Percy Lockhart, or, The hidden will

Chapter I

If a man would live well, let him fetch his last day to him, and make it always his company keeper. JOHN BuUNYAN.

That we must all die we always know; I wish I had sooner remembered it.—Dr. JOHNSON. THERE are few things so appalling as the approach of death to one who has great possessions, and to whom those have been the sole or chief consideration of life. It seems something lke an impossibility that he should be bereft of them: that his manorhouse and his grounds, his well-stocked VOL. I. B preserves, his wine-cellar, his horses and his hounds, should actually become the property of another,—that the very trees, which he had planted and trained with so much care, should continue to put forth fruit and flower, and rock themselves in the summer breezes, after he is away and forgotten,—and that very soon the meanest domestic who has worn his livery and trembled at his frown should, in temporal authority and worldly possessions, be greater and richer than he. Death does, indeed, with equal pace, travel to the doors of the rich and the poor, and knock with as little ceremony at both; but his dread summons falls on the ears of his victims with very different effects. From one he takes away a life which has been embittered by all that renders life worthless; from another, not only life, but all that is supposed to make it sweet.

In a richly-furnished apartment lay Sir

David Lockhart, of Rosemount and Glenthorn, smitten by a lingering but mortal disease. No great pain attended his malady. Pain, in his state, would almost have been a blessing ; it might have distracted his mind from contemplations of unspeakable horror— the body bearing part of that agony which was all-concentrated in his thoughts. It was broad and brilliant day, but the windowcurtains were carefully drawn, so as to exclude the grand outward picture of hill and dale and sparkling stream which lay before the mansion. Rosemount was situated in one of the most picturesque counties in Scotland, its possessor being classed among the most fortunate of the county’s great men; but the daily labourer who looked with admiration and envy on oriel, arch, and turret, if he had known what was passing within, would scarcely have exchanged his rough straw pallet and ‘smoky biggin,” his coarse fare and never-ceasing toil, for the soft couch and luxurious chamber of the distracted Baronet. The dying man could not bear to look upon the fair possessions so rapidly gliding from his grasp. He had two sons, and both had been forbidden to come near him. The only person allowed to approach the sick bed was an old servant, who had grown grey in his servitude. The Baronet had led a bad life. His ample means and appliances had been used chiefly to minister to his own gratifications. He had been princely in his hospitality, for the pleasures of the table were his principal occupations in life; liberal to his tenants, for liberality purchased their worship; generous: in subscribing to public charities and institutions, for it made his name respectable in the county. But he had been an undutiful son, a faithless husband, a careless father.

Yet even with all that he was generally liked by the county, both by the landed gentlemen and his own tenants.

‘‘ Robert,” at last said the Baroriet to his attendant, in a low voice of horror, ‘it is coming!”

‘¢ What is comin’ ?” said the matter-of-fact Robert, looking a little uneasy.

‘“‘ Hoot, Sir,” said the man, in his rough way, ‘“‘I’ve seen you face death afore noo, and look at him bauld enough too.”

‘Ay, Robert, that was when my blood was up; that’s easily done. I could do that yet if I was up and mounted, and had something to fight for and win ; but it’s ill fighting on a death-bed;” andthe old man paused to give way to his despair.

‘“‘ Weel,” said Robert, “‘there’s naething for it but to send for the minister. If he can do nae guid, he can do as little ill. Shall

I send for the minister, Sir David ?”

The Baronet was sorely perplexed. The minister had been the object of his vulgar and petty persecution. Never was the power of Nemesis more bitterly felt than at the thought of humbling himself before the man he had so unworthily treated. But shame was no match for terror. Robert was commanded to lose no time in sending for the minister.

** Deil, but I’m glad I’m no’ to go mysel’,”’ said Robert to himself, for he had taken no small part in Sir David’s coarse persecution. “Eh, sirs! Eh, sirs! To think of the Laird ever seekin’ favour frae the man he insulted before his ain congregation. God!

it’s a lang lane that has nae turnin’.”

