Sutherland

“ It was on a cool, pleasant day of September that Judge Sutherland set out on his journey for the South. Rosalie had accompanied him on board the boat, to remain as long as she might before the steamer should leave the wharf. It was their first separation since their marriage, and upon that account alone, perhaps, they felt it the more sensibly; and as the boat was getting up her steam, Mark Sutherland blessed and dismissed his wife. ”

“ If in this garden—this conservatory of Nature, where all her choicest luxuries are assembled—there is one spot more favoured than all the rest, it is “Cashmere,” the beautiful seat of Clement Sutherland.
The brothers Sutherland emigrated from the old dominion, and settled on the Pearl river, in those palmy days of cotton-planting, when every planter seemed a very Midas, turning all he touched to gold, and when the foundations were laid of some of the present enormous southern fortunes. It was no love for the land of sun that brought the Sutherlands there. ”

“ He hates him for his political opinions, for his principles, and, more than all, for having had the power to give up the beautiful India. Clement Sutherland worships his beautiful daughter; and he hates Mark for not having laid upon her shrine the most precious jewel of his soul—his integrity. And now, with the opposition of your guardian, who is invested with such power over your fortune, what have you to expect in giving yourself to Mark Sutherland? ”

“ For the modern County of Sutherland is outwardly much the same now as it was in Pictish times, save for road and rail, two castles, and a sprinkling of shooting lodges, inns, and good cottages, which, however, in so vast a territory are, as the Irishman put it, "mere fleabites on the ocean." Much of the west of the land of Cat was scarcely inhabited at all in Pictish or Viking days, because as is clearly the case in the Kerrow-Garrow or Rough Quarter of Eddrachilles, it would not carry one sheep or feed one human being per hundred acres in many parts. ”

“ What a pity it is that differences such as these the Duke of Sutherland cannot see!
The marriage of the young countess into a noble English family was fraught with further disaster to the county. There are many Englishmen quite intelligent enough to perceive the difference between a smoky cottage of turf and a whitewashed cottage of stone, whose judgment on their 418 respective inhabitants would be of but little value. Sutherland, as a country of men, stood higher at this period than perhaps any other district in the British empire ”

“ It is a well-practised ear that can tell whether the sound it hears be that of gently falling waters, or of wind flowing through the branches of firs. Sutherland’s heart, reviving like a dormouse in its hole, began to be joyful at the sight of the genial motions of Nature, telling of warmth and blessedness at hand. Some goal of life, vague but sure, seemed to glimmer through the appearances around him, and to stimulate him to action. ”

“ Sutherland rose from the easy-chair in which he had been seated, and, putting out the lamp widow Jones had insisted on lighting, passed directly to the window, through which he began to peer with looks of the deepest anxiety.
A man was coming up the road, a young man, Frederick. As Mr. Sutherland recognised him he leaned forward with increased anxiety, till at the appearance of his son in front his scrutiny grew so strained and penetrating that it seemed to exercise a magnetic influence upon Frederick, causing him to look up. ”

“ The men at work were unskilled in their task, and had caused Mr. Sutherland much anxiety by the clumsy way in which they were rearing the building. Just as he came opposite them this afternoon, they were raising a heavy beam by means of ropes and pulleys, with a great deal of noise and very little work. Mr. Sutherland, with an exclamation of impatience, stopped his words and [136] his walk, and came up to where they were at work—the two, Tom and Lillie, following. ”

“ Mark Sutherland to Miss Sutherland must be preceded by a complete and final renunciation of his present purposes, before it could be received by her. Full of bitterness, he wrote to her again, and concluded his note thus:—
“I know you now, India; I know you perfectly. I no longer worship you. Alas! there is nothing in you to worship, or even to approve beyond your enchanting beauty. And yet I love you still for that bewildering beauty and for the dream that is passing away. ”

