The Last of Their Race

Isla Mackinnon came out from the narrow doorway of the Castle of Achree, and stood for a moment on the broad step, worn by the feet of generations, while she thoughtfully drew on a pair of shabby, old leather gloves with gauntlets which came well up her slender arms. Hers were small, fine, capable hands, in which at that moment, though she knew it not, lay the whole destiny of Achree. Its very existence was to be threatened that cool, clear March day, and there was none but Isla to step into the breach.

She did not look incompetent; nay, about her there was a fine strength and courage, in her wide grey-blue eyes an undaunted spirit.

It was a spirit that had had much to try its quality in her six-and-twenty years of life, for half of which, at least, she had been the chief buttress and hope of the house of her fathers.

She looked her age, though her figure was very slender and straight. The years that had brought her womanhood had left her the heart of a child. It looked out from the clear eyes under the delicate lashes, it was in the slightly downward curves of the small sensitive mouth that had not had sufficient occasion for smiles to bring out all its sweetness.

Her hair, under the small tweed hat turned up at the brim with a pheasant's wing, was a clear brown, with here and there a touch of the sun inclining it to ruddy gold. She wore a short skirt of Harris tweed, leather-bound, and a woollen coat of her own knitting, a pair of brown brogues well fitted to her shapely feet, and under her arm she had a shepherd's crook with a whistle at the end of it.

Presently, when its clear, low call broke the stillness of the morning, three dogs came bounding from some region beyond the house, betraying a wild excitement which even her remonstrance could not keep in check.

"Down, Murdo boy, and don't nip Bruce's ear again, or back you go to the stable. Janet, you silly old woman, at your time of life you ought to have more sense. Well then, off you go!"

The big deer-hound, the fat, glossy, sable collie, and the small, wiry Aberdeen lady who rejoiced in the sober name of Janet, thus admonished, bounded before her down the drive between the laurel and the pine trees, barking joyously as was their wont.

About fifty yards from the house the carriage-way took a sharp turn, so that the next few steps hid all except the cold slate roof and the pinnacles of the little round towers which mark that particular style of architecture called the Scottish baronial.

The old Castle of Achree was considered one of the best examples of it in the country, and it certainly was picturesque, if a little "ill-convenient," as the country-folk had it. It was a large mansion of sorts, but totally unsuited to the needs of a family and almost completely devoid of all those modern conveniences which, in these days, every artisan has at his command.

It was so cut up by winding stairs and queer little passages that there was scarcely a room of decent dimensions within its walls. It was full of legend, of tragic memories, and did not even lack the ghost, a mailed and headless warrior who haunted the dungeon-room where he had been done to death.

It was whitewashed or harled, but looked sadly in need of the washer's brush. The rains of many a year had soddened and discoloured it, while, here and there, at angles specially exposed, there were green patches where the moss and lichen clung.

Yet it made a picture of indescribable beauty, not untouched with pathos, as the cradle of every great race must be, its history woven in with its very stones. People came from far and near to see it, and many artists had lingered enchanted over its picturesque detail. It stood on a small, green plateau facing south, sheltered at the back by the pine-clad hill of Creagh, which stood, like a sentinel, guarding the great moor of Creagh that stretched away in the distance till it joined the lands of Breadalbane towards Loch Tay.

With the moor of Creagh the Mackinnon property ended on that side, but it was still a goodly-sized estate, with shooting of some value, though it had been cut down to as narrow dimensions as the extravagance of some of the Mackinnons had dared to cut it. But never, never had Achree been in such dire straits as now.

When Isla left the gateway beside the little lodge and turned down the beautiful road, she lifted her head and took a long deep breath. For the morning air was good, though there was a nip of frost in it, and the red sun lay warm and kindly on the clear summit of Ben Voirlich, of which, at that point, an exquisite view could be obtained, though it was in the next few steps lost again. The ruddy glow was reflected in the clear waters of Loch Earn, and altogether the scene was one of incomparable beauty, and it was knit into the very fibre of Isla Mackinnon's being. It was her home, and the people were her own. She had known none other.

A few rare trips to London when her cousins, the richer Barras Mackinnons, had had a house for the season, with occasional visits to them at their home in one of the islands of the western seas, comprised her whole knowledge of the world outside her own glen. But beyond that she had neither asked nor desired anything else. The things she most passionately desired and prayed for--peace for Achree and decent comfort in which to live--were denied her. She lived in hope, however; but this day was to see its utter quenching, so far as any earthly intelligence could predict.

The dogs, gambolling in front, knew their destination--the Earn village; that is, if they did not meet David Bain with the post-gig on the road.

