more because of the want and wretchedness which they know exist elsewhere, so there are those who would not altogether acquiesce in an arrangement by which sin and evil could be abolished, because they feel that their own self righteousness would lose by the want of contrast. But in justice to Menteith, it must be stated that his opinion regarding Lewis Eeid's character was one not confined to himself, but very generally shared in by others. How it had sprung into being was not exactly known. Eeid had entered the University a few years ago hke the other students, and so far had passed his examinations with honours. He was undoubtedly clever, and seemed at first more inclined to go in for what his fellow-students technically termed " stewing " than anything else ; and if his classmates took any notice of him, it was only to pronounce him a " hard grinder."

Then — who can tell how or whence such floating rumours spring ? — vague hints as to his people had been mooted ; and before long it was received as a well-authenticated story that Eeid's father had been, at one time, detained against his will, but for Her Majesty's pleasure, in an institution deservedly regarded with horror by all right-minded people in this Christian land. Eeid never con tradicted the report, though he must undoubtedly have heard it. But from that time a kind of moral deterioration began in his character and conduct. It was soon rumoured that Eeid was becoming " fast," that "he took more than was good for him," that he never went to church, and so on ; and these were all offences against good taste as well as against public morality. It was true some of Eeid's fellow-students were quite as riotous and unruly as himself, but some how their errors were more condoned.

It was said of these young men, who were backed by respectable connections, that they were " sowing their wild oats " ; and no doubt, when that unsatisfactory seedtime was over, they would reap, not tares or chaff, but good grain. Lewis Reid could not be expected ever to retrieve the past. Heredity is a fatal thing; it con demns a man, in the eyes of the world, to fulfil the character his parents have handed down to him. It is a blight on him for ever, preventing him from rising from the baser nature of his dead self to higher things. So Lewis Eeid found it. When he heard himself credited with all manner "of evil deeds and qualities, he said to himself bitterly it was only the modern world's way of visiting the sins of the fathers on the children, and that he might as well earn his reputation.

When his companion had left him, Reid sat for some time staring defiantly into the fire ; then, gather ing himself together, he rose from his seat and drew himself to his full height. He was a tall young fellow, fully six feet in his stockings, and square shouldered and muscular in proportion. His face, though not a handsome one, was uncommon, and even striking, in features and expression. Well-shaped and dark in complexion, though hair and eyes were both of the colour which goes with a fair complexion, it possessed strength and cleverness of no common order ; the features were rather large and irregular, but the forehead and mouth were broad, square, and good in expression. Dark grey eyes, and thick brown brows, redeemed the face from all charge of ugliness ; and strangely enough for the theories of those who believe in hereditary taint being stamped on the countenance, Eeid's was one of remarkable candour, honesty, and truthfulness.

Still, imaginative ladies would persist in declaring, " He has a bad face ; don't you think so, dear? Oh, that kind of open wrong-doing must show." " It's seven o'clock," said Lewis, consulting his watch. " I'll be off too. What's the use of sitting alone, moping and brooding like a blighted schoolgirl ? No doubt that's the Tempter's way of putting it ; but I can't see any reason for disputing its truth. I may as well earn my name as hang." It was in early February. Lewis plunged his arms into a heavy overcoat, took up a pair of well-worn gloves and a stick, and sauntered forth into the chilly Edinburgh air. Of old times, when a sinner went out on the path of ruin, he was sometimes met by an angel of God and turned on the way. There are angels still who some times appear to men. Lewis Eeid had got out of the dismal street in which he lodged, and was advancing towards a tram way crossing, when, happening to raise his eyes towards a lady who was crossing from the other side, he saw that she was looking at him with recognition in her eyes.

The next moment she bowed smilingly. It was something so strange and novel, so altogether un heard of, for any lady to bow to Lewis that for a moment he was almost too stunned to acknowledge it. He recovered himself, however, and pulled off his cap. Thereupon, to his gathering amazement and stupor, the lady stepped forward and extended her hand. " You are Mr. Eeid ? Don't you know me — Katharine Craven, Sir James's daughter ? I am so glad to see you — or, indeed, any one whom I know. An awkward thing has happened to me ; I have left my purse at my cousin's, where I was calling, and I must take the train home. Will you help me, Mr. Eeid ? " He knew her now. She was the only daughter of Sir James Craven, the great electrician, and Professor of Electricity, in whose class Lewis himself now was.