CHAPTER II. Pray you undo this button.— Kine LEar

THE minister of the parish was one of the few on whom injuries left little impression, or, if they did, the impression was what he who gave the injury might have envied. At one time, William Russel—such was the clergyman’s name—had lost influence and popularity through the wanton malice of Sir David Lockhart; but he had more than regained it by an act which, although to himself it was nothing, yet told on the rude feelings and hearts of his parishioners more powerfully than though he had spoken to them with the tongue of an angel. Cholera was raging in the parish, appalling to the rich and poor by the daily ravages which if made, for it spared neither mansion-house nor hovel. ‘Sir David gave money liberally —gso did every man who was able,—but few ventured to visit the victims of the terrible pestilence save the minister and the doctor. Each did his work according to his calling, and did it well and manfully—the minister ever ready and willing and able to give consolation to the afflicted, the doctor always equally ready, and doing almost as much good by his invincible gaiety and cheerfulness as the minister by his grave and intelligent admonition. Both were equally intrepid in the valley of the shadow of death. The doctor always approved of every word and act of his spiritual coadjutor. The minister had some doubts about the light ways of his friend in the house of suffering ; but the latter assured him that cheerfulness had been the best cure he had ever dealt in; and the minister thought it might be true.

A poor widow had died of the pestilence, and Sunday had been appointed as the day of the funeral. After the forenoon service, some rumours had reached the minister’s ears which immediately caused him to set off in the direction of the poor woman’s house. About a dozen of the parishioners had assenbled outside of the house, where an empty coffin was standing at the door; but the men who had brought it were panic-stricken; they flatly refused to enter the infected tenement to perform their customary duties. The minister said a few words to them with no effect, one of them remarking that thevr lives were as good as his, and he might do the work himself if he liked. He took the coffin in his arms, and entered the house of death. He placed the body in its last earthly dwelling, and was heard making the necessary fastenings. In a short time, he re-appeared with the coffin in his arms, and placed it in a cart which had been brought to carry it to the grave. He again entered the wretched cottage to bring out with him a little child, the daughter of the deceased. Leading the poor thing by the hand, he followed the body to the grave, accompanied by his parishioners, now a little ashamed of themselves. After the interment, he took the child home to his family, though all exclaimed against the danger of carrying the infection into his own household; but no one belonging to his family was smitten, and he was afterwards looked up to by all the country round with more respect than the great man who had tried to injure him.

Such was the man who now entered the mansion of Sir David Lockhart. On being shown into the sick chamber, Robert was.

dismissed, much against his will, for he had some curiosity to witness the interview; but nothing was ever known of what passed between the clergyman and the Baronet. About an hour afterwards, Russel left the mansion, and he never afterwards willingly spoke of his interview with the dying man. The Baronet himself hardly spoke again when Robert was recalled to attend him. He attempted to say something about “ Walker the writer,” his law agent in the neighbouring town of Thriveport, but his meaning could not be made out by Robert. Some thought afterwards that he wished to make his will, but it was too late for that. As it happened, Walker himself was lying dangerously ill of fever, of which he died. The landed proprietor and his agent were carried during the same week to the same mysterious kingdom, to stand their trial in that Court where the distinction of agent and client is unknown.

After the funeral, a search was made for the will, but none was found. The elder son, Sir George Lockhart, succeeded to both estates. The personal or movable property was small, and Perey Lockhart, the younger son, after everything was wound up and settled, found himself worth something less than a thousand pounds.

The brothers were as unlike one another as their father and mother had been. Perey had vehemently taken Lady Lockhart’s part when she had been neglected, and more than neglected, by her worthless husband. He had thereby incurred the Baronet’s undisguised displeasure. The more cautious George never interfered by word or act; and his prudent conduct had its reward in the broad lands of Rosemount and Glenthorn. He had been bred to the Bar, like many of the landed proprietors’ sons in

Scotland—no bad training for the duties of a

PERCY LOCKHART. VRS country gentleman. He was a man of more than average abilities, and of some literary taste; but selfishness and avarice were the commanding elements of his cold and unsocial spirit. His great idea of happiness was the possession of money; even when a child he used to hoard up his pocket-money. Whitsunday and Martinmas were the grand festivals of his youthful years. On these great days, he sat with Sir David, assisting him in receiving and counting the tenants’ rents, and‘in handing them their receipts. Sometimes, when by himself, he had tried how his own name would look at the foot of the important documents. Men thought that, out of his ample means, he would make a handsome provision for his brother; but this did not seem to enter into his thoughts, or, if it did, it had no outward expression—nay, it very soon became apparent that Percy’s residence at Rosemount was not agreeable to the young Laird. The former soon learned what was meant by the steep stairs and the bitter bread of the great poet. A month had hardly elapsed after the death of Sir David, when he discovered that, if he wished not to be turned out of the house, he must leave it of his own accord. On making the discovery, he hesitated not a moment how to act. The few necessaries which he could call his own were easily packed and conveyed to the inn, where the stage-coach passed on its way to Thriveport. He left the house on foot, and walked down the long avenue to the high-road without trusting himself to look back to the house of his boyhood. He had enough to do to keep down something lke the hysterica passio of poor Lear; but, once beyond the gates, he felt the necessity of self-possession, in so far, at least, as outward composure was concerned. A trial awaited him, too, which he had not calculated upon. Ata turn of the road, he all at once beheld his brother approaching him rapidly on horseback, on the very grey horse which he had been accustomed to ride himself. He had recognized the horse before he knew the rider. There was no way of avoiding a meeting; he hoped his brother would pass on without speaking ; but Sir George pulled up, and Percy stood still, feeling, to his own surprise, as calm and composed as if they had dwelt in unity. Sir George’s expression of countenance was never pleasant, not even in his happiest moods; and these were when he was receiving money. Even then the happiness was imperfect. He had always the idea that people wanted to take advantage of him, though in what way he could hardly say. It was a general suspicion of human nature, which he carried with him into every situation in life.