For more than a year now it had been Isla's custom to meet the postman for the purpose of intercepting any letters which it might not be wise to let her father see. In this simple act a great part of the tragedy of Achree may be apprehended. For even such innocent deception was foreign to the soul and heart of Isla Mackinnon, which was as clear and true as the waters of her own loch.

She saw the fat, white pony presently, standing before the dry-stone dyke that shut in the garden of Darrach farm-house from the road, and she quickened her steps in order that she might reach it before he started out again, and might thus save him another stop on the steep ascent. That act was natural to her, if you like; for if at any time by her thought or speech or act she could help another, then she was happy indeed.

But David of the grim face and the silent tongue had got into the gig again, and the fat pony had ambled off before she could stop him. Presently they met where a little water-course merrily crossed the gravelly road, seeking its way to the Glenogle burn.

"Good-morning, David. I hope you are quite well. You had letters for Mrs. Maclure. Surely you are earlier than usual."

"It wass only a post-cairt from her niece, Jeanie Maclure, from the school at Govan sayin' she would come for the week-end maype," answered David, as if the matter were of moment to the whole glen. "Yes--there pe lots an' lots of letters. I hope yourself an' the General are fery well this mornin'."

"Thank you, we are," said Isla as she leaned against the shaft of the old cart, stroking the fat pony's yellow eldes, her eyes a little more bright and eager than usual.

David fingered the letters with outward and visible clumsiness, but he was most careful with them, and in all the years of his service he had never made a mistake with one or failed to deliver it to its proper recipient.

"Thank you, David; this is all I want," said Isla as her fingers closed over the thick letter enclosed in its foreign envelope. "Take the rest up to Achree. My father will be waiting for them."

"Yes, Miss Isla. That I will do, and hope it will pe good news from Maister Malcolm in foreign parts, an' that he will pe fery well."

"Thank you, David. He is sure to be well," said Isla, trying to speak lightly, but her fingers were nervously closing over the letter, and into her eyes there crept a strange shadow.

She had sometimes said that she had the gift of second sight which was so common among the Mackinnons. Certainly she knew before she opened that letter, about a hundred yards lower down the road, that it contained bad news. It was too thick to be of no consequence, for her brother Malcolm was no great letterwriter when times were easy and his credit good.

She nodded good-bye to David Bain and passed on, hastening more quickly than usual past the farm-house of Darrach, though there lived one of her best and most faithful friends in the whole glen--one Elspeth Mackay married to Donald Maclure, the big crofter who was respected in the glen, from end to end of it, as a man of his word.

But Elspeth's tongue was long and her eyes were very keen, and Isla was not ready for them yet. Therefore she hastened past the gate of Darrach, not even smiling as the rich, fine smell of Elspeth's baking was borne out through the open door. Down the hill a little way she came to the old brig that crossed the Darrach burn; and there she paused, for there was no one in sight and the slope hid her from view of Elspeth's windows.

She could never afterwards recall that half-hour by the Darrach Brig without an inward shudder.

Thus did Malcolm Mackinnon, the ne'er-do-weel, write airily and lightly, telling the miserable story that well nigh broke his sister's heart:--

"DEAR ISLA,--Last time you wrote me you hoped I would have better news to send next time. I'm sorry I can't comply. I seem to have the devil's own luck here in this beastly country. In fact, I may as well say at once that it's all up with me and that I'm coming home.

"I've never been very happy in the Thirty-fifth nor got on well with old Martindale. He's a beast, if ever there was one, a regular martinet, and unless you practise the whole art of sucking up to him you may as well give up the ghost, as far as any chance of promotion or even of fair play is concerned. Of course, no Mackinnon can suck up to anybody--we've got too much beastly pride. Anyway, I haven't been able to soft-sawder Martindale enough, and I have been in his black books ever since I joined. But it's got a lot worse in the last nine months.

"When I wrote the governor last year, asking him to use his influence to get me shifted, I was quite in earnest, and if he'd done it all this row might have been prevented. We've been up country a goodish bit since I wrote last, and there again I didn't get fair play or a bit of a chance. We've had several brushes with a hostile tribe, but the other chaps got their innings every time and nothing but the dirty work was left to me. We had such a lot of beastly, unnecessary fag on our marches that most of the chaps were on the verge of mutiny; but I was the only one with the courage to speak up. Whatever garbled version of the story may get home, you may take it from me, old girl, that is the bottom truth of it. Anyhow, I've got to send in my papers--that's the long and the short of it. All the chaps, except the few that suck up to Martindale, think I've been treated most beastly badly, and unjustly besides. But of course nobody listens to a poor subaltern's defence or excuse.

