Merry Men
has left her sweetheart earlier than usual and will soon be their faces, they would be altogether different, they would here. If Mr. Markheim be found in this house, I need not shine out for heroes and saints! I am worse than most; describe to him the consequences.’
myself is more overlaid; my excuse is known to me and
‘You know me?’ cried the murderer.
God. But, had I the time, I could disclose myself.’
The visitor smiled. ‘You have long been a favourite of
‘To me?’ inquired the visitant.
mine,’ he said; ‘and I have long observed and often sought
‘To you before all,’ returned the murderer. ‘I supposed to help you.’
you were intelligent. I thought – since you exist – you would
‘What are you?’ cried Markheim: ‘the devil?’
prove a reader of the heart. And yet you would propose to
‘What I may be,’ returned the other, ‘cannot affect the judge me by my acts! Think of it; my acts! I was born and service I propose to render you.’
I have lived in a land of giants; giants have dragged me by
‘It can,’ cried Markheim; ‘it does! Be helped by you?
the wrists since I was born out of my mother – the giants No, never; not by you! You do not know me yet; thank of circumstance. And you would judge me by my acts! But God, you do not know me!’
can you not look within? Can you not understand that evil
‘I know you,’ replied the visitant, with a sort of kind is hateful to me? Can you not see within me the clear writ-severity or rather firmness. ‘I know you to the soul.’
ing of conscience, never blurred by any wilful sophistry,
‘Know me!’ cried Markheim. ‘Who can do so? My life is although too often disregarded? Can you not read me for a but a travesty and slander on myself. I have lived to belie thing that surely must be common as humanity – the un-my nature. All men do; all men are better than this disguise willing sinner?’
that grows about and stifles them. You see each dragged
‘All this is very feelingly expressed,’ was the reply, ‘but away by life, like one whom bravos have seized and muffled it regards me not. These points of consistency are beyond in a cloak. If they had their own control – if you could see my province, and I care not in the least by what compul-85
Robert Louis Stevenson
sion you may have been dragged away, so as you are but interest falls. The man has lived to serve me, to spread carried in the right direction. But time flies; the servant black looks under colour of religion, or to sow tares in the delays, looking in the faces of the crowd and at the pic-wheat-field, as you do, in a course of weak compliance tures on the hoardings, but still she keeps moving nearer; with desire. Now that he draws so near to his deliverance, and remember, it is as if the gallows itself was striding to-he can add but one act of service – to repent, to die smil-wards you through the Christmas streets! Shall I help you; ing, and thus to build up in confidence and hope the more I, who know all? Shall I tell you where to find the money?’
timorous of my surviving followers. I am not so hard a
‘For what price?’ asked Markheim.
master. Try me. Accept my help. Please yourself in life as
‘I offer you the service for a Christmas gift,’ returned the you have done hitherto; please yourself more amply, spread other.
your elbows at the board; and when the night begins to fall Markheim could not refrain from smiling with a kind of and the curtains to be drawn, I tell you, for your greater bitter triumph. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I will take nothing at your comfort, that you will find it even easy to compound your hands; if I were dying of thirst, and it was your hand that quarrel with your conscience, and to make a truckling peace put the pitcher to my lips, I should find the courage to with God. I came but now from such a deathbed, and the refuse. It may be credulous, but I will do nothing to com-room was full of sincere mourners, listening to the man’s mit myself to evil.’
last words: and when I looked into that face, which had
‘I have no objection to a death-bed repentance,’ observed been set as a flint against mercy, I found it smiling with hope.’
the visitant.
‘And do you, then, suppose me such a creature?’ asked
‘Because you disbelieve their efficacy!’ Markheim cried.