Sir George was the first to speak ; his tone was as ungracious as his manner.

‘May I ask where you are going in such haste ?” was his commonplace question.

‘To do you a service—a great service,” was the ready answer.

“Indeed! I should hardly have thought of that,” replied Sir George, with a sneer.

‘Tt is true, however,”

resumed Percy; ‘and you must have thought of it. I wonder you have not mentioned it before now.”

‘“T am no reader of riddles,” said Sir George, very coldly; ‘and, though I were, I have at present no inclination for the task. Pray what is this great service? Let me know at once the extent of my obligation.”

‘To relieve you of my presence at once and for ever. I have left your house, and have no intention of ever entering it again,”

said Percy, a little more theatrically than was consistent with good taste; but he was very young, and, as we have said, he was trying to play the part of a man,—he was as yet far from perfect in it.

“Well,” said his brother, ‘‘ you cannot say that I turned you from my door.”

“T thought it was as well not to wait for - that,” returned Percy, turning away, and pursuing his journey.

He thought he had done his part well, poor lad: it was a wretched piece of acting, but the thought of it kept his spirits up.

Sir George felt relieved, but he felt troubled at the same time. He would not like his neighbours to think that he had acted so as to cause his brother to leave his roof. Next to money, he valued reputation, especially where it cost nothing. It was his turn to act his part. He was not more successful than Percy had been.

Shortly after arriving at the house, he VOL. I. G took occasion to speak on the subject to old Robert, with whom Percy had been a favourite.

“So, Robert,” said Sir George, “ my brother Perey has made a very sudden step. He has taken it into his head to leave the old house. I am very much surprised.”

“T am no’ a bit surprised,” said Robert, bluntly. ‘“‘I wonder he didna gang awa’ lang syne.”

It would not do. The Baronet threw up his part. He felt he had made a mistake in trying to excuse himself to his servant. So he left his household to talk as they chose, suspecting, however, that their surprise at what had taken place would not be greater than Robert’s.

A light heart and a thin pair of breeches go thro’ the ‘world, brave boys.—VuLGAaR PROVERB.

Yes, Percy’s heart was light, lighter than it had been for many days. The pain of parting from home was over, and the reaction had taken place. His situation of late had been inexpressibly disagreeable. He had seen himself pitied by the very servants. It was high time to be off. But where to go? ‘The world was all before him where to choose.” But big as the world is, its pleasant places are pretty well occupied, and that, too, by people not very willing to make room for new-comers. Every ‘ coin of vantage” is kept with military vigilance.

Pshaw ! no man-at-arms ever maintained his post with half the obstinacy with which a thriving man of the world keeps his snug, profitable position. Percy had some vague notion of this in trying to make up his mind where and how to begin life. Ay! look round about you, mile after mile; you may travel ten thousand miles without being a yard nearer the object of your journey. But in looking around him, Percy caught sight of the minister’s manse,, and thither, without a moment’s hesitation, he directed his footsteps. He was kindly received by the minister, who was very soon put in possession of his simple history. No man ever applied to William Russel in vain, or asked. his advice without receiving it in all sincerity and kindness. He heard with sorrow from the young man, how he had felt himself obliged to leave the house of his fathers, but he made no comment on the conduct of

PERCY LOCKHART. Pia

Sir George. He contented himself with asking if he had formed any plan for his future - career, and, if so, of what nature. But Percy had formed none. He had hardly expected ever tobe obliged to work for his daily bread; and now that this necessity was forced upon him, he felt, young as he still was, how recklessly he had thrown away the last two or three years of his life, in not having devoted himself to those studies without a certain proficiency in which honour and respectability in any profession are not to be obtained.

‘You must have thought of some scheme for the future. Speak frankly, and let me know your mind.”

