A Noble Life

A Noble Life

The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Noble Life, by Dinah Maria Mulock
Craik
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Title: A Noble Life
Author: Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Release Date: December 17, 2004 [eBook #14373]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NOBLE
LIFE***
E-text prepared by Robin Eugene Escovado

A NOBLE LIFE
by
DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK

Author of John Halifax, Gentleman, Christian's Mistake, &c., &c., &c.
New York Harper & Brothers, Publishers Franklin Square

Dedicated, with the affection of eighteen years, To Uncle George
Chapter 1
Many years ago, how many need not be recorded, there lived in his
ancestral castle, in the far north of Scotland, the last Earl of Cairnforth.
You will not find his name in "Lodge's Peerage," for, as I say, he was
the last earl, and with him the title became extinct. It had been borne
for centuries by many noble and gallant men, who had lived worthily or
died bravely. But I think among what we call "heroic" lives--lives the
story of which touches us with something higher than pity, and deeper
than love--there never was any of his race who left behind a history
more truly heroic than he.
Now that it is all over and done--now that the soul so mysteriously
given has gone back unto Him who gave it, and a little green turf in the
kirk-yard behind Cairnforth Manse covers the poor body in which it
dwelt for more than forty years, I feel it might do good to many, and
would do harm to none, if I related the story--a very simple one, and
more like a biography than a tale--of Charles Edward Stuart
Montgomerie, last Earl of Cairnforth.
He did not succeed to the title; he was born Earl of Cairnforth, his
father having been drowned in the loch a month before, the wretched
countess herself beholding the sight from her castle windows. She lived
but to know she had a son and heir--to whom she desired might be
given his father's name: then she died--more glad than sorry to depart,
for she had loved her husband all her life, and had only been married to
him a year. Perhaps, had she once seen her son, she might have wished
less to die than to live, if only for his sake; however, it was not God's
will that this should be. So, at two days old, the "poor little earl"--as

from his very birth people began compassionately to call him--was left
alone in the world, without a single near relative or connection, his
parents having both been only children, but with his title, his estate, and
twenty thousand a year.
Cairnforth Castle is one of the loveliest residences in all Scotland. It is
built on the extremity of a long tongue of land which stretches out
between two salt-water lochs--Loch Beg, the "little," and Loch Mhor,
the "big" lake. The latter is grand and gloomy, shut in by bleak
mountains, which sit all round it, their feet in the water, and their heads
in mist and cloud. But Loch Beg is quite different. It has green,
cultivated, sloping shores, fringed with trees to the water's edge, and
the least ray of sunshine seems always to set it dimpling with wavy
smiles. Now and then a sudden squall comes down from the chain of
mountains far away beyond the head of the loch, and then its waters
begin to darken--just like a sudden frown over a bright face; the waves
curl and rise, and lash themselves into foam, and any little sailing boat,
which has been happily and safely riding over them five minutes before,
is often struck and capsized immediately. Thus it happened when the
late earl was drowned.
The minister--the Rev. Alexander Cardross--had been sailing with him;
had only just landed, and was watching the boat crossing back again,
when the squall came down. Though this region is a populous district
now, with white villas dotted like daisies all along the green shores,
there was then not a house in the whole peninsula of Cairnforth except
the Castle, the Manse, and a few cottages, called the "clachan." Before
help was possible, the earl and his boatman, Neil Campbell, were both
drowned. The only person saved was little Malcolm Campbell-- Neil's
brother--a boy about ten years old.
In most country parishes of Scotland or England there is an almost
superstitious feeling that "the minister," or "the clergyman," must be
the fittest person to break any terrible tidings.