Markheim. ‘Do you think I have no more generous aspira-
‘I do not say so,’ returned the other; ‘but I look on these tions than to sin, and sin, and sin, and, at the last, sneak things from a different side, and when the life is done my into heaven? My heart rises at the thought. Is this, then, 86
Merry Men
your experience of mankind? or is it because you find me Markheim, that I offer to forward your escape.’
with red hands that you presume such baseness? and is this
‘I will lay my heart open to you,’ answered Markheim.
crime of murder indeed so impious as to dry up the very
‘This crime on which you find me is my last. On my way to springs of good?’
it I have learned many lessons; itself is a lesson, a momen-
‘Murder is to me no special category,’ replied the other.
tous lesson. Hitherto I have been driven with revolt to what
‘All sins are murder, even as all life is war. I behold your I would not; I was a bond-slave to poverty, driven and race, like starving mariners on a raft, plucking crusts out scourged. There are robust virtues that can stand in these of the hands of famine and feeding on each other’s lives. I temptations; mine was not so: I had a thirst of pleasure.
follow sins beyond the moment of their acting; I find in all But to-day, and out of this deed, I pluck both warning and that the last consequence is death; and to my eyes, the pretty riches – both the power and a fresh resolve to be myself. I maid who thwarts her mother with such taking graces on a become in all things a free actor in the world; I begin to see question of a ball, drips no less visibly with human gore myself all changed, these hands the agents of good, this than such a murderer as yourself. Do I say that I follow heart at peace. Something comes over me out of the past; sins? I follow virtues also; they differ not by the thickness something of what I have dreamed on Sabbath evenings to of a nail, they are both scythes for the reaping angel of the sound of the church organ, of what I forecast when I Death. Evil, for which I live, consists not in action but in shed tears over noble books, or talked, an innocent child, character. The bad man is dear to me; not the bad act, with my mother. There lies my life; I have wandered a few whose fruits, if we could follow them far enough down the years, but now I see once more my city of destination.’
hurtling cataract of the ages, might yet be found more
‘You are to use this money on the Stock Exchange, I blessed than those of the rarest virtues. And it is not be-think?’ remarked the visitor; ‘and there, if I mistake not, cause you have killed a dealer, but because you are you have already lost some thousands?’
87
Robert Louis Stevenson
‘Ah,’ said Markheim, ‘but this time I have a sure thing.’
changes of fortune and varieties of humour, I have watched
‘This time, again, you will lose,’ replied the visitor qui-you steadily fall. Fifteen years ago you would have started etly.
at a theft. Three years back you would have blenched at the
‘Ah, but I keep back the half!’ cried Markheim.
name of murder. Is there any crime, is there any cruelty or
‘That also you will lose,’ said the other.
meanness, from which you still recoil? – five years from now The sweat started upon Markheim’s brow. ‘Well, then, I shall detect you in the fact! Downward, downward, lies what matter?’ he exclaimed. ‘Say it be lost, say I am plunged your way; nor can anything but death avail to stop you.’
again in poverty, shall one part of me, and that the worse,
‘It is true,’ Markheim said huskily, ‘I have in some de-continue until the end to override the better? Evil and good gree complied with evil. But it is so with all: the very saints, run strong in me, haling me both ways. I do not love the in the mere exercise of living, grow less dainty, and take on one thing, I love all. I can conceive great deeds, renuncia-the tone of their surroundings.’
tions, martyrdoms; and though I be fallen to such a crime
‘I will propound to you one simple question,’ said the other; as murder, pity is no stranger to my thoughts. I pity the
‘and as you answer, I shall read to you your moral horo-poor; who knows their trials better than myself? I pity and scope. You have grown in many things more lax; possibly help them; I prize love, I love honest laughter; there is no you do right to be so – and at any account, it is the same good thing nor true thing on earth but I love it from my with all men. But granting that, are you in any one particu-heart. And are my vices only to direct my life, and my vir-lar, however trifling, more difficult to please with your own tues to lie without effect, like some passive lumber of the conduct, or do you go in all things with a looser rein?’
mind? Not so; good, also, is a spring of acts.’
‘In any one?’ repeated Markheim, with an anguish of But the visitant raised his finger. ‘For six-and-thirty years consideration. ‘No,’ he added, with despair, ‘in none! I that you have been in this world,’ said be, ‘through many have gone down in all.’
88
Merry Men
‘Then,’ said the visitor, ‘content yourself with what you with an assured but rather serious countenance – no smiles, are, for you will never change; and the words of your part no overacting, and I promise you success! Once the girl on this stage are irrevocably written down.’
within, and the door closed, the same dexterity that has Markheim stood for a long while silent, and indeed it already rid you of the dealer will relieve you of this last was the visitor who first broke the silence. ‘That being so,’
danger in your path. Thenceforward you have the whole he said, ‘shall I show you the money?’
evening – the whole night, if needful – to ransack the trea-
‘And grace?’ cried Markheim.
sures of the house and to make good your safety. This is
‘Have you not tried it?’ returned the other. ‘Two or three help that comes to you with the mask of danger. Up!’ he years ago, did I not see you on the platform of revival cried; ‘up, friend; your life hangs trembling in the scales: meetings, and was not your voice the loudest in the hymn?’
up, and act!’