“ Mark Sutherland, being quite penniless, and well knowing that he has no way on earth of supporting a wife, makes the best use of his opportunities to woo and win an heiress!”
Rosalie dropped her face into her hands; her bosom heaved convulsively, as with some inward struggle, for an instant, and then lifting a countenance blushing and tearful, yet gently resolute, she said, in a faltering voice:
“I must make a confession, even if it cover me with humiliation. I must clear Mr. Sutherland, and take the blame where it truly belongs—upon my own head. Uncle, it was my fault—my own—mine solely.” ”

“ Would it were only that! That were no dishonour, at least. Oh, no! It is as much worse as it could possibly be!”
“I cannot believe that Mr. Sutherland would do aught unworthy of a man and a gentleman.”
“Woe to my lips that they should utter the charge. But read his letter, Valeria, and advise me, for I am deeply distressed,” said Miss Sutherland; and she threw herself back into a cushioned chair, and bowed her face upon her hands, until all the amber ringlets drooped and veiled them.
Valeria ran her eyes quickly over the letter, and then she threw herself into a chair—but it was to laugh. ”

“ No; he will even stop your allowance if you become the wife of Mark Sutherland!”
“Why should he do that? It would be very unjust!” said Rosalie, raising her eyebrows with surprise. “It would be unnatural! monstrous! My guardian, Mark’s own uncle! Oh! surely, having discarded him, he will not pursue him with persecutions.”
“Will he not?”
“No, I will never believe it!”
“He will fill up the measure of his animosity—believe that! Clement Sutherland did not appear at the breakfast table this morning. Can you not surmise the cause? He has many bad reasons for hating his nephew. ”

“ He would have purchased an inner conviction of his innocence almost at the price of his own life, not because of any latent interest in the young man himself, but because he was Charles Sutherland's son, and the dear, if unworthy, centre of all that noble man's hopes, aims, and happiness. ”

“ We come to another Sutherland event, historically of the first importance to us, in 1154.32 "Jarl Ragnvald was then up the country in Sutherland, and sat there at a wedding at which he gave his only daughter and child Ingirid or Ingigerd, to Eric Stagbrellir," who, [pg 69] as we have seen, as Audhild's son, had been brought up in Kildonan. "News came to him at once that Earl Harold was come into Thurso. Jarl Ragnvald, rode down with a great company to Thurso from the bridal.33 Eric was Harold's kinsman and tried to reconcile the earls." ”

“ With profound and melancholy interest Mark Sutherland watched this girl. She had been a pretty child, and now had ripened into a most beautiful woman. A slight and elegant form, well rounded and tapering, pliant and graceful as a willow, oval face of the purest olive, warming into pomegranate bloom upon the cheeks and lips; large, dark-grey, passionate eyes, fringed with long black lashes, “sweet low brow,” shaded with soft, black, silky ringlets, a countenance full of slumbrous passion and emotion, with little strength of spirit or of intellect. ”

“ She admired and honoured Mark Sutherland above all men—nay, there were times when she feared him above all things. And she loved him as those of her clime only love. And with all her faults, this spoiled child of fortune was too true a woman to wish to take 120the position and tone of a dictator to the man she so loved. Nay, she felt indignant with all concerned in thrusting upon her such inevitable, yet such repulsive, “greatness.” And now she sat trying to compose her nerves and collect her thoughts for the unavoidable interview to which she momentarily expected to be summoned. ”

“ Sutherland, despite his scanty nether costume, appears to be in excellent health and spirits. He has thriven so well in the world that, in accordance with a tolerably correct estimate of the Caledonian national character, his relations at home begin to pay court to him, and to send him presents. One indulges him with the hero of the piece: the small, ugly, irate, snuffy quadruped before mentioned. The banker takes it with a good-humored "Pish!" little dreaming of the important part the little wretch is destined to play. ”

“ The Earl of Sutherland, having arrived in Sutherland while the Earl of Caithness was thus employed, immediately assembled some of his countrymen, and, along with his brother Sir Alexander, went to the marches between Sutherland and Caithness, near the height of Strathully, where they waited the approach of the Earl of Caithness. Here they were joined by Mackay, who had given notice of the Earl of Caithness’s movements to the lairds of Foulis, Balnagown, and Assynt, the sheriff of Cromarty, and the tutor of Kintail, all of whom prepared themselves to assist the Earl of Sutherland. ”