“Why, then, to speak frankly,” said Percy, ““T am a fair draughtsman. I may say, better than the generality of amateurs—at least, so an artist told me; and he advised me strongly to follow painting as a profession. I think it ys PERCY LOCKHART.

is the only kind of work which I could follow out with heart and soul.”

The minister looked grave and kept silence till Perey again spoke. ‘ You think I have not sufficient abilities for the art. As you said to me, speak frankly.”

‘““T donot question your abilities, for I am no judge ; but I understand that this walk of art is crowded with able men—with men of genius. It will be difficult to make your way among them. Even with great abilities, it must take many years of hard study and disappointments. Are you prepared for this ?”

‘T think so. I have endeavoured with all my power to estimate the difficulties in the way; but they are difficulties which I am willing to encounter, and I cannot say so: of those of any other profession.”

‘‘ Of course you would not think of remain-

Eee } ) ing here to study ?

PERCY LOCKHART. ae

‘Certainly not; I should go at once to London, and put myself under a master. I have as much as, with economy, will suffice for my subsistence for some years, and I must trust to fortune for the rest. I thought of the army for some time, that genteel resource for younger brothers; but I am quite sure that if I happened to fall under the command of such superior officers as I have seen and heard of, I could not remain a day in the service.”

‘‘T suspect,” said Russel, ‘‘ there are in many callings drawbacks as unpleasant as what you dread in the army. I am not sure that the tyranny you speak of is not of some service to many young men who choose a military life; but I say not this in order to recommend such a life to you.”

The subject was long and anxiously discussed. Of course the result was that the young man followed the bent of his own inclination, as most people do who ask advice. After all, Russel thought it was the best thing he could do. And so it was determined that Percy Lockhart, instead of being proprietor of Glenthorn, should go to London and work, as many a better man was doing at that moment. He made up his mind to sail in a week to London; but he resolved before leaving to indulge in a last. stroll through the wild Highlands, among which some of the happiest days of his life had been passed.

So Percy bade the kind minister farewell, and set out on his stroll through the Highlands. He set off in the direction of the hills, the once wild ramparts of a wild race. Even by the road-side there are pleasant objects to be seen at every step. The old ash tree wrestling with the wind, or sunning itself in rustling happiness to the subdued and sober merriment of a stream; the whaup or the whimbrel raising his shrill ery overhead, as if challenging your incursion into his solitary domain; the golden plover whistles and wheels at wary distance, and the lapwing startles you with the thud of his heavy wing beating the air. Hedges and dykes are fast disappearing, and you enter the solitary glens. There is nothing here for pride, nothing for human passion. It is so still, you can hear your heart beat, and speak in that language which requires not words. How deep the repose of the old glen! You feel that it would be treason against Nature to waken the echoes with an irreverent sound. How glorious the walk over Nature’s gorgeous carpet, whose texture no loom can weave, and whose fashion no artist can copy! There is Schehalion shooting his pointed peak among the clouds, and there is Ben Lawers and Ben More. They seem banded together to bid defiance to the relentless hand of Time. The heather blooms all around ; the airis scented with the matchless aroma of a thousand wild flowers, every wind shaking fragrance from an inexhaustible treasury ; streams, heather hills, and glorious forests, with their rich solitary glades and rustling whispers. There are some spots far up from “the road,” bits of water, small lochs, with the moss growing down to the water-side, with all manner of weeds and wild flowers entangled in endless variety, where the wild duck rears in peace and solitude her wild brood, and keeps her old house undisturbed by rival claimants. Surely, there is more than common gloom over the waste! The red heather has lost its gloss, and the scarlet berries of the mountain ash have become dim. It is only a cloud passing over the sun; but you may mark other clouds.

mustering on the summits of the surrounding

PERCY LOCKHART. aie hills, mounting up piece by piece, and crowding on for the zenith, lke a host taking vantage ground on the eve of battle. Some of them are like burnished plates of steel, some have the reflected glow of a furnace, some are dark and vapouring, cold and leaden; but altogether there is a gathering” for war which it is impossible to mistake, and Lockhart is to be in the very heart of the strife. There is no possibility of escape. He is caught. Courage, man! you will need it.

