Weir of Hermiston: An Unfinished Romance

-coloured, misbegotten caitiff, Duncan Jopp, on trial for his life. His story, as it was raked out before him in that public scene, was one of disgrace and vice and cowardice, the very nakedness o

ed. There was pinned about his throat a piece of dingy flannel; and this it was perhaps that turned the scale in Archie's mind between disgust and pity. The creature stood in a vanishing point; yet a little while, and he was still a man, a

he would have said, and he was hanging him. Nor was it possible to see his lordship, and acquit him of gusto in the task. It was plain he gloried in the exercise of his trained faculties, in the clear sight which pierced at once into the joint of fact, in the

came up, whimpering and curtseying, to add the weight of her betrayal. My lor

," said he. "I have an e'e u

, "And what made ye do this, ye auld runt?" the Court inte

ma loard," whi

; and there was something so formidable and ferocious in

up contained

old wife appears to have had so much common sense as even to tell a lie when it was necessary." And in the course of sentencing, my lord had this obiter dictum: "I have been the means, under God, of haanging a great number,

sweat of his mortal agony, without defence or excuse: a thing to cover up with blushes: a being so much sunk beneath the zones of sympathy that pity might seem harmless. And the judge had pursued him with a monstrous, relishing gaiety, ho

and crime, the velvet and bright iron of the past; and dismissed them with a cry of pain. He lay and moaned in the Hunter's Bog, and the heavens were dark above him and the grass of the field an offence. "This is my father," he said. "I draw my life from him; the flesh upon m

uce could never have subsisted; but he was by fortune in one of his humours of sour silence; and under the very guns of his broadside, Archie nursed the enthusiasm of rebellion. It seemed to him, from the top of his nineteen years' experience, as if he were marked at birth to be the perpetrator of some signal action, to set

s last claim to manhood. Then followed the brutal instant of extinction, and the paltry dangling of the remains like a broken jumping-jack. He had been prepared for something terrible, not for this tragic meann

, not truly susceptible whether of feeling or inspiring friendship; and the relation between the pair was altogether on the outside, a thing of common knowledge and the pleasantries that spring from a common acquaintance. The more credit to Frank

said. "I do not desire your c

do with yourself; it's no use brandishing that staff." For indeed at that moment Archie had made a sudden-perhaps a warlike-movement. "This

promise to leave me entirely to myself, I will tell you so much, that

right?" a

. Innes," retorted Archie. "I have

get the Spec.?

rchie. "O no, I won

me, and, before the evening was over, had dealt a memorable shock to his companions. It chanced he was the president of the night. He sat in the same room where the Society still meets-only the portraits were not there: the men who afterwards sat for them were then but beginning their career. The same lustre of many tapers shed its light over the meeting; the same chair, perhaps, supported him that so many of us have sat in since. At times he seemed to forget the business of the evening, but even in these periods he sat with a great air of energy and determination. At times he meddled bitterly, and launched with defiance those fines which are the precious and rarely used artillery of the president. He little thought, as he d

seconded; the previous question was promptly moved and unanimously voted, and the momentary scandal smuggled by. Innes triumphed in the fulfilment of his prophecy. He and

ours!" observed this courageous member, taking

"More like a war. I saw that poor brute hange

dropping his arm like something hot, he

ck stable lane, and watched for a long while the light burn steady in the Judge's room. The longer he gazed upon that illuminated window-blind, the more blank became the picture of the man who sat behind it, endlessly turning over sheets of process, pausing to sip a glass of port, or rising and passing heavily about his book-lined walls to verify some reference. He could not combine the brutal judge and the industrious, dispassionate student; the connecting link escaped him; from such a dual nature, it was impossible he should predict behaviour; and he asked himself if he had done well to plunge into a business of which the end could not be fores

in a chance encounter with the celebrated Dr. Gregory. Archie stood looking vaguely in the lighted window of a book shop, trying to nerve himself for the approaching ordeal. My lord and he had met and parted in the morning as they had now done for long, with scarcely the ordinary civilities of life; and it was plain to the son that nothing had yet reached the father's ears.