"By the time you get this I shall have started for home. I'm coming by the 'Jumna,' a rotten slow boat, but I think it better for many reasons--chiefly those of economy. I shall be pleased to see the old place again, and I hope the governor won't cut up too rough. Try and get the worst over for me before I come, because naturally I'm raw enough about the whole bally thing, and couldn't stand much more. Fact is, it's all right in a crack regiment for the chaps who have big allowances. There's only one word to fit the case of poor, hard-up beggars like me, and that one I mustn't use. Poverty opens the door to all sorts of mischief and misery that a girl who never needs any money can't begin to understand.

"I'd better make a clean breast of it while I'm at it, and you'll have time to digest it before I get home. I'm in with the money-lenders both in London and in Calcutta. I owe about two thousand pounds, and how it's to be paid is keeping me awake at night. Of course, it's been advanced on Achree, so heaven only knows what will be the upshot. I'll have to see that old starched stick Cattanach the minute I get back so that the old man may not be worried.

"If only I had the place in my own hands I'd make things hum a bit. You know, Isla, everything has been shockingly neglected in the last five years, and a perfect horde of pensioners have been kept off the poor old place. The half of them ought to be chucked; it's nothing but pauperizing the glen from end to end. A bit more could be screwed out of the tenants, as most of them have their places dirt-cheap.

"Well, old girl, I'm beastly sorry, for you can't be expected to like this. But suspend your judgment, for really I'm not half so bad as I'm painted, and if I had only half a chance I might prove it to you. I must try and get somebody to introduce me to the Stock Exchange. That seems to be the only way of turning an honest penny nowadays. There are hundreds of military men on it.

"Don't be too downhearted over this. You are such a one for taking things seriously, and there's hardly anything in life worth worrying about, really. You have the best of it, for nobody expects anything of a girl, and she hasn't a chap's temptations.

"Good-bye, old girl. I shall see you soon, if I don't fancy on board the 'Jumna' that the easiest way out would be to drop quietly over the rail some night when nobody's looking.--Your affectionate, but down-on-his-luck,

"MALCOLM."

Just for the space of five minutes or so the world was a dark place to Isla Mackinnon. She had no mother, and for the last ten years she had borne a double burden--had experienced both a mother's anxiety and a sister's shame for the ne'er-do-weel. The history of Malcolm Mackinnon's misdeeds in the glen, and out of it, would fill a book. But such a book would not be worth the writing. Through him evil had fallen on an old and honourable house--its revenues had been scattered, its very existence threatened.

While Malcolm was stationed at home, at Colchester, at Sheerness, and at the Curragh, complaints had been many and his scrapes innumerable, and Isla had welcomed with abundant relief the news that his regiment was ordered to India. That was three years ago. And now the final blow had fallen. He had been dismissed the army, in itself a disgrace so overwhelming that Isla knew there must be some scandalous story behind.

Presently he would be home to loaf about in idleness, to harry the people, to wring her heart and the heart of the old man, in so far as he was able to comprehend. And, with it all, he would smile his wicked and alluring smile and get off scot-free. This was the first time condign punishment had been meted out to him, and he took it lightly and merely remarked that it was injustice. Everything was injustice that sought in any way to hamper the wayward impulses of Malcolm Mackinnon. It had been so from his youth up.

But what was to be done? That half-hour of anguish did its work on the face of Isla Mackinnon. It ploughed a few more lines on it and took away the last remnant of its girlish curve. She had a woman's work in front of her, and a man's combined, for the intellect of the old General was clouded now, and his bodily health frail. There was no one to act for Achree save her alone.

And she would act. Presently she threw her head up, and the pride of her race crept back to sustain her, and her eye even flashed with the swift strength of her new resolve.

The dogs, hovering wistfully about her feet, asking mutely why she lingered and cheated them out of their scamper down the hill, reminded her of the passage of time. She pulled herself together, thrust the letter into her bosom, and, grasping her stick, walked on with feet which faltered only at the first step.

She reached the village, gave her order at the little shop, inquired for a child who was sick in the house above, passed the time of day with all whom she met, and even listened patiently to a tinker's tale, told with the persuasive guile of her tribe. She felt herself a dual person that day. Never had the brain of the inner self been so active. Her swift planning was so intense as to make her head ache.

All her small commissions done, she breasted the hill again and so came to the gate of Darrach farm-house, where Elspeth Maclure was looking out for her.

Now it must be explained that Elspeth had been a nurse-girl at Achree and had had Isla in her absolute care for the first seven years of her life. Then she had married honest Donald Maclure and had flitted to the house of Darrach, whose chief recommendation, in her eyes, was that it stood straight on the main road and that, from its windows, she could see all who passed to and fro between the village and the old Castle.