‘It is true,’ said Markheim; ‘and I see clearly what re-Markheim steadily regarded his counsellor. ‘If I be con-mains for me by way of duty. I thank you for these lessons demned to evil acts,’ he said, ‘there is still one door of from my soul; my eyes are opened, and I behold myself at freedom open – I can cease from action. If my life be an ill last for what I am.’
thing, I can lay it down. Though I be, as you say truly, at At this moment, the sharp note of the door-bell rang the beck of every small temptation, I can yet, by one deci-through the house; and the visitant, as though this were sive gesture, place myself beyond the reach of all. My love some concerted signal for which he had been waiting, of good is damned to barrenness; it may, and let it be! But changed at once in his demeanour.
I have still my hatred of evil; and from that, to your galling
‘The maid!’ he cried. ‘She has returned, as I forewarned disappointment, you shall see that I can draw both energy you, and there is now before you one more difficult pas-and courage.’
sage. Her master, you must say, is ill; you must let her in, The features of the visitor began to undergo a wonderful 89
Robert Louis Stevenson
and lovely change: they brightened and softened with a THRAWN JANET
tender triumph, and, even as they brightened, faded and dislimned. But Markheim did not pause to watch or understand the transformation. He opened the door and went THE REVEREND MURDOCH SOULIS was long minister of the downstairs very slowly, thinking to himself. His past went moorland parish of Balweary, in the vale of Dule. A se-soberly before him; he beheld it as it was, ugly and strenu-vere, bleak-faced old man, dreadful to his hearers, he dwelt ous like a dream, random as chance-medley – a scene of in the last years of his life, without relative or servant or defeat. Life, as he thus reviewed it, tempted him no longer; any human company, in the small and lonely manse under but on the further side he perceived a quiet haven for his the Hanging Shaw. In spite of the iron composure of his bark. He paused in the passage, and looked into the shop, features, his eye was wild, scared, and uncertain; and when where the candle still burned by the dead body. It was he dwelt, in private admonitions, on the future of the im-strangely silent. Thoughts of the dealer swarmed into his penitent, it seemed as if his eye pierced through the storms mind, as he stood gazing. And then the bell once more of time to the terrors of eternity. Many young persons, broke out into impatient clamour.
coming to prepare themselves against the season of the He confronted the maid upon the threshold with someHoly Communion, were dreadfully affected by his talk. He thing like a smile.
had a sermon on lst Peter, v. and 8th, ‘The devil as a roar-
‘You had better go for the police,’ said he: ‘I have killed ing lion,’ on the Sunday after every seventeenth of Au-your master.’
gust, and he was accustomed to surpass himself upon that text both by the appalling nature of the matter and the terror of his bearing in the pulpit. The children were frightened into fits, and the old looked more than usually oracu-90
Merry Men
lar, and were, all that day, full of those hints that Hamlet parishioners of Balweary so infamous a reputation. The deprecated. The manse itself, where it stood by the water minister walked there often after dark, sometimes groan-of Dule among some thick trees, with the Shaw overhang-ing aloud in the instancy of his unspoken prayers; and when ing it on the one side, and on the other many cold, moorish he was from home, and the manse door was locked, the hilltops rising towards the sky, had begun, at a very early more daring schoolboys ventured, with beating hearts, to period of Mr. Soulis’s ministry, to be avoided in the dusk
‘follow my leader’ across that legendary spot.