The silence is broken by a low, cold, moaning wind, which seems to chill everything it touches; the very rustling of the grass and leaves has changed character— they are shivering now. The trees make a feeble wave with their tiny branches, as if to feel for the coming storm—hke the fingers of a blind man groping in danger. The glen is lighted up with a blaze of fire; and for a moment, tree and shrub, and rock and stream, flash out.in dazzling brightness, and as suddenly fall back into their grey and sombre tints. Then comes the crash overhead. The hills are smitten and rent asunder ? Not they: they have witnessed ten thousand such storms, and they bear no mark of the thunderbolt. They will witness ten thousand more, when you and J, and all our petty anxieties, are at rest for ever. Again the messenger of fire, and again the deafening crash, taken up by valley after valley, fondled by the mad old hills, as if unwilling to part with the only voice which is mighty enough to shake them into life.

There is another sound increasing with the increasing darkness—a dull, solemn pattering above and around, like the movements of a muffled troop, until at last the almost solid rain breaks over you, and you cannot see halfa-dozen yards in any direction. Never mind, keep under the rock and look at the battle.

The rain and the fire are making brave work now. It requires a man to enjoy this gear. The rain lashes the hill-side, and passes in angry torrents from its naked ribs. How the thirsty fire licks the wet ground, and darts up the dark ravines, till each appears in a jagged blaze, quivering like a doomed capital in the hour of doom, robed in the burning livery of hell! Youenvy the badger now in his snug dry chamber. You wonder how every living thing has contrived to find shelter except yourself. Nature provides for her subjects. The hare and the hill-fox, the lmnet and the hawk, are all safe under cover. The eagle alone looks from her rock, proud and unappalled, as if in the splendour of a summer’s sun. Be of good cheer. The storm is passing away ; the sharp, sudden crack of the thunder has been succeeded by a long distant roll.

Yonder dark wall of rain is fast leaving you, the dripping rain from the rocks is soft and musical, the retreat has begun, and the shadowy legions of the firmament are again on the march.

Among such scenes had the spirit of Perey Lockhart been tempered, and few things are better calculated to set up a man than familiarity with nature in her rough moods. We have known few who have wrestled with the elements who haye not acquired fortitude and readiness not often to be found among the mere dwellers in cities.

On setting out for London, a singular whim seized Lockhart. He had, ina manner, been banished from his father’s house. He would renounce his father’s name, and perhaps make one for himself. In the mean time he assumed that of Warren, which was that of a distant relation of his house by the mother’s side. By this name we shall in future designate him.

Chapter IV

Oh! London is a fine town, a very famous city.—Sonc.

‘To a mind of any sensitiveness, few incidents are more trying than that of bemg suddenly thrown for the first time among strangers in a strange place; totally cast off from those supports and counsels which have hitherto been only second to personal energy and decision. The feeling soon wears off, however: the raw, awkward lad from the country enters London with something lke terror. Its thieves and swindlers, and murderers and garotters, are all represented as adepts in their several walks of infamy, and as all lying in wait for such valuable prizes as he.

By and by Rusticus becomes more knowing.

ae PERCY LOCKHART.

He walks the Haymarket at night or goes to the Casino with as much confidence as if he were going to his own parish church. There is a great deal of nonsense in your quasi-decent men, who denounce the immoralities of the times. How do they know about them so well? They prowl about Regent Street and Great Portland Street, for no purpose of course, but simply to see what everybody sees, and to study human nature in allits phases; but you do not often find them studying human nature im the dens. of the poor and the destitute, or giving them that money which in their other studies they give for lobster salads and champagne. If all the gay strects and saloons were filled with poor, ugly old women in dirt and rags, instead of—their present inhabitants, we have no doubt the study in this way would soon be discontinued.

“Dick,” says a respectable City man, with a wife and half a dozen pledges, “‘I have never seen what is called life in the West End. You know all about it, so does everybody except me. It looks foolish not to know what all the world knows; will you show me the lions some night ?”

‘Or the lionesses ?” inquires Dick.

“Oh! ah! anything that is to be seen; but of course no immorality.”

‘Show you what is called life in the West End, and no immorality! Iam afraid that will be difficult,” said Dick, dryly; ‘but just as you like; I shall be very happy to show you the lions, as you call them, and if they scratch you it will be your own fault.”

And so Paterfamilias goes with his fast friend, Dick Perkins, and sees the saloons and other places of entertainment, merely for the sake of instruction in the ways of the world, and he glowers and “thinks his very e’en enriched,” and imagines that he commits no VOL. I. D sin,—not he; but I’ll bet he’ll not tell his wife about his studies. Perhaps he’ll subscribe to the Social Evil movement to-morrow. But, if the dangers and seductions of London be exaggerated, its difficulties are real and substantial, as every poor man knows; and yet it is the great resource of poor men. Many seem to believe, with the old saying, ‘‘ All the streets are paved with gold, and all the ladies pretty.” The streets are paved with very hard stones, as many a weary foot has experienced.