The private life of its inmates was not hid from Elspeth. She, too, remembered and took anxious note of the Indian mail-day. As she came down the path, wiping the flour of her baking from her hands on the snow-white of her apron, her deep, dark eyes scanned the beloved face of her darling with all a mother's solicitude.

Elspeth was now considerably over forty--a comely, motherly woman with a clear, rosy face and abundant black hair, a model wife and mother, and the staunchest friend of Isla Mackinnon's whole life.

When she opened the little gate, she saw that Isla could not speak, and that her face was wan and dark under the eyes. She took her by the two hands and drew her towards the door of the house.

"It is pad news, whatefer, my lamb. I knew it wass comin' at twelve o'clock last night when that thrawn prute of a cock wouldna stop his crawin'. I wass for Donald gettin' up to thraw hiss ill neck, only he wouldna."

Isla did not speak, and, quite suddenly, when they got within the house, where the baby, in a queer little cage of Donald's making, was crowing in the middle of the floor, she threw herself into Elspeth'e arms and burst into a storm of weeping.

Now, this was the most terrifying thing that had ever happened in Elspeth's experience, and it seemed to presage such woe as she had not dreamed of.

For the Mackinnons were a proud and self-contained race, and to make parade of their feelings was impossible for them. It may be that they, as a family, had erred in repressing them too much. There had been but three in the family--the third being an elder sister who had married young and died in childbed. Her death was the first sorrow that had helped to take the spring out of the old man's heart. He had never, perhaps, been quite just to Isla, because he had loved his first-born best.

"There, there, my lammie! God forpid that you should cry your heart oot like that. Put there--it will do ye good! Oh, the man that invented the post hass a heap to answer for. In the old days the trouble had plown ower, whatefer, afore we got wind of it, especially when it happened in foreign parts. What is he sayin' till it the day, my dear? It is not impident curiosity that pids me ask, put I canna pear to see ye like this."

It was all spoken in a crooning voice which had the effect of soothing the overcharged heart of the girl. That outburst of natural tears was the very best thing which could have happened to her. Thus relieved, her heart quickly recovered its strength. She drew back, smiling weakly, begged to be forgiven for such an exhibition, and fumbled inside her blouse for the missive that had wrought such woe.

She smoothed it out and, for the moment, she thought to pass it over to her faithful friend, who, though no scholar, would have had no difficulty in reading that big, sprawling, crude schoolboy writing. But again the shame of it overcame the girl, and sitting down on the edge of a chair, she lifted her wet eyes to Elspeth's face and said mournfully:--

"It's the deluge, Eppie. I've always said it would come, and it is here."

"What hass happened? Pe pleased to tell it quickly, Miss Isla, for I nefer wass a good hand at waitin'."

"Malcolm has been dismissed from the Army, and he is coming home. He has sailed by now," she added, referring to the second page of the letter, "and his ship, the 'Jumna,' will arrive in about three weeks. It's a slow boat, but inside a month he'll be at Achree."

Elspeth bit her lip, and her hands worked nervously in front of her apron.

"For the good God's sake, Miss Isla, what are we to do with him here?"

"That's what I want to know. It will kill my father. He must never know that Malcolm has been sent home. He must just think that it is an ordinary leave of absence. Poor dear, it is not so hard to bamboozle him now as it once was! If he grasped the fact that Malcolm had been cashiered it would simply kill him. Now I shall be hard put to it, watching for other letters from India or from the War Office. Oh, Elspeth, I'm so tired of playing watch-dog! It's killing me. Sometimes I think I shall get up quite early one morning and go down to the little loch and just walk in, where it is all silvery with the dawn. Then everything would be over, and I should be at peace!"

"God forpid, my lamb, since ye are the one hope and salvation of Achree," said Elspeth Maclure fervently.

Isla shook her head.

"There is little hope for Achree now, and, so far as I can see, nothing can save it. My brother owes so much money, that, to get him clear, we ought to sell it. It is what he will do himself, without doubt, whenever he gets it into his own hands."

Elspeth Maclure stood, thunderstruck and horrified, staring vaguely in front of her.

"Sell Achree what hass peen the place of the Mackinnons for efer and efer!" she repeated slowly. "God forpid. He would nefer let it come to pass. Oh, Miss Isla, the laws made py men are not good laws. I'm only a plain woman, put this I see that, when a man iss like what Maister Malcolm iss, without the fear of God or man in hiss heart, he should not haf the power. I suppose he hass porrowed the money on the place, put it iss not him that will haf to pey," she added fiercely.

"No," repeated Isla, with a hard, far-away look on her face, "it is not he who will have to pay."