hours by all who valued themselves upon their prudence; This atmosphere of terror, surrounding, as it did, a man and guidmen sitting at the clachan alehouse shook their of God of spotless character and orthodoxy, was a com-heads together at the thought of passing late by that un-mon cause of wonder and subject of inquiry among the canny neighbourhood. There was one spot, to be more few strangers who were led by chance or business into that particular, which was regarded with especial awe. The unknown, outlying country. But many even of the people manse stood between the high road and the water of Dule, of the parish were ignorant of the strange events which with a gable to each; its back was towards the kirk-town had marked the first year of Mr. Soulis’s ministrations; and of Balweary, nearly half a mile away; in front of it, a bare among those who were better informed, some were natu-garden, hedged with thorn, occupied the land between the rally reticent, and others shy of that particular topic. Now river and the road. The house was two stories high, with and again, only, one of the older folk would warm into two large rooms on each. It opened not directly on the courage over his third tumbler, and recount the cause of garden, but on a causewayed path, or passage, giving on the minister’s strange looks and solitary life.
the road on the one hand, and closed on the other by the tall willows and elders that bordered on the stream. And it FIFTY YEARS SYNE, when Mr. Soulis cam first into Ba’weary, was this strip of causeway that enjoyed among the young he was still a young man – a callant, the folk said – fu’ o’
91
Robert Louis Stevenson
book learnin’ and grand at the exposition, but, as was natu-so they ca’d them; but the serious were o’ opinion there ral in sae young a man, wi’ nae leevin’ experience in reli-was little service for sae mony, when the hail o’ God’s Word gion. The younger sort were greatly taken wi’ his gifts and would gang in the neuk of a plaid. Then he wad sit half the his gab; but auld, concerned, serious men and women were day and half the nicht forbye, which was scant decent –
moved even to prayer for the young man, whom they took writin’, nae less; and first, they were feared he wad read to be a self-deceiver, and the parish that was like to be sae his sermons; and syne it proved he was writin’ a book ill-supplied. It was before the days o’ the moderates – weary himsel’, which was surely no fittin’ for ane of his years an’
fa’ them; but ill things are like guid – they baith come bit sma’ experience.
by bit, a pickle at a time; and there were folk even then that Onyway it behoved him to get an auld, decent wife to said the Lord had left the college professors to their ain keep the manse for him an’ see to his bit denners; and he devices, an’ the lads that went to study wi’ them wad hae was recommended to an auld limmer – Janet M’Clour, they done mair and better sittin’ in a peat-bog, like their for-ca’d her – and sae far left to himsel’ as to be ower per-bears of the persecution, wi’ a Bible under their oxter and suaded. There was mony advised him to the contrar, for a speerit o’ prayer in their heart. There was nae doubt, Janet was mair than suspeckit by the best folk in Ba’weary.
onyway, but that Mr. Soulis had been ower lang at the col-Lang or that, she had had a wean to a dragoon; she hadnae lege. He was careful and troubled for mony things besides come forrit* for maybe thretty year; and bairns had seen the ae thing needful. He had a feck o’ books wi’ him – mair her mumblin’ to hersel’ up on Key’s Loan in the gloamin’, than had ever been seen before in a’ that presbytery; and a whilk was an unco time an’ place for a God-fearin’ woman.
sair wark the carrier had wi’ them, for they were a’ like to Howsoever, it was the laird himsel’ that had first tauld the have smoored in the Deil’s Hag between this and minister o’ Janet; and in thae days he wad have gane a far Kilmackerlie. They were books o’ divinity, to be sure, or
*To come forrit – to offer oneself as a communicant.
92
Merry Men
gate to pleesure the laird. When folk tauld him that Janet Hangin’ Shaw, and she focht like ten; there was mony a was sib to the deil, it was a’ superstition by his way of it; guidwife bure the mark of her neist day an’ mony a lang an’ when they cast up the Bible to him an’ the witch of day after; and just in the hettest o’ the collieshangie, wha Endor, he wad threep it doun their thrapples that thir days suld come up (for his sins) but the new minister.
were a’ gane by, and the deil was mercifully restrained.
‘Women,’ said he (and he had a grand voice), ‘I charge Weel, when it got about the clachan that Janet M’Clour you in the Lord’s name to let her go.’
was to be servant at the manse, the folk were fair mad wi’
Janet ran to him – she was fair wud wi’ terror – an’ clang her an’ him thegether; and some o’ the guidwives had nae to him, an’ prayed him, for Christ’s sake, save her frae the better to dae than get round her door cheeks and chairge cummers; an’ they, for their pairt, tauld him a’ that was her wi’ a’ that was ken’t again her, frae the sodger’s bairn ken’t, and maybe mair.
to John Tamson’s twa kye. She was nae great speaker; folk
‘Woman,’ says he to Janet, ‘is this true?’
usually let her gang her ain gate, an’ she let them gang
‘As the Lord sees me,’ says she, ‘as the Lord made me, theirs, wi’, neither Fair-guid-een nor Fair-guid-day; but no a word o’t. Forbye the bairn,’ says she, ‘I’ve been a when she buckled to, she had a tongue to deave the miller.
decent woman a’ my days.’
