thomas fordyce was a sucker from the root of a very old family tree, born in poverty, and, with great pinching of father and mother, brothers and sisters, educated for the church. but from pleasure in scholarship, from archaeological tastes, a passion for the arcana of history, and a love of literature, strong, although not of the highest kind, he had settled down as a school-master, and in his calling had excelled. by all who knew him he was regarded as an accomplished, amiable, and worthy man.
when his years were verging on the undefined close of middle age he saw the lives between him and the family property, one by one wither at the touch of death, until at last there was no one but himself and his daughter to succeed. he was at the time the head of a flourishing school in a large manufacturing town; and it was not without some regret, though with more pleasure, that he yielded his profession and retired to potlurg.
greatly dwindled as he found the property, and much and long as it had been mismanaged, it was yet of considerable value, and worth a wise care. the result of the labor he spent upon it was such that it had now for years yielded him, if not a large rental, one far larger at least than his daughter imagined. but the sinking of the school-master in the laird seemed to work ill for the man, and good only for the land. i say seemed, because what we call degeneracy is often but the unveiling of what was there all the time; and the evil we could become, we are. if i have in me the tyrant or the miser, there he is, and such am i—as surely as if the tyrant or the miser were even now visible to the wondering dislike of my neighbors. i do not say the characteristic is so strong, or would be so hard to change as by the revealing development it must become; but it is there, alive, as an egg is alive; and by no means inoperative like a mere germ, but exercising real though occult influence on the rest of my character. therefore, except the growing vitality be in process of killing these ova of death, it is for the good of the man that they should be so far developed as to show their existence. if the man do not then starve and slay them they will drag him to the judgment-seat of a fiery indignation.
for the laird, nature could ill replace the human influences that had surrounded the school-master; while enlargement both of means and leisure enabled him to develop by indulgence a passion for a peculiar kind of possession, which, however refined in its objects, was yet but a branch of the worship of mammon. it suits the enemy just as well, i presume, that a man should give his soul for coins as for money. in consequence he was growing more and more withdrawn, ever filling less the part of a man—which is to be a hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest. he was more and more for himself, and thereby losing his life. dearly as he loved his daughter, he was, by slow fallings away, growing ever less of a companion, less of a comfort, less of a necessity to her, and requiring less and less of her for the good or ease of his existence. we wrong those near us in being independent of them. god himself would not be happy without his son. we ought to lean on each other, giving and receiving—not as weaklings, but as lovers. love is strength as well as need. alexa was more able to live alone than most women; therefore it was the worse for her. too satisfied with herself, too little uneasy when alone, she did not know that then she was not in good enough company. she was what most would call a strong nature, nor knew what weaknesses belong to, and grow out of, such strength as hers.
the remoter scions of a family tree are not seldom those who make most account of it; the school-master's daughter knew more about the fordyces of potlurg, and cared more for their traditions, than any who of later years had reaped its advantages or shared its honors. interest in the channel down which one has slid into the world is reasonable, and may be elevating; with alexa it passed beyond good, and wrought for evil. proud of a family with a history, and occasionally noted in the annals of the country, she regarded herself as the superior of all with whom she had hitherto come into relation. to the poor, to whom she was invariably and essentially kind, she was less condescending than to such as came nearer her own imagined standing; she was constantly aware that she belonged to the elect of the land! society took its revenge; the rich trades-people looked down upon her as the school-master's daughter. against their arrogance her indignation buttressed her lineal with her mental superiority. at the last the pride of family is a personal arrogance. and now at length she was in her natural position as heiress of potlurg!
she was religious—if one may be called religious who felt no immediate relation to the source of her being. she felt bound to defend, so far as she honestly could, the doctrines concerning god and his ways transmitted by the elders of her people; to this much, and little more, her religion toward god amounted. but she had a strong sense of obligation to do what was right.
her father gave her so little money to spend that she had to be very careful with her housekeeping, and they lived in the humblest way. for her person she troubled him as little as she could, believing him, from the half statements and hints he gave, and his general carriage toward life, not a little oppressed by lack of money, nor suspecting his necessities created and his difficulties induced by himself. in this regard it had come to be understood between them that the produce of the poultry-yard was alexa's own; and to some little store she had thus gathered she mainly trusted for the requirements of her invalid. to this her father could not object, though he did not like it; he felt what was hers to be his more than he felt what was his to be hers.
alexa had not learned to place value on money beyond its use, but she was not therefore free from the service of mammon; she looked to it as to a power essential, not derived; she did not see it as god's creation, but merely as an existence, thus making of a creature of god the mammon of unrighteousness. she did not, however, cling to it, but was ready to spend it. at the same time, had george crawford looked less handsome or less of a gentleman, she would not have been so ready to devote the contents of her little secret drawer.
the discovery of her relationship to the young man waked a new feeling. she had never had a brother, never known a cousin, and had avoided the approach of such young men as, of inferior position in her eyes, had sought to be friendly with her; here was one thrown helpless on her care, with necessities enough to fill the gap between his real relation to her, and that of the brother after whom she had sighed in vain! it was a new and delightful sensation to have a family claim on a young man—a claim, the material advantage of which was all on his side, the devotion all on hers. she was invaded by a flood of tenderness toward the man. was he not her cousin, a gentleman, and helpless as any new-born child? nothing should be wanting that a strong woman could do for a powerless man.