“ Mackay says of Sutherland: 'He is a very honest man, a great asserter of the liberties of the people; hath a good rough sense, is open and free, a great lover of his bottle and of his friend; brave in his person, which he hath shown in several duels; too familiar for his quality, and often keeps company below it; is a fat, fair-complexioned man, forty-five years old' (Memoirs, p. 201) . He died in London on 27 June 1733.
Sutherland was thrice married: First, to Helen, second daughter of William, lord Cochrane, son of William, first earl of Dundonald. ”

“ This sorely tried and tempted man had made no professions, had used no cant, but he nevertheless possessed a large portion of natural conscientiousness, and he had a frank, light-hearted manner of doing right, bordering on levity and nonchalance—a manner tending to mislead superficial observers into making too shallow an estimate of the depth and earnestness of his convictions and principles.
All his family, from the cold-hearted, clear-headed Clement Sutherland, down to the ardent and impulsive India, had miscalculated the strength of his character and the firmness of his purpose. ”

“ Next to Caithness, Southward on the East coast, is the Earl of Sutherland’s country, Chief of the name of Sutherland. His Lordship’s affection to our Constitution in Church and State is well known; [257] he can raise ’twixt 1200 and 1500 men; his Estate is reckoned about £3000 scots but somewhat under burden. ”

“ Sutherland had consented, with feelings partly of amusement and partly of annoyance, to sit for his portrait, to adorn some lyceum or lecture room. And the painting had been finished and hung up, and had attracted crowds of his friends and admirers—for a few days—and then had been left “alone in its glory.”
One morning, at an hour so early that it was highly improbable he should find any other visitors there, Mr. Sutherland went to the lyceum to procure a rare volume on jurisprudence. The librarian was in his stall, but otherwise the room seemed deserted. ”

“ Lord Ronald Charles Leveson-Gower, late M.P. for Sutherland; Lady Elizabeth Georgiana, married, in 1844, to the present Duke of Argyll, and is mother of the Marquis of Lorne; Lady Evelyn, married to Lord Blantyre; Lady Caroline, married to the Duke of Leinster; and Lady Constance Gertrude, married to the present Duke of Westminster. His Grace the Duke of Sutherland died in 1861, aged seventy-four, and was buried in the Mausoleum at Trentham. He was a man of liberal, kindly, gentle, and benevolent disposition, and was beloved by people of every class ”

“ Examine him closely, Mr. Sutherland; he won't notice it."
"But what ails him? Why does he sit crouched against the table? Is he hurt too?"
"No; look at his eyes."
Mr. Sutherland stooped and pushed aside the long grey locks that half concealed the countenance of his aged friend.
"Why," he cried, startled, "they are closed! He isn't dead?"
"No, he is asleep."
"Asleep?"
"Yes. He was asleep when we came in and he is asleep yet. Some of the neighbours wanted to wake him, but I would not let them. His wits are not strong enough to bear a sudden shock."
"No, no, poor Philemon! ”

“ The principles advanced by him had taken such root in the minds of many that it seemed impossible for them to lay the doctrine aside. Among this class were the Marshalls, who, by the way, had increased their family by the addition of a son-in-law, their daughter Claire having, as was anticipated, changed her name from Marshall to Sutherland.
Herbert Sutherland was a rising young man of Westminster, well and favorably known to most of the people. ”

“ Meantime affairs in Sutherland and Caithness had been pursuing an orderly course for nearly forty years. William, eldest son of Hugo Freskyn, had succeeded his father in Sutherland before 1214, the year of Earl David's death, and had in or after 1237 become its first Earl, and three years afterwards, according to tradition, though probably this event happened later, with the aid of Richard of Moray, Bishop Gilbert's brother, a Norse landing at Unes or Little Ferry is said to have been repulsed in a battle at Embo, near Dornoch in Sutherland. ”