face with Dr. Gregory. "And why should I come to see

ooking after, my young friend. Good folk are scarce, you know; and it is not every one tha

nd a smile, the

rsuit, and had in turn, but more

saying that? What makes you think that

hundred, even if they had been equally inclined to kindness, would have blundered by some touch of charitable exaggeration. The doctor was better inspired. He kn

d observer. The sign that I saw him make, ten thousand would have missed; and perhaps-perhaps, I say, because he's a hard man to judge of-but perhaps he never made another. A strange thing to consider! It was this. One day I

iece of antiquity to which he clung) and repeating "Distinctly" with raised

t degree for another-and that other himself, who had insulted him! With the generosity of youth, Archie was instantly under arms upon the other side: had instantly created a new image of Lord Hermiston, that of a man who was all iron without and all sensibility within. The mind of the v

on Archie, as he stood, in the old-fashioned observance of respect, to yield precedence. The judge came without haste, stepping stately and firm; his chin raised, his face (as he entered the lamplight) strongly illumined, his mouth set hard. There was never a wink of change in his expression; without looking to the right or left, he m

ut not even that was left to him. My lord, after hanging up his cloak and hat, turned round in the lighted entry, and made him

s table a palpable silence, and as soon as th

m," said he; and then to his son: "A

courage, for the first and last time, entirely

then," said Hermiston, and

ed deep with orderly documents, the backs of law books made a fram

re, presenting his back to Archie; then suddenly

I hear of y

answer possib

es in this land; and that in the public street, and while an order of the Court was being executit. Forbye which, it would appear that ye've be

" stammered Archie. "I se

, and took his usual seat. "And so you dis

sir, I do,"

cularity. I hear that at the hanging of Duncan Jopp-and, man! ye had a fine client there-in the middle of all the riff-r

were not my word

words, then?" a

beg your pardon-a God-defying murder. I have no wish to conceal th

next!" cried Hermiston. "There was n

the Speculative. I said I had been to see the mi

ermiston. "And I suppose

the unhappy hero, now fairly face to face with the business he had chosen. "I have been reading some of your cases. I was present while Jopp was tried. It was a hideous business. Father, it was a

esty, it seems; you couldn't even steik your mouth on the public street. What for should I steik mines upon the bench, the King's officer, bearing the sword, a dreid to evil-doers, as I was from the beginning,

as he went on; the plain words became invested

o splairger is. And another thing: son of mines or no son of mines, you have flung fylement in public on one of the Senators of the Coallege of Justice, and I would make it my business to see that ye were never admitted there yourself. There is a kind of a decency to be observit. Then comes the next of it-what am I to do with ye next? Ye'll have to find some kind of a trade, for I'll never support y

ninsula," said Archie. "That

e enough too, if I thought it. But I'll never trust

ie. "I am loyal; I will not boast; but any

oyal to me?" inter

came n

re's the hairm? It doesna play buff on me! And if there were twenty thousand eediots like yourself, sorrow a Duncan Jopp would hang the fewer. But there's no splairging possible in a camp; and if ye were to go to

sition, and stood abashed. He had a strong impression, besides, of the essentia

ther proposeetion?"

ly, sir, that I cannot but s

an you would fancy," said my lord

id not think to apologise, but I do, I ask your pardon; it will not be so again, I pass you my word of honour

I would have wheepit ye for this rideeculous exhibeetion. The way it is, I have just to grin and bear. But one thing is to be clearly understood. As a faither, I m

f the man's self in the man's office. At every word, this sense of the greatness of Lord Hermiston's spirit struck more home; and along with

your hands withou

hing it's possible that ye might be with decency, and that's a laird. Ye'll be out of hairm's way at the least of it. If ye have to rowt, ye can rowt amang the kye; and the maist feck of the caapital punishment ye're like to come across'll be guddling trouts. Now, I'm for no idle lairdies; every man has to w

my best," s

y after," said Hermiston. "And just try to be less of an eediot!" he conclu