Yes, he remembered her ; as who, once seeing Katharine Craven, would not ? Not that she was very beautiful — many considered her the opposite ; or very young — she was fully five-and-twenty ; or very aristo cratic — Sir James had been knighted simply on account of his scientific discoveries. But she pos sessed that rare, strong, striking personality which so individualises some men and women, and marks them out from the common mass of humanity. He had seen her at the dinner which Sir James gave his class every year, at which she had presided as hostess, and had wondered vaguely if she knew or had heard any of these terrible stories afloat about him, when she spoke to him so graciously. Now he wondered more than ever. Surely no other woman, of all the women he knew in society, would have come to him asking his help !

The novelty of the situation half-amused, half bewildered him. But he was determined to carry it off with a high hand. " I shall be too happy to do you any service, Miss Craven, that is within my power," he answered as courteously as any white sheep might have done. " Can I be your messenger to your cousin ? or — what ? " " My cousin lives in Trinity ; but if you woidd go there to-night, and get my purse, I should be so much indebted. Meantime, if you can lend me a paltry shilling, I shall be all right." She smiled quite frankly and pleasantly into his face. " It is better to be your debtor than the ticket-collector's, who might not pass me, either." Lewis took out a somewhat shabby purse, and gave it mto Miss Craven's small, Suede-gloved hand. " I'm afraid there isn't more than a shilling in it,' he said, half shyly, without any trace of the bravado and mockery he would have showed to another.

Miss Craven smiled again. "Well, isn't that all I want? I ask a simple favour of you ; more than what I asked would be burdensome, less would be crushing. I attend my father's lectures, Mr. Reid, so we are classmates to that extent. My father tells me sometimes no woman has inventive faculty sufficient to appreciate his lectures. But I go, nevertheless. Will you call with my purse ? I should hke you to do so. You know where we live, but this is my card." Lewis held it in his hand, as she extended her own. " Good-bye just now, then, or cms luiedcrsehen, for I shall see you to-morrow." She was gone. Lewis stood looking after her. She had a firm, dauntless step for a woman, and her carriage gave her the appearance of being strong ; indeed, there was something about Katharine Craven's whole person which suggested the idea of strength.

She was rather above the medium height, and well-pro portioned ; her head was carried high ; she stepped out with that kind of irrepressible spring which denotes joyous energy. Yet she was altogether womanly ; from the soft, thick masses of her dark brown hair to her neat, dainty shoe, she was wholly a woman. No one ever dared say anything else of Katharine, though she was an L.L.A., had written several monthly magazine articles, and was not afraid to say women should have a vote. Lewis turned away presently. He could not go to Alec Paton's riotous party now ; he must fulfil her behest. Somehow, when he thought of Alec Paton's party, its riotous guests, its coarse stories, its low jests, Lewis felt ashamed of the look in Katharine Craven's frank dark eyes. He wondered vaguely if she should ever come to hear these stories that were told about him.

He felt he coidd not face the change from friendly mterest to cold scorn in her eyes. He felt she never must know, whatever happened ! And then, again, he felt that for him to think of associating at the same time with that strong, good, beautiful woman, — she was beautiful in his eyes, — and Alec Paton's crew, was the height of presumption. The sinner had been turned on his way for once at least.

Chapter II Katharine

' ' She was so fair, So young, so lusty, with her eyen glad." Chaucer. STRANGE bond of sympathy and of almost :^^^^: extravagant love existed between Katharine Craven and her father. Katharine had no remembrance, save a faint, shadowy one, too indistinct to be sad, of her mother. A picture hung in the library, in which Sir James spent most of his time when at home, of a golden-haired, brown-eyed woman, with a small sweet mouth and bare white neck, at which Katharine, in her hours of sadness or of idleness, — which were not many, — sometimes gazed long and dreamily, as a devotee would regard the picture of a Madonna. She tried to imagine to herself what life would have been like had her mother been spared, and sometimes felt a rush of self-pity as she realised what that mother's love and mother's sympathy which she had never known might have done for her.