Up she got, an’ there wasnae an auld story in Ba’weary
‘Will you,’ says Mr. Soulis, ‘in the name of God, and but she gart somebody lowp for it that day; they couldnae before me, His unworthy minister, renounce the devil and say ae thing but she could say twa to it; till, at the hinder his works?’
end, the guidwives up and claught haud of her, and clawed Weel, it wad appear that when he askit that, she gave a the coats aff her back, and pu’d her doun the clachan to the girn that fairly frichtit them that saw her, an’ they could water o’ Dule, to see if she were a witch or no, soum or hear her teeth play dirl thegether in her chafts; but there droun. The carline skirled till ye could hear her at the was naething for it but the ae way or the ither; an’ Janet 93
Robert Louis Stevenson
lifted up her hand and renounced the deil before them a’.
Thing the name o’ Janet M’Clour; for the auld Janet, by
‘And now,’ says Mr. Soulis to the guidwives, ‘home with their way o’t, was in muckle hell that day. But the minister ye, one and all, and pray to God for His forgiveness.’
was neither to haud nor to bind; he preached about naething And he gied Janet his arm, though she had little on her but the folk’s cruelty that had gi’en her a stroke of the but a sark, and took her up the clachan to her ain door like palsy; he skelpt the bairns that meddled her; and he had her a leddy of the land; an’ her scrieghin’ and laughin’ as was a up to the manse that same nicht, and dwalled there a’ his scandal to be heard.
lane wi’ her under the Hangin’ Shaw.
There were mony grave folk lang ower their prayers that Weel, time gaed by: and the idler sort commenced to nicht; but when the morn cam’ there was sic a fear fell think mair lichtly o’ that black business. The minister was upon a’ Ba’weary that the bairns hid theirsels, and even weel thocht o’; he was aye late at the writing, folk wad see the men folk stood and keekit frae their doors. For there his can’le doon by the Dule water after twal’ at e’en; and was Janet comin’ doun the clachan – her or her likeness, he seemed pleased wi’ himsel’ and upsitten as at first, nane could tell – wi’ her neck thrawn, and her heid on ae though a’ body could see that he was dwining. As for Janet side, like a body that has been hangit, and a girn on her she cam an’ she gaed; if she didnae speak muckle afore, it face like an unstreakit corp. By an’ by they got used wi’ it, was reason she should speak less then; she meddled and even speered at her to ken what was wrang; but frae naebody; but she was an eldritch thing to see, an’ nane that day forth she couldnae speak like a Christian woman, wad hae mistrysted wi’ her for Ba’weary glebe.
but slavered and played click wi’ her teeth like a pair o’
About the end o’ July there cam’ a spell o’ weather, the shears; and frae that day forth the name o’ God cam never like o’t never was in that country side; it was lown an’ het on her lips. Whiles she wad try to say it, but it michtnae be.
an’ heartless; the herds couldnae win up the Black Hill, the Them that kenned best said least; but they never gied that bairns were ower weariet to play; an’ yet it was gousty 94
Merry Men
too, wi’ claps o’ het wund that rumm’led in the glens, and had put them frae their ordinar. He wasnae easy fleyed, an’
bits o’ shouers that slockened naething. We aye thocht it gaed straucht up to the wa’s; an’ what suld he find there but to thun’er on the morn; but the morn cam, an’ the morn’s but a man, or the appearance of a man, sittin’ in the inside morning, and it was aye the same uncanny weather, sair on upon a grave. He was of a great stature, an’ black as hell, folks and bestial. Of a’ that were the waur, nane suffered and his e’en were singular to see.* Mr. Soulis had heard like Mr. Soulis; he could neither sleep nor eat, he tauld his tell o’ black men, mony’s the time; but there was some-elders; an’ when he wasnae writin’ at his weary book, he thing unco about this black man that daunted him. Het as wad be stravaguin’ ower a’ the countryside like a man he was, he took a kind o’ cauld grue in the marrow o’ his possessed, when a’ body else was blythe to keep caller ben banes; but up he spak for a’ that; an’ says he: ‘My friend, the house.
