Kirsteen: The Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years AgoOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
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Kirsteen: The Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years Ago
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Domestic fiction; Scotland -- Fiction
The Duke gave his clansman what looked like a suspicious glance. But he
only said, “It will be better not to disturb him. I would have thought,”
he added, “that old Drumcarro was tough enough to stand the loss of his
wife or anything else.”
“We sometimes do men injustice,” said Glendochart, a little stiffly;
“and the shock of having another death, so to speak, in the house, has
had a great effect upon his mind--or I should perhaps say his nerves.”
“Well, well, I will not disturb him,” said the Duke. He said no more
until they reached again the head of the linn. Then he stood for a few
minutes amid the spray, looking down as he had looked up the boiling
foam of waters. The cloud had gone off his face. He turned to his son,
by his side, who had said little all this time. “I think we may satisfy
ourselves that it was pure accident,” he said.
“I think so,” said the taintless heir, with a solemn nod of his head.
The Duke stood there for a moment more, and then he took off his hat and
said, “Thank God.” With all his heart, Glendochart echoed the surprising
words. He thought that he indeed had cause for thankfulness--that he
should never have had the occasion to approach his chief with news of an
alliance that would have been so little to his mind; that Jeanie’s name
should have been kept out of the matter altogether, and no questions put
to the old man whose nerves had been so strangely shaken. He had indeed
cause for thankfulness; but the Duke, why? Glendochart came to
understand later why the Duke should have been glad that no new scandal
was to be associated with the end of his son’s life.
And so Lord John was carried in great state to the burial place of his
fathers, and was rehabilitated with his family, and mourned by his
mother and sisters, like other men. And whatever the tragedy was that
attended his last hours it was buried with him, and never told to man.
There is no coroner in Scotland; and in those remote regions, and at
that period, the Duke’s satisfaction that his son’s death was caused by
accident was enough for all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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