In Katharine's soul her mother was enshrined as a type of all that was sweet and pure ; and if she ever thought of heaven, it was as a place in which that angel-mother dwelt. But Katharine's father had been, as far back as she could remember, the object, not only of his daughter's love, but of her care and protection. From the day when, as a little girl of eight, she had stood up on a chair, as the Professor was dressing, and begged, " Let me do your necktie, pappa," Katharine had taken upon herself the entire care of her father's comfort and physical happiness. The Erofessor was quite willing it should be so. He was an absent-minded man in regard to all the practical duties and details of fife, though on abstruse questions of science and philo sophy, as well as of his own particular science, no man owned a clearer brain ; and gradually, as Katharine grew up, the reins of household government fell into her hands, and the Professor gave few thoughts to any thing beyond his own domain.

Katharine's education had been of a peculiar kind. In her early childhood, her father, fresh from the keen shock and sorrow of his wife's death, would not allow the child from his side, and he had found a kind of relief and pleasure in conducting her education him self. The result was, that at fifteen Katharine Craven KATHARINE 21 knew more of the philosophy of Kant and Hegel than of music or painting, and more about the strange forces of electricity than about French or German. At this stage, however, the Professor's sister, a lady who prided herself on her worldly acumen, insisted on Katharine being sent to Germany for a year or two with her own daughter, and thither the girl was accordingly despatched, after some passionate rebellion on her own part and hesitation on her father's. Somehow or other, the two years of Katharine's exile shpped away, and she returned at length from Heidelberg to take her place once more at the head of her father's household.

She had learned Httle during her absence but a deep thirst for more knowledge, and she came back to study her Goethe, Lessing, Hegel, Fichte, and Herder, with the freshness and vigour of a strong young mind bent on making as much of its own capabilities as it could. Katharine had many friendships of the surface kind that go no deeper than one's lightest thoughts. But these did not absorb all her spare time ; and Katharine, with the resistless energy of youth, began to feel about her for some work wherewith to fill her life. The village, not a mile from Ladefoot, as their residence was called, was too obvious a means to her end to be overlooked. It was as trim and respectable as most mining villages are ; but Katharine had not been often in it before she comprehended, in her quick, intuitive way, how much of the respectability was on the surface, and how much sin and vice, misery and squalor, lay seething below.

Katharine had no sense of religion herself to attack these evils in the fervid spirit of religious enthusiasm, and she was not the kind of girl who takes up " slumming " as a bit of excitement, varying the monotony of a perhaps otherwise worldly and useless life. She did not read the Bible to the miserable wives and mothers of Ladeburn, nor did she treat them to little homilies on good behaviour ; but she gave them the deepest sympathy and help of her own earnest nature. Katharine was too intensely humanitarian to allow of her looking upon these villagers as " masses," to be operated upon much as the chemist experiments with his chemicals ; nor was she one to look on from a dignified vantage-point, as one of a different order from the human beings she sought to raise and help. Perhaps it was her intense sympathy with, and comprehension of, their troubles, which gave her so wonderful an influence over them.

There were few who did not welcome her frank smile, and cordial touch of the hand. On the day following Katharine's encounter with Lewis Eeid, she and her father sat over the breakfast table in the pleasant httle morning-room at Ladefoot. It was a bright February day, one of those " pet " days KA THARINE 23 which weather-wiseacres declare to be " too good to last," and the sunlight, as it streamed in, touched the iron-grey head of the Professor, and, streaming past him, shone right in Katharine's face, and into her clear, undimmed eyes. Outside, the birds were chirp ing gaily among the budding bushes and hedges, as if they felt sure spring had really come ; occasionally some boisterous thrush or blackbird, bolder than the rest, burst into a song of such exceeding glee that Katharine, looking up, smiled involuntarily.

" Isn't it pleasant to think spring is here, dad ? " she said, as the Professor threw himself back in his chair. " How delicious when May comes, and we go off again on our rambles like last year ! Do you remember them, dad ? Oh, the long, long, dreamy days among the green hills in Morven, when I used to lie on the heather, and you read Goethe aloud ! The words are ringing in my ears still, as you read them that evening when we sat below Dunolly, and looked up at it. ' Wer half mir Wider der Titanen Ueliermuth? Wer rettete vom Tode mioh, Von Sklaverei ? Hast du nicht alles selbst vollendut, Heilig gluhend Herz ? ' Isn't it grand, father ? " " You are an enthusiast," said her father, smiling, as he rose from his seat. " The defiance of Prometheus is grand enough ; but you are not to adopt it, Kath.