are you a stranger in this place?’ The black man answered Abune Hangin’ Shaw, in the bield o’ the Black Hill, there’s never a word; he got upon his feet, an’ begude to hirsle to a bit enclosed grund wi’ an iron yett; and it seems, in the the wa’ on the far side; but he aye lookit at the minister; auld days, that was the kirkyaird o’ Ba’weary, and conse-an’ the minister stood an’ lookit back; till a’ in a meenute crated by the Papists before the blessed licht shone upon the black man was ower the wa’ an’ rinnin’ for the bield o’
the kingdom. It was a great howff o’ Mr. Soulis’s, onyway; the trees. Mr. Soulis, he hardly kenned why, ran after him; there he would sit an’ consider his sermons; and indeed it’s but he was sair forjaskit wi’ his walk an’ the het, unhalesome a bieldy bit. Weel, as he cam ower the wast end o’ the weather; and rin as he likit, he got nae mair than a glisk o’
Black Hill, ae day, he saw first twa, an syne fower, an’ syne the black man amang the birks, till he won doun to the foot seeven corbie craws fleein’ round an’ round abune the auld
*It was a common belief in Scotland that the devil appeared kirkyaird. They flew laigh and heavy, an’ squawked to ither as a black man. This appears in several witch trials and I as they gaed; and it was clear to Mr. Soulis that something think in Law’s Memorials, that delightful store-house of the quaint and grisly.
95
Robert Louis Stevenson
o’ the hill-side, an’ there he saw him ance mair, gaun, hap, in his heid.
step, an’ lowp, ower Dule water to the manse.
‘Hoots,’ says she, ‘think shame to yoursel’, minister;’
Mr. Soulis wasnae weel pleased that this fearsome gangrel an’ gied him a drap brandy that she keept aye by her.
suld mak’ sae free wi’ Ba’weary manse; an’ he ran the Syne Mr. Soulis gaed into his study amang a’ his books.
harder, an’, wet shoon, ower the burn, an’ up the walk; but It’s a lang, laigh, mirk chalmer, perishin’ cauld in winter, the deil a black man was there to see. He stepped out upon an’ no very dry even in the tap o’ the simmer, for the manse the road, but there was naebody there; he gaed a’ ower the stands near the burn. Sae doun he sat, and thocht of a’ that gairden, but na, nae black man. At the hinder end, and a bit had come an’ gane since he was in Ba’weary, an’ his hame, feared as was but natural, he lifted the hasp and into the an’ the days when he was a bairn an’ ran daffin’ on the manse; and there was Janet M’Clour before his een, wi’
braes; and that black man aye ran in his heid like the owerher thrawn craig, and nane sae pleased to see him. And he come of a sang. Aye the mair he thocht, the mair he thocht aye minded sinsyne, when first he set his een upon her, he o’ the black man. He tried the prayer, an’ the words had the same cauld and deidly grue.
wouldnae come to him; an’ he tried, they say, to write at
‘Janet,’ says he, ‘have you seen a black man?’
his book, but he could nae mak’ nae mair o’ that. There
‘A black man?’ quo’ she. ‘Save us a’! Ye’re no wise, was whiles he thocht the black man was at his oxter, an’
minister. There’s nae black man in a Ba’weary.’
the swat stood upon him cauld as well-water; and there But she didnae speak plain, ye maun understand; but yam-was other whiles, when he cam to himsel’ like a christened yammered, like a powney wi’ the bit in its moo.
bairn and minded naething.
‘Weel,’ says he, ‘Janet, if there was nae black man, I The upshot was that he gaed to the window an’ stood have spoken with the Accuser of the Brethren.’
glowrin’ at Dule water. The trees are unco thick, an’ the And he sat down like ane wi’ a fever, an’ his teeth chittered water lies deep an’ black under the manse; an’ there was 96
Merry Men
Janct washin’ the cla’es wi’ her coats kilted. She had her teen hun’er’ an twal’. It had been het afo