I do not wish my womankind to be unwomaned. Not that I think there's any fear of that," added the Professor thoughtfully. "But is it not time I was away, Kath ? " "Just about it," Katharine said, glancing at her watch. "Wait a minute till I get your overcoat, dad ; you're not to be deceived by these smiling skies into the idea that you can go without it yet, for you can't." She sprang after her father, who walked slowly into the hall, and put her hand within his arm. The Professor was a tall man, though his shoulders stooped ; and his daughter, who was tall for a woman, lacked fully half a foot of his stature. He was sparely built, and had a somewhat irregular gait in walking, which made it an exceedingly difficult matter for any one to keep pace with him ; he was always, thanks to his daughter, well attired, and looked every inch a gentle man and a scholar.

Katharine had inherited his clear brown eyes and open brow; but the rest of her face more resembled her long-dead mother's than her father's fine thin, oval one, with its straight slender nose, long, uncurved upper Up, and expression of alternate dreaminess and clear intellectual brightness. KATHARINE 25 Katharine helped him on with his overcoat, and gave him the usual kiss ; and he had reached the hall door before he turned back to say — " By the bye, I forgot to tell you Mr. Napier has come back to Ladeburn, Kath. We must ask him to dine some day." He went away, and Katharine, after dawdling a little over the breakfast - table, descended to her morning consultation with the cook. Then she had some new books which her father had brought home the previous day to arrange, some letters to write and business accounts to look over; and after that she was free to go out.

She generally chose the forenoon for her visiting, and sometimes walked, sometimes drove or rode, into Ladeburn. To-day she preferred walking; it was pleasant to saunter leisurely along the road on such a day as this, with the sun shining down upon hedgerows and highways ; the tender young grass greening beneath her feet, the buds bursting out in delicate pale shoots, the birds trilling blithely above her head. The road was a long level one, bounded on both sides by great fields of upturned ground, from which came the pleasant scent of damp spring soil ; all along the way, the hidden waters of the Lade flowed smoothly and silently, concealed by a hedgerow. Katharine did not remember a time when she had felt so full of strong animal spirits as she did to-day. She could have run along the road like a young foal just let loose ; or sung a wild, passionate carol with the birds whose httle hearts were bursting with mirth and glee ; or done anything else equally unbecoming the dignity of Miss Craven, and equally expressive of the tide of joy in her heart.

She was only sharing the irrepressible flood of vigour and hope which spring wakens in every youthful creature, be it beast, bird, or man himself. But when Katharine reached the village, the un accountable gladness suddenly died out of her heart. She knew she was going to see sights and hear sounds that had no gladness in them ; that only told of the dominance of evil and misery over human nature. And Katharine was not heartless — she, who had never known sorrow or evil herself, felt sympathy with them beating in every pulse of her body. She did not shrink from the knowledge of them, as some sensitive souls are apt to do ; she longed, with the longing only strong natures can have, to relieve them, to fight with, and trample on, and overcome them. The village was a long compact row of houses, all built on the same plan, with red brick cottages, whose slated roofs and small patches of gardens gave them an appearance of respectability, which, alas ! often extended no farther.

To Katharine these monotonous KA THARINE 27 rows were an abomination ; she preferred the old fashioned houses of neighbouring Hartfield, where the natives had once been weavers, and where the thatch roofs, diminutive windows, and outside stairs seemed picturesque and artistic in comparison with the level monotony of Ladeburn. Katharine called at several of the houses, meeting with welcomes wherever she went ; there were few faces that wore a frown as she approached. She paused at last before a house at the very end of the village, which did not belong to the row, but stood a httle apart from it. It was a small white washed cottage, with a carefully tended piece of garden, wherein no flowers were yet appearing, though the soil had evidently been prepared for them. Above the door was a small signboard, with the legend " M. Bethune, Dressmaker" upon it.